So it’s our first ever school holiday, at the end of the twinnage’s first ever term of school, and the boys and I are embracing the gentle art of pottering. Unscheduled, routine-free time suits us far too well, and it’s entirely possible that I’ll forget to send them back to school next week. The only downside is that I can’t go running, because the Stoic Spouse is at work and the boys are with me whenever I’m not at work.
But anyway.
Tempting though it is to stay home and crochet whilst reading them stories all day, I figured that we probably ought to Do Something. When did the children Doing Something become such a thing? I’d have rolled my eyes right out of the top of my head if my parents had tried to fill my school holidays with organized and worthy activities. I was far too busy damming the hideously polluted stream at the bottom of the garden, playing in the street with friends, drawing graphs of the changing temperature of our pond at different times and depths (I kid you not), visiting my friend who was skilled in taxidermy by the age of ten, and writing stuff. But then, I’m a maladjusted, curmudgeonly old bint, so what do I know?
Seriously, though, friends keep asking, ‘What are you doing this holiday?’ and I can only mumble ‘Well the laundry pile could use some attention,’ and, ‘There’s a fair-to-middling chance that lunch will be cooked eventually.’ At which point I feel like a rubbish parent for not having scheduled Latin crammers and lessons in ashtanga yoga, let alone an educational trip to Venezuela. Sorry kids, but I’m not that sort of parent.
So instead, we’ve been pottering. And yes, I’ve been knitting and crocheting whilst we do so. Pottering involves mostly time at home with play and books, but also some time on the allotment under the wise guidance of my allotment-mate, who helped us plant onions and broad beans this week:-
Also, plenty of cooking. The Stoic Spouse cooked partridges (yum!) so I boiled up the bare carcases with leek, carrot, onion, garlic, mushrooms, coriander seeds, mustard seeds and peppercorns to make stock. The boys were fascinated by this strange form of cooking in which you throw all the solid stuff away at the end:-
Also, there’s been the feeding of chickens at our local farm shop:-
Oh, and spurred on by allotment activities, we finally got round to digging up the potatoes at home. Digging up potatoes is like unearthing buried treasure to small children. These were the potatoes left to languish below-ground far too long after my IVF-induced apathy this summer, that I guiltily assumed had probably rotted, but surprisingly they came up just fine. Look! That’s dinner sorted…
Even better, we discovered that our straggly, untended raspberry plants didn’t get the memo about it being too late in the year for fruiting:-
So in all, nobody has improved their Latin. Nobody has been to Venezuela. A great deal of time has been spent at home. Mummy has been knitting. But you know what? Maybe that’s all OK. Yeah?
Most definitely! ?
Thank you. 🙂
“maladjusted, curmudgeonly old bint” – LOL! I think you’re doing the right thing – today’s children are far too over-scheduled. Potter on!
Thank you. Seriously. I do worry…
That sounds like the perfect way to spend the school holidays. I used to spend mine reading or playing board games and I’ve turned out surprisingly well, considering.
Ahh, holidays spent reading. And reading. And reading. That brings back happy memories.
Ho ho ho what an entertaining read! ‘Curmudgeonly old bint’ indeed! Sounds like a pretty perfect break indeed, enjoy! x
Thank you. 🙂
I’m also a curmudgeonly old sod and I agree – way too much pushing and scheduling and expectations to ‘succeed’. Let ’em make mud pies, climb trees and and block the local streams. [Just don’t let anybody see that!] Most of today’s kids will have no stories to tell of their childhood adventures – but they will have hours of therapy to pay for.
Thank you. It’s reassuring to hear all this agreement. (But as the sons of a psychologist, my children will no doubt need YEARS of therapy to sort them out, anyway.)
Bint! I love that word. I think you’re giving your children the freedom they need. They’re scheduled enough in school. And I bet they play by themselves without much interference from you…Keep it up!
Thank you. SOMETIMES they play nicely and contentedly… and sometimes they don’t.
Unscheduled time rules! My boys lived for the sandbox, the park, the dirt and the stash of art supplies. Keep on keeping on. You rock.
Love the photos. Looks like a delightful time being had by all.
Thank you. (Sounds as though your boys had a joyful time.)
They did. And though my 15 year old loves tech, his favorite time this summer was volunteering as a camp counselor at Walden West. He spent weeks outdoors, and can’t wait to do it again this summer.
