Bring Back Big Families

Summer 2025, you’ve pulled a fast one. One day I’m lounging with my six kids, basking in the glory of no lesson plans, and now it’s practically gone. As an English teacher, I get two precious months off to soak up family time, but this first summer as a family of eight? It’s slipped through my fingers like a poorly timed iambic pentameter.

I had big plans: epic trips, museum visits, novels to read, maybe teaching the kids to write haikus about summer and, I don’t know, fireflies. Instead, we stayed in the backyard swimming pool as much as we could (after replacing last year’s pool that somehow had holes that were undetectable) and debates over which stories were fact and which were fiction on old episodes of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. I’m kicking myself for not doing more, because now the school year’s creeping up on us like a pop quiz I didn’t prep for. Trading my home chaos for essay writing in my classroom feels like swapping a beach read for a stack of ungraded essays. I’ll miss their laughter, their squabbles over board games, the way my youngest insists on helping with dishes (read: making a quick job last twice as long).

So, we’re cramming these final days with fun, from last-minute beach trips, free ticket nights at the local ballpark, and a baptism for our newest edition on her second month birthday. It’s our grand finale, a whirlwind of memories to hold me over when I’m back to Shakespeare and sentence diagrams and sleeping students during lectures. Guess I can’t blame the students. While they sleep, I’ll be daydreaming about my kids’ goofy grins.

Maybe I didn’t get to the museums or the haikus or the far away destinations, but this summer taught me that the best moments often hide in the mess of kids splashing in the pool, arguing over board games, or just laughing together in the backyard. Those are the memories that’ll linger, no lesson plan required.

Here’s to summer 2025: too brief, too sweet, but ours. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with the pool and six kids who think making whirlpools there is an Olympic sport.