Esther McCarthy: Say nothing... but 'stolen' family time is as valuable as any other

Esther McCarthy: accessory to illicit holiday-making. Picture: Emily Quinn

Come here ’til I tell you a secret, if you promise you’ll keep it on the downlow. 

I know I can trust you, dear reader, my aul' pal. There’s no judgment here, right? It’s a safe space.

For I am typing this, not from the rainy recesses of my beloved Cork, but in a beach bar on a Canary Island. 

And I feel I say this an alarmingly disproportionate amount in this column — but don’t tell Tusla on me, OK?

Sure, they’ll know anyway. Schools are obliged to inform the State when a child is absent more than 20 days of a school year. Which is right and proper. 

All children are entitled to a complete education. I know there are families out there struggling to achieve this. And so many are fighting for it.

But for us, we do try our best, sticking to the rules… most of the time, I promise. And I can’t fault the boys and their efforts with school and everything else they are juggling.

To be honest, since covid, I feel a teeny bit less guilty about bending the rules. 

Plus they’ve missed way more class time when the guidelines around waiting four days after symptoms and all that were in force than they will on this stolen week.

Not to mention all the time my boys (and others who weren’t subscribing to Catholicism being part of the classroom curriculum) spent separated in the corner drawing or doing busy work during all those accumulated hours allocated to religious instruction.

It’s just we’ve had a bit of a sad year, and it’s so hard to spend time altogether to just ... be. Which my gut is telling me is really important right now.

Working and school takes up a big chunk of time, evenings are gobbled up with various sports, classes, youth clubs, homework, friends, the dopey dog... some days, depending on the schedule, the five of us don’t all see each other all together at all. 

So we made a hasty decision to feck off together for one precious week.

We are awash with salty skin, coconut sunscreen and quality time. 

At home, we’d be rushing to drop-offs and pick-ups, shoving dinners into old Chinese containers to eat enroute to a match (First-world problems, I know). 

Here, we can stroll, and loll, and mess, and chat. We can play cards waiting for some lovely waitress to present us with grub, we can devise silly games and competitions to determine who gets to choose where we have lunch. We can do nothing, together.

But look, I’m not a complete kook, we brought the hurleys. And four sliotars. And the Cúl camp gear bags. Spot the Paddys, we shouted.

INTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

And education takes place outside school walls too, right? My kids are learning loads: (She says in a shrill guilt-ridden voice). Allow me to lay out my case, in five subjects.

Maths: 

The boys got a few bob from their lovely relations and are keeping tabs on what they’re spending, and how much they have left. 

No better motivator than personal pecuniary to sharpen your subtraction skills. 

They are using geometry to beat their dad at pool, and to determine the correct angle for flipping off the local pier without mangling themselves.

PE: 

Besides the obvious swimming, hurling, beach soccer, and walking we’ll be doing, the boys are swapping desk surfing for actual surfing this week.

We are hiring jet skis tomorrow and looking into hydrofoiling.

The 15-year-old is using the hotel gym, and I’m forcing the other two into doing a couple of downward dogs before they can whip out their tablets. 

My Fitbit must think it's been stolen by Sonia O’Sullivan, I’d normally struggle to hit the recommended 10k steps, but I’m doubling it here, and more.

E-commerce: 

Deciding on which fake Gucci wallet to buy starts off a debate on branding, marketing, merchandising, price points, and the ethics of impuLse purchases.

A badly-timed alert from the dog and cat sitter about multiple DHL boxes in my name landing makes the conversation descend into chaos and recriminations and shouts of “hyprocrite! as my ‘buy nothing new for myself’ ethos gets torn apart. 

Remind self to pay sitter extra to hide the deliveries, hopefully judgey family will have forgotten by next week.

Languages: 

We have a deal that when we’re on holidays, déanaimid iarracht mhór labhairt le chéile as Gaeilge. 

Husband and I are rusty, and our tenses are úafásach, but our conversational Irish comes back easily enough. 

The boys have gorgeous, fluid Irish, it’s a pleasure to listen to them… even when they’re bickering about whose turn it is to sleep on the sofa bed tonight. 

And of course we throw the holas and the por favors in when purchasing the fake Nike socks.

Drivers' ed: 

There’s Hoppy scooters scattered around the island, very handy for zipping around the place. 

Possibly not the most responsible parenting move to allow 15- and 12-year-olds to drive motorised vehicles, but they don’t go over 25km/h, and as Paul Mescal would say, when in Rome…