Turning the page from summer to school 

Sinead O’Moore experienced an emotional rollercoaster during the holidays, from feeling overstretched by her children’s constant demands to feeling nostalgic about how quickly they seem to be growing up. Now, as the schools are about to reopen, she is preparing to reclaim her life again

More than one in four parents are going into debt to cover back-to-school expenses. That’s not a budgeting failure. That’s a system leaning hard on families. Picture: iStock 

We've arrived at the ‘Sunday night’ of summer. And while ‘back to school’ brings a readiness to our household for the return of structure and routine, a bedtime before 11pm, actual meals at set times of the day (unlike the eight weeks of picky bits we’ve just munched through), I am a little sad to say goodbye.

Early July, I was nervous about what the next eight weeks had in store.

By the end of July, I was absolutely done with parenthood. Temper rattled, touched out, researching boarding schools.

But by mid-August, I’m full of nostalgia — Abba’s Slipping Through My Fingers the soundtrack to my heavy heart. I’ll never summer with my little nine- and five-year-olds again. Next year, they’ll have grown. Changed. Stretched.

Yes, the whole ‘you only get 18 summers’ is emotional blackmail. That said, I genuinely feel like I’m out of the trenches and can visibly see the years fly by.

Because you see, with the end of each summer, we have to say goodbye to a little piece of their childhood and the memories we made. Or didn’t make. Or regretted making. Or wished we had made.

While I am thoroughly ready to reclaim my life, as a parent, I can admit I also grieve the end of summer.

But just like most things in parenthood, we often have to park the emotions and get on with the day job, the coordination, lists, organisation, and prep, all the while knowing we are a cocktail of relief, disappointment, anxiety, financial depletion, and personal liberation at the thoughts of ‘back to school’.

But I’ll admit, I have it much easier now than my own mother did.

I remember her sitting at the kitchen table with the book lists stacked and scribbled on. A distinct fury and overwhelm hung in the air as she spent days wrapping our books in a sticky transparent cellophane hell that would bubble and peel.

No online shopping in the ’90s, no free schoolbook schemes either. I can still see the queue of mothers lining the path outside the local book shop on collection day, a job as vital as collecting the Christmas turkey.

And the uniforms when I was a child? Shame had no place when it was time for these to be tried on. You and every child in the neighbourhood had to stand still as your mother pulled a pinafore up your waist, in front of stern ladies with measuring tapes around their necks, all agreeing: “You’ll grow into it.”

Financial pressures

September still comes at a cost. I’m a primary school parent, so I don’t get book lists, I don’t wrap books — I don’t even need to supply copy books or a pencil case for my youngest. The uniform is a tracksuit most days, the lunches are now provided for free. My prep is largely done. But this isn’t true for post-primary school kids whose parents’ experiences are still much like my mother’s.

And there are, of course, the costs that every household knows. The financial pressure exists for many families.

The Irish League of Credit Unions’ 2026 back-to-school report puts real numbers on what most of us have been feeling and seeing in our accounts.

Primary school parents are looking at roughly €1,607 per child across the school year, once you add upfront costs to the monthly costs that follow, like the odd trip, fundraising, and replacing lost items.

Sinead O'Moore: 'Summer is a bubble. The heatwaves of 2026 made it a long, hot one. And the end of August will always burst this bubble, bringing reality back. Real life is calling us, one blank copybook page at a time.'

For secondary school, that figure climbs steeply to around €2,142 for each child. Nearly half of parents surveyed said costs feel higher again this year, with uniforms at the top of the list. 

Also, more than one in four parents are going into debt to cover back-to-school expenses, according to the report. That’s not a budgeting failure. That’s a system leaning hard on families.

Claire, a mother of three in Dublin, put it simply: “You do the maths in July, and you already know August is going to hurt. You just try to spread it out, one child’s runners this week, another’s tracksuit the next, so it doesn’t all land on the one week.”

Another parent, Killian, father to two boys in secondary school, said the bit that stings is the jump in unanticipated costs moving to secondary. “The iPads, the school blazer, and sports kits — it’s endless, despite it being a non-fee-paying school.”

Change in family dynamics

But if we only talk about the financial burden, we miss half the story. Because alongside the shopping receipts, there’s another thing happening — quieter, less visible: The emotional recalibration of the entire household.

My children have spent eight weeks running on a completely different rhythm. Later bedtimes, less structure, more of me, too much of me, in fact. Endless fun, camps, playdates, water fights, screens, and sugar. 

And now, in the space of about a fortnight, they’re expected to slot back into early starts, homework, student dynamics, a new teacher, a new class and, for some families, a whole new school. And this level of disruption still needs you, the parent, to steady the ship.

Why does ‘back to school’ hit so hard? Child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune understands the change in family dynamics that can happen as we navigate this seasonal transition: “Summer comes with a lot of pressures, from childcare to the pressure to provide our children with the idea of a ‘great summer’. Now that summer is ending, it can feel like pulling away. But don’t let ‘back to school’ hijack what is left of summer. Make your lists and gradually reintroduce structure into your day so everyone feels ready for the routine.

“Beyond the school uniforms, books, shoes, and bits, I find it can be really helpful to sit as a family and talk through the weeks ahead. We get our wall charts back out and plot the school drop-offs and pick-ups. We try to ready our children for the new rhythm of their week, ‘Tuesday is dance, Wednesday is after-school.’”

Fortune’s advice brings it back to basics for me. Transitions, by their nature, are hard, and nobody likes change, especially when summer as a season can be filled with such optimism and hope. But summer is a bubble. The heatwaves of 2026 made it a long, hot one. And the end of August will always burst this bubble, bringing reality back. Real life is calling us, one blank copybook page at a time.

So I’ll write my lists, tick them off for a quick hit of dopamine, and prepare to step into September like it’s a January reset for me, when I can get my life back on track.

The Summer Mother version of me gave it her all and had a blast with her favourite tiny humans but I can feel my professional side calling me.

I’m ready to finish a thought without interruption. I’m ready to leave the house without wrestling suncream all over two alligators. I’m ready to wave them goodbye at those gates and sigh in deep relief that somehow I made it through another season of summer parenting.

• Sinéad O’Moore is the host of the Stretch Marks podcast