Absolutely! Who needs too much organization all the time? A break from school should be a break from always having to do something at a particular time – like raising your hand to go pee.
Ha ha, no I definitely don’t make my boys raise their hand if they need the loo! But yes, routine and organisation are overrated.
Organized time is over rated. I like spontaneity and poodling around, letting your interests take you where they may.
I couldn’t agree more. And it’s very reassuring to read all these comments from like – minded people.
I am totally stealing “pottering” as my new goto phrase for a day with no plans. I love that word!
You’re welcome to it! Happy pottering. 🙂
You make a rod for your own back if you organise every minute of every day. Children need time for themselves, and to be bored (yes!) so they can develop their own creativity. (Okay I’ll take the teacher-hat off now!)
That makes so much sense, intuitively. Good to hear it said by a teacher, ie someone who knows what they’re talking about. Anyway, I don’t have the ENERGY to organise every moment of their days.
That is the whole point of holidays, relaxing, going with the flow, enjoying freedom and creativity. I have spent almost my whole life in school (pupil, student, teacher) so I still take the school holidays as the freedom time even if I have officially less freedom as I have to look after the children 24 hours a day. But I love this feeling of “lets see what the day brings”… and funnily enough I get so much more sewing work done with them in the house. Much nicer atmosphere. So enjoy those next few days 🙂 … and the weather forecast for Venezuela is actually really bad at the moment. Far too hot and rainy!
Thank you for such a lovely comment. And yes, yes, yes to the simple pleasure of waking up and seeing what the day brings.
Looks like “pottering” made a great something. I wish I’d have known this word in fifth grade. Allow me to explain, I had a school break for the winter holiday, back when they could still call it Christmas break, (and if you didn’t celebrate Christmas, you got two weeks off anyways). In January, we returned to school and were assigned an essay on our Christmas break events. I had nothing. I’d fought with my brothers, and watched tv I couldn’t remember. I may have read a good book or two, but nothing worth writing about. I must have gotten The Secret Garden earlier or later. So, what did I write about? Certainly not pottering. I didn’t have a word or understanding of the beauty of doing nothing. Instead, I wrote a fully detailed account of how my little brother and I snuck down the stairs at “WAY TO DAMNED EARLY IN THE MORNING” for Santa to have come…(these would have been my dad’s worse on two hours of sleep, if we were lucky. I put to pen an paper how we snuck a peak at ALL of our gifts because I “Have a knack for putting things back just the way they were,” said my younger brother who made me his accomplice. I sat on my hands biting my nails for weeks waiting for that essay to return. It was one of the deciding factors of my teacher keeping it until parent-teacher meetings to discuss report cards a few weeks later….Ugh!
Tee hee, I love this tale! I hope you weren’t in too much trouble? And I stand respectfully in admiration of your present – peeking skills.
Pottering is an art and one much needed after a busy term (them and us).i see it as my ‘deep breath’ time to enjoy having the freedom to do whatever we want until the madness starts again next week! Love half term!
Pity it’s nearly over. See you next week. 🙂
Great that you stood outside the now ‘norm’ of filling up children’s time with scheduled activities! now that my kids are grown, they are grateful that during their own school time off…..we played. We floated sticks down the stream, we built things, we cooked, we read, we made forts……all important things for growing. We learned to be o.k. with silence and stillness and even boredom. This free time is so crucial for critical thinking……don’t we all still need time to ‘just be’. Good for you, good for your family!
Thank you. They do definitely appreciate time to just stand and stare and think.
As a child who was raised without being scheduled every minute of every day – thank you.
I saw kids around me who were like that and it’s like they never had room to breathe or relax. Granted, this was the 90s and early 00s, but the point stands.
Scheduling children to within an inch of their lives does them no good, and while the toodler twinnage might not thank you now for that unstructured time, in 20 years or so they’ll be very grateful that you just let them be themselves.
I can’t help agreeing about the unstructured time and its benefits. Hopefully they’ll grow up without the tendency to say “I’m bored” whenever we’re not doing much. Hopefully… And like you, I grew up without my free time being structured, although it’s arguably made me a bit rubbish at routines!
While I did have plenty of unstructured time, I also had a routine. These days it’s my ADD (officially diagnosed not self diagnosed) that is the issue, though since I take medication it’s usually not that bad.
Growing up, I got up at the same time and went to bed at the same time. I knew my homework had to be done by the time my mum got home from work (no matter what else I got up to), I even had to help cook dinner once I got older.
