The school holidays are showing #SliceofGasant columnist Gasant Abarder flames and has his wallet opening more times than he’d like.
Imagine splurging for a trip to the movies only to hear on the way home, ‘Mom, Dad, we’re bored!’
Our kids generally occupy themselves during the school holidays but not without leaving a messy trail behind. The mess we come home to just an hour or so after the domestic worker has left the house spotless after meticulously cleaning every inch of our home twice a week is enough to send you back to work.
It’s just one of the realities parents everywhere must get used to during these testing times on both our budgets and our patience.
Back when I was in school, the street outside in Mitchells Plain and then later Woodstock was our playground. Because the Euros are on now, we would have probably organised a football tournament of our own. If it’s Wimbledon season, we’d be playing tennis in the street, and arguments ensued about how high or low the invisible net was. Or we’d be playing our own version of the T20 Cricket World Cup.
We would take a red brick and carefully draw the lines of the tennis court, soccer field or cricket pitch on the tar. If there was no big sporting event to emulate, we’d play kennetjie, nikkies or king, king tomato ring.
These days, no one in our suburb dares let their kids outdoors to play in the street because times have changed. Both parents work so the kids are left with a minder or the grandparents with strict instructions to watch them like hawks. Devices that had limited time when school was in session are now also childminders.
So, as a family, we decided to treat the kids to a movie on Saturday. Four tickets cost R625. After the popcorn, drinks and other treats, the bill in total came to more than R1 000. Then supper in the food court was another R600.
Yikes, when does school resume? But in all fairness, the kids came home with great report cards, so we wanted to show them a good time.
The budget is taking a pounding and the kids are already asking about Art Jamming, Adventure Park, Total Ninja, Clay Café and a host of other school holiday favourites.
There are, of course, loads you can do for free, like the Green Point Urban Park or the Battery Park at the V&A Waterfront. But soon the inevitable dreaded, ‘Mom, Dad, we’re bored,’ will be uttered and they’d asked to go to one of these premium attractions that cost a small fortune.
This is despite them having all the comforts at home like unlimited Wi-Fi, Disney Plus, Netflix, PlayStations, X-Box and Nintendo Switch.
How I wish I could be home with them to take them to the nearby field for a kickabout, a run around with the dogs or just to teach them one of the many games we played as kids with very little but our imaginations.
What always amazes me when I think back is how certain songs we all sang and games we all played travelled from one suburb to the next without social media. It’s like the trends our kids now keep up with on TikTok or Instagram but never have to leave home to learn.
I remember sleepovers at my gran’s place with all the cousins in those days that stretched out and seemed to go on forever. If it was a rainy day, we’d entertain ourselves with a movie rented from the video store that we’d club together to get and pray that it wasn’t an awful copy. Snacks were homemade popcorn and Oros.
The worst part to endure about the school holidays, though, is not the budget getting busted but how the kids somehow get out of bed before the sun is up. But when school is in full swing, it takes a tow truck to get them out of bed! Please make this make sense!
Parents, we’re in this together. Luckily, mine are creative. The older sibling is into her books and sketches. My middle daughter has already kicked a crack into the Nutec driveway gate’s cladding with a soccer ball and the youngest fashions castles of her imagination out of chairs and blankets and leaves behind a right old mess!
I feel for our domestic worker. Scratch that! I feel for Mom and Dad, who must clean the mess the youngest school holiday-er leaves behind.
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Picture: Allen Taylor / Unsplash