I was the mother of holiday invention … until my kids went feral and I went to yoga

As Kathryn Jezer-Morton wrote in The Cut – under the headline “Why are parents fixated on core memories”: “Presuming to know what experiences will be most formative for your children, and then taking the next step and boasting about that presumption to everyone you know, is a new level of buy-in to the charade of happy-family cosplay on social media.”

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But as it turns out, I need core memories of my children more than they need me to “curate” them, which almost always means putting my phone away. I set myself a challenge: a whole day with my kids, being utterly present. We walked to the park, and I watched them climbing, playing pirates, investigating slater bugs and tiny flowers. I realised that my kids’ ability to transform boredom into imaginative play is something I have utterly lost the capacity for when my phone, or even my job, is infinitely more stimulating.

I hit the fifth stage of school holiday acceptance: the upward swing.

Towards the end of the day, I caved in and put a movie on. Hey, I’m not Montessori Wonder Woman. My initial school holiday anger and depression had been transformed into acceptance and hope. My daughter climbed into my lap as we watched The Grinch, and I pulled her into my arms.

I’m sick of being busy: rushing around all year, seeing my kids as another item on my to-do list, between drop-offs, pick-ups, dinner, bath and bed. Like meditation, being present with small kids, no matter how chaotic, takes practice. I need it more than lying in an overpriced yoga studio. I need it all: the inevitable tears, the demands for snacks and the orders: “Watch me, Mummy, watch me!”

When the world feels wildly out of control, made worse by doom-scrolling, the best remedy is to be around those you love. If I lose the ability to be present with my children, when it’s infinitely easier to park them in front of a screen, I miss the opportunity to create my own core memories of their precious childhood, which is dripping away like a melting glacier, one day at a time. The days are long but the years are short. It’s time to go clean up some slime and reset the house for another day of beautiful chaos. Yoga is for wimps.

Cherie Gilmour is a freelance writer.

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