It’s not that I didn’t do activities, I had girl scouts, and religious school, but I didn’t play spots. I was in after school clubs as I got older as well. But I wasn’t scheduled to within an inch of my life and I genuinely like and enjoy having downtime these days where there’s no requirements for me to be anywhere or do anything and I can just do whatever I want (within reason of course) or even nothing at all for an afternoon.
You went to the farm shop and fed chickens, that counts as something in my book. I turned all sorts of pottering into doing something…. Trip to the library, definitely gardening, baking, bike ride, all pottering something
Yup, although yours sounds a little more impressive and active than anything we achieved.
It’s all okay 🙂 Venezuela is going through a lot right now but it’s a beautiful country 🙂 p.s ivf is what I’m thinking ?? 🙂 I hope you feel better…
Venezuela does sound fascinating, if troubled. It sounds as though youve been or you live there? But it would possibly be wasted on my boys, who would just want to find a building site to stare at the diggers. And yes, IVF as in fertility shenanigans. It didn’t work and it was our last go, but at least we have our boys. 🙂
Absolutely! There’s so much pressure to ‘do something’. Spending lovely times together is so much more important.
Glad I’m not the only one. It’s been very reassuring reading all these comments here.
Totally agree. As a result of my Mum firmly believing in leaving us to potter (which usually meant things like planting things, doing crafty type things with bits of paper, string, buttons, thread, wool, then bestowing these ‘gifts’ upon relatives who had developed the art of assuming a grateful face, or simply fighting with my sister), I have no problem now enjoying and filling every moment of free time I get and never being bored.
I so agree that children need time to just mooch about and develop their own interests and imaginations. Glad you had that chance when you were growing up too.
Trouble is I still fight with my sister, who spends her time constantly trying to improve me. She’s not a knitter or anything remotely yarny.
I feel it pertinent to add “Moistened bint” due to your obvious desire to immerse yourself in watery substances as a child, in the best Pythonesque traditions of course. Yeah, “NO!” to dragging kids off to ape the neighbours kids (parents) who are aping their school chums (parents) in the desire to elevate themselves up the societal ladder. Grab a collective of kids who haven’t yet hit that age where mobile phones take over their brains and let THEM decide what they are going to do for the day and it gets pretty down and dirty from that point on. Every single one of them will arrive home contented, filthy, reeking of “something” not quite discernible but that will invade the clothes that they are wearing for weeks now matter HOW much you wash them and happy as clams and they will sleep the sleep of the dead. Parents take heed. Children are children no matter what year, decade, century it is. Its only we parents that direct the flow because too many of us have forgotten what it is actually like to be a kid. You dun good Ms Twisted. You dun very good. 5 gold stars to you ma’am :).
Why thank you, kind madam. You may be required to speak sternly to my sprogs later on life when they moan that everyone else’s parents took their kids to do cool stuff. But I do agree with you.
They will be numero uno by that stage as “everyone elses kids” will be myopic creatures unable to life their heads with some serious RSI from texting with their AMAZING phones that mum and dad keep upgrading to the latest kind because their kids absolutely POSITIVELY have to have the newest phone. Doing things in the holidays? How last century!
I love days out but mainly because they are interspersed with lots of pottering about at home.
Yup, I hear you, sister. 🙂
Glad it’s not just me 😉
Nope. Most definitely not just you. From the comments here, it seems that there are quite a few of us.
Oh man. I’m in your boat. I don’t want to always be “doing something” with my kids. We have way more fun just puttering about and I’m so much calmer as we aren’t running all over the place or in the car all the time!! I love that there are others out there who think the same 🙂
Yep it’s definitely ok. I feel great pressure to do stuff too – a lot of it comes from the boys themselves as apparently all their friends are jetting off to New York, EuroDisney and Outer Mongolia and they are deprived. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pootling, it’s good for their imaginations- I spent most of the summer doing that!
totally agree! we never did anything structured over our holidays when I was little and (I’m fairly certain) i’ve turned out fine! 🙂 sounds like a lovely half term to me! jenny xx
So I know I’m a bit late to this party but nonetheless high-five! I stay at home with my two and I figure the early years are just about living, imaginative play, experiencing the hum-drum of life (which is exciting to them), playing in the garden etc. In a ideal world my kids would go to a Steiner school; go figure .