Ah September - talk about back with a bang. The weather has changed, schools are back, traffic clogs the roads, and I’ve got the riff of Don Henley’s Boys of Summer stuck in my head all week, pining for the beach and simpler times.
Our back-to-school lives are slightly more complicated this year. We used to rely on the afterschool club three afternoons a week. It was a lifesaver: both kids were safe, fed, and it gave us a few precious hours to finish work without feeling like meerkats on the African savanna, constantly scanning for danger.
Then we got The Email. You know the one: it arrives in your inbox with all the warmth of a final demand from Revenue. The fees are going up 30%. Do the maths and you’re looking at around €910 a month for three afternoons a week. That’s mortgage money for what amounts to supervised homework and a few unspectacular sandwiches.
And it’s fair to say that the afterschool service we were using has not been impressing us lately. A brilliant local woman used to run the service with military precision and a lot of heart, but she’s recently been replaced with a large faceless organisation who run afterschools all over Dublin like they’re managing battery hens. It was the opposite of the personal service we were used to: staff kept changing, the kids disliked the food, and we were paying through the nose for something that was far from perfect.
So we pulled the plug. Which means both myself and herself have to cut back on some work hours, or swap some afternoons for evening work, and we’re now running the household like an air traffic control tower during a thunderstorm. Between swimming, GAA, music, and whatever ‘mindfulness for under-tens’ actually involves (I’m still not entirely sure), our afternoons are mapped out with military precision.
Of course, we’re both busy with work and there are inevitable clashes in the calendar on the way. When that happens, we deploy the nuclear option: the grandparents. They parachute in armed with Kinder Buenos and infinite patience, like a crack squad of retired commandos who’ve seen it all before.
Ireland ranks in the top 3 countries in Europe for childcare costs. After-school care is costing up to €10k a year in some places. There are over 40,000 children under four on crèche waiting lists nationwide. We’ve created a system where you need a mortgage advisor just to figure out if you can afford to drop your kids off after school.
Meanwhile, Sweden and Iceland spend over 1.6% of GDP on childcare. Ireland spends just 0.14%. In France, kids get proper three-course afterschool meals. Here, we’re bartering with other parents like we’re swapping silage machinery: ‘You take them Tuesday, I’ll take them Wednesday.’
So yes, we’ll manage. It’s a first-world problem, I know. But it shouldn’t be this way. We’ve built an economy assuming both parents work, but haven’t built the supports to make that possible without a financial migraine.
If Ireland wants to call itself a modern society, it’s time we invested in our youngest citizens and the people who raise them.
Hasta la vista, hornets
Lads, are ye completely overrun with Asian hornets? It feels like every other day there’s another alert about a new nest popping up somewhere in Cork.
It’s no laughing matter really. These aren’t your average wasps having a grumpy day. Asian hornets are basically the Terminator of the insect world; one nest can devour 12 kilograms of other insects in a single season. They particularly enjoy munching on honeybees, who have about as much chance against them as the Ireland womens’ rugby team against New Zealand.
Wildlife experts believe they hitched a ride on cargo or ferries, possibly tucked under a car’s wheel arch thinking ‘this looks like a grand spot for a holiday.’ The first nest, removed from a Cork garden, was the size of a large beach ball. If they spread, it would clearly be a disaster for biodiversity not to mention a threat to summer barbecue season. If you spot one, don’t be a hero. Take a photo and report it to the National Biodiversity Data Centre immediately. Let the professionals handle the apocalyptic insects, thanks.
Culture, but close to home
One of the reasons we live in Dublin is the year-round access to culture, not that this doesn’t exist around the country, but we love the variety that the city brings. Of course, after breaking your back getting on the property ladder here, you then have a family and sort of forget to go out for the bones of a decade.
This week, thanks to another emergency parachute mission from the grandparents, we got to see Conor McPherson’s play The Weir in the Olympia. It starred Brendan Gleeson, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Owen McDonnell, Sean McGinley and Kate Phillips, who you might know from Peaky Blinders. What a cast!
And there is nothing quite like an evening in the theatre with such brilliant writing and performances. The play would make you pine for those magical nights in the local pub, with the light going down outside and the talk turning to the supernatural. It’s moving to London next, but many of you might have had a chance to see the great version in Rossmore this summer. Which is a long winded way of saying, support your local theatre makers! Even if one of them happens to be your man out of Paddington.
