What Kind of Summer Mom Are You?

From Trash 90s Summer to Fun Mom Summer and everything in between

It’s summertime, which means it’s the season where we take all of society’s expectations around motherhood and bring them outdoors.

The ever-clever

Erin H Moon

recently presented her concept of “Trash 90s Summer.” Here’s how she describes it: “Trash 90s Summer is unbathed. Trash 90s Summer is good with watching six hours of the Flintstones. . . . Trash 90s Summer is eating whatever you can find in the pantry. Trash 90s Summer is putting on your still-wet swimsuit from the day before . . . Trash 90s Summer is a STATE OF MIND, okay?” I mean the caveat is that Moon says all this is going to happen in the period “until they start camp.” I think we can all agree that, even though we probably lived through several Trash 90s Summers as children (I know I did!), as a parent it might not feel that great to do for 10 weeks straight (personally, unstructured days with my spirited child are a nightmare, which is why she’ll be at day camp for the vast majority of her break). Still, I’ve seen plenty of moms in my internet circles jumping on Erin’s bandwagon and posting about their own Trash 90s Summers, which usually just involves kids watching endless TV or running through the sprinklers in their undies (again, see: my own childhood).

Then I noticed a different idea presented by another faction of moms on the internet: The Fun Mom Summer. When I read that I rolled my eyes, hard. I am not and never will be a Fun Mom and tbh I resent the expectation that I should be! But then I kept reading and realized that the angle was, “It’s your summer, too, why should the kids have all the fun?” And I can get behind that. As I’ve looked toward our own summer season I started to realize that I was most excited about all the fun Zadie was going to have, between Girl Scout camp and pool days and family trips. But what would I be doing for fun? Still, I quickly dismissed Fun Mom Summer as my approach to the season. Even though I dedicated 2022 to “Saying Yes to Fun,” it is still a real challenge for me.

My friend Kim (

Walk and Talk

) sent out a newsletter with a lovely meditation on the “theology of summer,” giving an almost sacramental take on the season, and she linked to

Meredith Miller

’s newsletter about making spiritual sense of summer and using it to teach your kids about God. I am not really living on that kind of spiritual plane at the moment, but one thing that caught my eye in both of their posts was the idea of summer as a time of sensory pleasures and abundance.

This is the frame I want for my summer, the one that feels the most organic for me. I, too, have always associated summer with pleasure: the pleasure of sun on skin, toes in sand, bodies buoyant in water. I mean, just the food alone: juicy watermelon, gooey s’mores, fresh grilled corn, and icy water on a hot day. The pleasure of slowness, of staying put at the pool for hours. Outdoor concerts; warm nights where you don’t need a sweater; bare feet; the tinkling music of the ice cream truck; and (unpopular opinion alert!) shorts every day.

It’s hard for me to give into pleasure, though, especially as I’ve gotten older, become a mother, and taken on more and more responsibilities, not to mention this hypervigilance that seems to come with the territory of motherhood for me. From saying no to a beach trip because it would mess with a nap schedule when I was a new mom, to this year spending so much time arranging Zadie’s summer fun activities that I forgot to plan my own, I can certainly be my own worst enemy when it comes to embracing the pleasures of summer.

So what kind of summer mom am I going to be? Well, Pleasure Mom Summer definitely won’t do, lol. Maybe Simple Pleasures Summer: focusing on those little sensory moments that set the season apart, from the abundance of fresh fruit on the kitchen counter to the feeling of a sun-warmed towel after swimming. I want to go to the beach, drink aperol spritzes, make new neighborhood friends at the pool, and go to at least one of those hokey outdoor concerts hosted by the city. The comments on this Cup of Jo post, A Very Low Key Summer Checklist, is full of ideas for simple pleasures. What’s your favorite simple pleasure of summer?

Articles

“Is Going ‘Camel Mode’ Inevitable for Parents?” by Kathryn Jezer-Morton - I deeply related to this article about the “metaphysical desert” one must cross as a parent, denying (or being asleep to) your own needs for the season of early parenthood.

Books

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo - This is a middle grade book. Wow I loved it. So beautifully written and profound, but also funny. I saw it compared in one review to the film Little Miss Sunshine and I think that tracks. Can’t wait to read the other two in this trilogy.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld - I read this for my Cup of Jo book club and while the first third had entirely too much tedious detail about the inner workings of SNL for my taste, I really enjoyed the book overall. It’s a fun, light read without being vapid.

TV

It’s been an excellent couple of months for TV. We enjoyed the final seasons of Ted Lasso (duh) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but here are some other standouts:

Jury Duty (Prime) - Just finished this last night and loved it. There’s certainly some cringe moments (like The Office) but it was so different and funny and the ending had me in tears. It’s a very hopeful show.

Platonic (Apple+) - Robert and I are both loving this show! If I did use the term “girl crush” I would use it about Rose Byrne. I just love her/wish I was her? This show is so funny and relatable (as a mom). The episodes are still coming out but I have no doubt it will stay good till the end of the season. Also, Rose Byrne’s wardrobe in this show is A++ in my book.

Judy Blume Forever (Prime) - I am probably the biggest Judy Blume fan you know, so I wasn’t surprised to be smiling from ear to ear throughout this entire documentary (and tearing up a few times as well). A surprising takeaway was how inspired I felt by Judy’s active lifestyle as an octogenarian!

Podcasts

“What Makes a Life Worth Living?” Book Club series on Kelly Corrigan Wonders - I’ve listened to the first two episodes and really enjoyed them. The middle three episodes will be Kelly’s “book club” with Claire Danes and Kate Bowler (what a wonderfully weird combination) and their first conversation was a delight.

The Pleasure Palate - This is a brand new podcast with only two episodes so far but I’m digging it. It’s about mothers and daughters, diet culture, grief, food, and more. It also made me think a lot about my own relationship with pleasure and abundance, hence my essay above! Warning: the host’s narration style really, really bugs me. But the storytelling and interviews are good so I’ve found it worth it to push through (also I kind of have misophonia so maybe I’m just extra sensitive).

Recipe

Instead of a product, I’m sharing a recipe. We had way too much zucchini the other day so I whipped up Smitten Kitchen’s “Ultimate Zucchini Bread” and Zadie and Robert went crazy for it. Once the first loaf was gone, I almost immediately made another. It only takes one bowl, doesn’t have too much sugar, and it’s chock-full of zucchini.

Wrapping Up

Today is Zadie’s last day of school and soon we’ll head to a hotel in the desert for a couple days to celebrate the start of summer. It’s been unseasonably cold here this spring so I’m looking forward to the heat (and honestly, the lazy river at the hotel!). What approach are you taking to summer? What are you up to these days, what are you loving? Let me know––I love hearing from you!

All Good Things,

Joy