My mom was a teacher so she had summers off with us.

We did a vacation or two (usually to the beach) and had fun with our mom. Lots of parks, sleepovers at friends and weeks with both sets of grandparents.

I really feel bad for kids who spend all summer at daycare.

I had a SAHM mostly. My brother and I would ride bikes, swim, or watch tv. Once or twice we went to the beach to stay usually with other family members. When I was a teenager I had to watch my cousins (baby/toddlers) all summer.

I don’t feel like my kids are missing out. Their summer care may be more structured but they do stuff—go bowling, go to arcades, etc. Then my kids come home around 1-2 and swim in the afternoon, and attend a karate class a few nights per week. We also go on 1-2 vacation/staycation during the summer. My twins will be 10 in a couple of years and have said at that point they are too old for childcare. No biggie, I work from home. But they won’t have to sit home all the time, my husband is off 3-4 days during the week due to his profession. They can go have lunch with him, or he can run them to the library, hang out with their neighbor friends, or attend week long camps once per month.

Anonymous wrote:I can't really recall doing much besides watching TV, playing with sibs, and playing outside with nextdoor neighbors and cousins. My family couldn't really afford camps with 3 kids, so we never did camps (I also don't know if there were camps in our area, other than a DPR-type city camp).

Both my parents worked full-time, but had flexible schedules; I also had an older sib who would watch us younger ones.

If it's not apparent, I didn't find my childhood summers to be super enriching. Maybe a week to visit family in a northern city, and a week of time-share, but other than that it was sitting around.

PP. We work 9-5, and so our kid is enrolled in camps. We try to find camps that are fun and enriching (sports, arts, language, etc.), and several weeks are with neighborhood friends. Kid is now 8 and so far hasn't played outside much, but we're hoping to encourage that more this summer, to the extent possible.

I can't really recall doing much besides watching TV, playing with sibs, and playing outside with nextdoor neighbors and cousins. My family couldn't really afford camps with 3 kids, so we never did camps (I also don't know if there were camps in our area, other than a DPR-type city camp).

Both my parents worked full-time, but had flexible schedules; I also had an older sib who would watch us younger ones.

I distinctly remember having to do at least one hour of chores/labor each day - lawn mowing, pool vacuuming, shed painting, weed pulling, etc. Otherwise, we did lots of swimming. My mom was a teacher, so home with us in the summer. We went to a lot of baseball games. We were mostly outside because we didn't have AC.

We lived in a little town by a lake and in summer it was kid heaven. You could walk or ride your bike everywhere and there was just one little store and no traffic. From around ages 8-13 we'd play tennis, swim, sail, hang out and do nothing.

I also had a mom who was a teacher. My dad worked nights and weekends. Dad would take me to the beach in the morning and mom would take me in the afternoon. I did swimming lessons and day camp sometimes. When I turned 12, I started doing 3 weeks a summer of sleepaway camp. Once I was 16, I worked 40-48hrs a week in the summer when I wasn't at camp, and that was common as a townie in a tourist town.

I know I'm late to this post, but we had so much fun in the summer as kids! We had two working parents, but because of grandmas and friends with a SAHP or older siblings and free range childhood/summer was very possible. I did get to go a few camps in early child which were great, but we also played outside all the time, so many fun things to do, went to the pool. Sometimes got bored OD on too much tv, tried to watch horror movies without scaring ourselves silly! This is what we did through out our summers til about 16 yrs old! It was a blast!

Anonymous wrote:I lawyered for 5 years (long enough to pay back student loans) and quit and became a teacher. Lawyering was incompatible with being a mom. I do not want to be SAH like my mom was, but I want a 40-hour week and summers off so I can offer my kids the same kind of long boring lazy summers I had.

I did the same but waited 10 years. And it was 10 years too long. I used to leave my office at lunchtime to write poetry in the park. I left my Bay Area firm, got a masters in English Education in about a year (my undergrad was in English so I had all the prerequisites) and became a High School English teacher. I had (2) kids, and I wanted and needed the flexibility of working 7-3 with summers off to be the kind of mom I wanted to be. And I continued to write great poetry

I lawyered for 5 years (long enough to pay back student loans) and quit and became a teacher. Lawyering was incompatible with being a mom. I do not want to be SAH like my mom was, but I want a 40-hour week and summers off so I can offer my kids the same kind of long boring lazy summers I had.

I'm another PP form up-thread with long unstructured summers and a SAH mom. I forgot about Vacation Bible School! We did not belong to any church but mom sent us to VBS for 2 weeks at the beginning of each summer. It was only like 9am-12noon or so and I loved it. I did not get into the religion stuff but we sang, did arts and crafts, had snacks, and put on a Jesus-play at the end of the 2 weeks. That was the most structured the summer ever got. We did take a one-week vacation in August and rented a house at the lake or a condo at the beach when Dad was able to get time off.

I try to keep things unstructured for my daughter, though I am a teacher (and single mom) and do work part-time in the summer. Thank goodness my AuPair loves unstructured summer days too.

Not sure that this matters but my mom was a school social worker and off for summers. Not sure you think that’s different than teacher tho.

Raised by a "single parent". I used quotes because we lived with my great grandmother and cousin (who was 8 yrs older than me) from ages 4-15. There was usually someone home, but no one that actually wanted to play with me, or even cared what I did so long as I stayed out of trouble and didn't make too much noise. I didn't have any tv rights, so binging on tv was out. After about 9 yrs old, there were few kids in my neighborhood. We were fortunate to have a pool, basketball court, and a few playgrounds. Those are great if you actually have someone to play with. No public transportation. We only had one car. There was nothing to do in the main part of town and really too far to bike safely. So, I stayed home and played a lot of video games, read, and listened to the radio in a non-air conditioned apartment. Yes, I pretty much hated summers growing up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with all the posters who had mothers who were either sahms or teachers?! Were there no other options back then?

Seriously! Are these posters all in their 50s and 60s?? I’m 35 and my mom was an attorney. I went to a day camp.

Im 33. My mom was a teacher (interestingly, my sister and I became teachers too). Why is it surprising that a lot of families had SAHP or educator parents?

Because one generation of SAHMs just isn’t enough mommy war fodder for some people.

People look down on teaching because it's considered a pink collar job. Basically, anything that lots of women do or have done is valued less by our culture, including teaching or staying home with your kids. The PP upthread is espousing the common misogynist misconception that only women without options would have a pink-collar occupation or choose to SAH.

My mom SAH until I was around 11. Dad worked full-time. We basically took off on our bikes in the morning, ate lunch at home or a friend's house (everyone traded off feeding all the kids), and came home when it got dark out. When we were a bit older we had to come in at the 9 o'clock whistle the fire department did every night. Lots of trips to the public pool and unlimited free time to watch TV, read, whatever. We did a one week vacation to a family beach house every August.

I feel very wistful when I think of what a structured summer experience my kids will have. It will be all camps and nannies.