Step out of that stifling summer-holiday silo

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/08/2025 (229 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Here at Sir William Stephenson Library, the tension is mounting. Five families have gathered in the programming space and arranged themselves around various tables to participate in what the library has called the “Ultimate Building Challenge.” We had to register in advance, and we even received a followup phone call to confirm we’d be attending.

For those of us who are parenting full-time while school is out, the opportunities and ideas for filling the days are now pretty threadbare, as is the summer budget. In trying to preserve resources for camping trips and beach days, we must make these city days enjoyable and adventurous without breaking the bank.

So we’re here at the library. At one station, we’re challenged to build a table that can support an encyclopedia (remember those?) using only old copies of the Free Press and tape.

At another stop, dry spaghetti and marshmallows are the building materials. Another station provides only index cards and scissors.

As simple as the setup is, it’s actually quite engaging, and I’m resisting the urge to take over my kids’ building projects.

I take a minute to survey the other tables. Over there, a mom is stacking red drink cups, her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she carefully balances them one on top of the other.

At the station with index cards, two moms are working together, having erected a structure of interwoven cards, held together by interlacing them using small slits that have been cut for the purpose.

All the kids are working too, but they’ve largely been left to their own devices. My own are busy with the spaghetti and marshmallows. We moms are in it to win it — and now library staff members have noticed.

“Wow, the moms are really kind of ruling this challenge, eh?” one says to a co-worker. Yes, we are, and we start to joke among ourselves that the library really should host separate events for adults in the neighbourhood to facilitate families getting to know one another. It’s an interesting idea.

I don’t know any of these women. I don’t live anywhere near this library. We ended up here in an act of desperation seeking out budget-friendly summer activities, but this exchange got me thinking about the loneliness of summer parenting.

Life just isn’t as amenable anymore to this kind of cross-parental friend-making. Gone are the long phone conversations while stirring the Kraft Dinner or feeding the baby.

Instead, I have podcasts for company during the times my kids are occupied, and I make arrangements for them to see their friends via text messages. There is no preamble, no check-in to see how another mom’s summer is going. It’s all business.

So this is where our afternoon at the library ended up so refreshing. There was nothing “business” about it.

I’d be willing to bet we all have spaghetti and marshmallows at home, and some of us would even have copies of the Free Press and a few rolls of tape. There’s no reason we couldn’t have done this with our own children, in our own homes.

But we didn’t. We came to the library, because community still matters, getting the kids out of the house still matters, and the public library still matters as a meeting place and a community resource.

It’s August, and we’re tired. We’re waging war with the iPad time limits and the cost of groceries. Some days are a loop of feeding kids and cleaning up, and there’s actually very little adult company unless we actively seek it out.

And we’re out of practice with the kind of casual conversation that builds friendships and fosters understanding.

But we’re also lucky to live in a city that does provide free programming for families, not just at libraries, but at the pools and community centres as well. Places to meet the people otherwise silently siloed in their own version of summer and to challenge some of that adult isolation.

I agree with the mom at the library who suggested offering light and silly adult programming such as the building challenge.

In the meantime, if you’re feeling like getting together to do some spaghetti-and-marshmallow engineering, you have my e-mail address.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca