Thinking Out LoudJust so we’re clear: the more books, and book weeks, the better. Reading is magic! But more commitments – costume-related and otherwise? Not so much.
Granted, I’ve been burnt. Last year, I made my then seven-year-old son a trident so he could get his Poseidon on. Toy crown sourced from the $2 shop. Using a hot glue gun, Dad made a beard from white cotton balls and a disposable facemask. But the whole get-up got discarded before school (“I didn’t know where I could leave it, mum,” he now tells me).
Oh well. Such kid logic is part of the parenting deal. But the call to craft costumes is basically the mouse that sank mum’s mental boatload.
Obviously, gender is a factor here. Right now, though, I’m more frustrated at the scarcity of time and yet the snowballing demands on us. Everyone feels it, right? Not just parents.
The housing crisis means it takes two incomes to service a mortgage, and maybe even make rent.
I know people who work overtime on weekends or have second jobs. Their employer (in the first case) or the cost of living (in the second) just demands it.
Meanwhile, inflation is eroding the value of my money. Who knew it took this much effort to keep running in place, and still be slipping behind.
All this before we include sickness, job insecurity, or relationship strife, including family violence that, headline-wise, seems a running theme of 2024.
It’s all a bit much. Plus, we know we’re really stuffed when it takes less effort to keep the wheels of our unsustainable weeks turning rather than devise a less frantic, more humane pace of living.
My tiny resistance for today: I’m calling Sabbath where Book Week costuming is concerned. Mums and dads, holster those glue guns.