Two weeks ago you were counting down to the holidays. Now it's day 4 and you've already Googled "summer camp last minute Gurgaon." The house is loud, your inbox is full, the AC is running constantly, and you genuinely can't tell if you're more annoyed at the kids or at yourself for being annoyed at the kids.
This isn't what summer was supposed to feel like. And that gap — between what you expected and what it actually is — is exactly where the exhaustion lives.
Why summer is genuinely harder now
It's not just you. The conditions parents are working in during school holidays have changed significantly in the last five years.
WFH culture — which looked like freedom during COVID — has quietly removed the boundary that school used to enforce. Before, you went to work, the kids went to school, and those two worlds didn't collide until 3:30pm. Now you're expected to be a productive employee from a home that's also a crèche, a games room, and a snack bar, simultaneously.
Add to this: 44°C heat that locks everyone indoors. The city empties out — relatives go to hills, friends travel, extracurriculars shut down. The usual support infrastructure disappears right when you need it most. And if your partner is also working from home, the stress doesn't halve — it doubles, because now you're negotiating "whose call is more important" every 45 minutes.
What we expect summer to look like
- ✓ Slow mornings, late breakfasts
- ✓ Creative family activities
- ✓ Kids playing independently
- ✓ Quality time, good memories
- ✓ Catching up on rest
What it actually looks like
- ✕ Muted on a call at 9am
- ✕ "I'm bored" every 20 minutes
- ✕ Screen time guilt spiral
- ✕ Googling "summer camps last minute"
- ✕ Collapsing by 8pm, exhausted
The mental load of "keeping kids occupied"
There's a specific kind of tiredness that comes not from doing things, but from having to constantly generate things to do. Psychologists call it cognitive load — the mental energy spent planning, deciding, and managing rather than simply executing.
During term, the school absorbs most of this for seven hours a day. During summer, it lands entirely on you. What's the plan for today? What will they eat? Is too much screen time happening? Should we go somewhere — but it's 44°C so where? The fact that you're running these calculations on a loop, on top of your actual job, is a real source of exhaustion. It's not you being weak. It's a cognitive tax that most parents don't account for.
And then there's Instagram. Other parents, apparently, have their children doing pottery, swimming at dawn, making sourdough, and visiting heritage sites. Your kid has watched six hours of YouTube and had cereal for lunch. The comparison isn't just annoying — it adds a layer of shame onto an already stretched situation.
Why you feel guilty for not enjoying it
Indian parenting culture carries a particular expectation: that parents should be grateful for time with their children and that holidays are to be cherished. This isn't wrong, exactly. But it sets up a painful dynamic when the reality of summer is that you're counting down to the school bell.
When you feel relieved rather than happy, or when you snap at your seven-year-old and then feel horrible about it, the guilt doesn't just sit there — it compounds the exhaustion. Now you're not just tired. You're tired and ashamed of being tired. That's a harder place to recover from.
Here's the thing: feeling overwhelmed and loving your child are not opposites. You can want quiet desperately and still be a devoted parent. These two things coexist in most parents every summer — they just don't say it out loud.
at 11am
two kids
fight (again)
What actually helps
I want to skip past the generic advice — "take time for yourself," "set boundaries." You know that. Here's what actually shifts things:
Summer survival — what actually works
- Lower the bar explicitly. Decide, in advance, that this summer will be fine-but-not-great and stop trying to rescue it into something else. The effort of trying to make it good is part of what's exhausting you.
- Loose structure, not a schedule. Kids need rhythm (wake-up, breakfast, activity time, lunch, quiet time, evening) — they don't need a timetable. Rhythm gives them predictability without demanding constant creative input from you.
- Define screen time as a tool, not a failure. A film in the afternoon while you take a call is a parenting solution, not a parenting failure. The all-or-nothing thinking about screens adds guilt without helping.
- Solo time for each parent is non-negotiable. Even 20 minutes — a walk, a shower that isn't interrupted, reading something not about parenting. This isn't selfish. It's the difference between sustainable and not.
- Tell the kids you're tired. "Amma/Papa is tired today and needs quiet time for an hour" is not a heavy disclosure — it's emotional honesty. It models exactly what you'd want them to do when they're overwhelmed.
- Get one thing off your plate. One. A pre-planned lunch delivery service. A morning playdate rotation with a neighbour. A reliable activity for two hours a day. Small structural changes have outsized impact.
"What I hear from parents most often in summer isn't 'I don't love my kids.' It's 'I don't recognise myself right now.' The irritability, the short fuse, the constant low-grade guilt — these aren't character flaws. They're symptoms of a system that's been given too many inputs without enough recovery time."
— Ruchi Makkar, PsychotherapistSigns you need a break — not just summer noise
There's a difference between ordinary summer strain and something that needs more attention. If several of these resonate, it's worth talking to someone rather than just pushing through:
Signs this is more than seasonal stress
- You're snapping at your children in ways that feel disproportionate, and the guilt afterwards is intense
- You're dreading mornings — not just finding them hard, but actually dreading them
- You feel disconnected from your children even when you're in the same room
- You're not sleeping well even when you get the chance — mind racing, waking at 3am
- Basic self-care (eating properly, moving, any personal time) has completely collapsed
- You've felt this way for more than two or three weeks without improvement
- You're having thoughts like "I'm not cut out for this" on a loop
Parental burnout is a real clinical phenomenon — distinct from ordinary tiredness and distinct from postpartum depression. It can build slowly over months or years of sustained caregiving pressure. Summer can be the tipping point, but it's usually the accumulation that creates the problem.
If you're in this territory, the answer isn't a better summer plan. It's support.
You don't have to run on empty all summer
Ruchi works with parents navigating burnout, stress, and the weight of constant caregiving — in Hindi or English, via secure video, around your schedule.
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