Dear Snow Day,

I know you have the best of intentions. You’re only here to protect our most valuable people — children and teachers. You swoop in, protect everyone’s lives and get zero praise. In fact, you catch quite a lot of crap for it. And I’m totally guilty.

Here’s why I think you’ll have to continue doing this completely thankless job for the rest of time: you make life oh so difficult. It is super hard to be a parent, even when things go perfectly according to plan. But you … you take the plans and throw them out the window. And before we know it, there we are, ragged with greasy hair, sitting by our windows, watching our plans fall from the sky in the form of white, wet, cold confetti.

There are marital debates over whose turn it is to juggle their work schedule to take care of the kids. There are NO GOOD alternate care options; everyone is closed or stuck inside. Our workloads pile up while we fetch snacks and rush to get the iPads charged up for a day of too-much-screen-time, free-range-pantry access and mommy's-trying-to-work hollers. We’re trying to do two full-time jobs at once, and we’re doing neither justice.

I think we hear your name and automatically picture a cozy pajama day inside, snuggled up watching movies or even a fun sledding adventure before warm baths and cups of hot cocoa. This is probably where we get ourselves in trouble … unrealistic expectations are a foolproof path to failure. If parents spend the whole day with their kids, soaking it all up, they’ll spend the rest of the week making up for it. If parents get all of their stuff done, they’ll spend the rest of the week regretting not enjoying that “pretty snow.”

Snow day, you should be listed in the thesaurus under catch 22, conundrum, predicament and dammit. You are all of those things and more. Thanks for keeping us safe. Sorry for my really poor attitude toward you. I don’t see a way we can work through this in the foreseeable future, but if you come up with an idea I’m all ears.

Love,

Parents

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Originally published on the author's blog, Please Bring Coffee, where she shares humble ramblings about surviving parenthood on laughter and luke-warm coffee.

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