It’s the first week of September. It’s still light out late enough for a twilight nine or a softball game. The pool still smells like sunscreen and charcoal smoke. Baseball is still in the regular season. And yet, children everywhere are dragging their sneakers against the sidewalk like a prisoner headed for duty on a road gang. And what are adults doing? Throwing “Back to School” parties. Posting smug memes about getting the kids out of the house. The shameless display of callous (and terminal) grown-uppiness that pretends the first day of school is a holiday.

Let me be clear: This is not a celebration. This is an execution. Summer is dead, and you killed it, parents.

Don’t act like you didn’t. The same parents who swore they’d make every summer “the best summer ever” are now sprinting through Target like contestants on Supermarket Sweep, shoving spiral notebooks into their carts like they contain free Ozempic, giggling about how “nice it’ll be to have a quiet house again.”

Congratulations. You’ve officially sided with the administration. With power. With The Man. 

And before you accuse me of being dramatic: I am being dramatic. School is dramatic. It’s nine months of institutionalized endurance testing. It’s fluorescent lighting, behavioral directives, and math problems involving trains that no longer exist. It’s learning to write in cursive even though the only people who still do are conspiracy theorists with time on their hands. It’s an office job with less luxurious cubicles; a prison with smaller cells and a more dangerous yard.

Do you think kids don’t notice how gleeful you get when the calendar flips? They notice. They notice when you sip your iced latte and chuckle about “structured activity”.  They notice when the pool is still open and the cicadas are still buzzing, but they’re packing gym shoes into a backpack that still smells faintly of last year’s locker and you’re celebrating.

And honestly, shame on you. If adults had any memory of what school was actually like, they’d be in mourning right now. They’d be holding candlelight vigils. They’d be drafting petitions to extend summer until at least the first frost. Instead, they’re taking photos of their children on the front porch, wielding chalkboards that say things like “First Day of Third Grade!” as if documenting the slow creep of institutionalization is charming.

Here’s what you should be doing: telling kids the truth.

Tell them you know it’s unfair that summer is shorter every year. Tell them you know no one actually enjoys middle school, or even looks back on it fondly. Tell them that adults once staged revolutions over smaller injustices, and maybe someday kids will too. Tell them you see them, trudging toward the school doors like extras in a prison movie.

And then, console them. Tell them summer will come back. That the dog park is still open, and the dogs don’t check report cards. That there will still be baseball games where you’re allowed to eat nachos for dinner. That daytime playtime will still exist; proof that joy doesn’t need a hall pass.

Most of all, tell them adults are hypocrites. Because you are. You moan about Mondays, fantasize about early retirement, and yet somehow celebrate sending kids back into the exact same grind. “Going to school is your job!”  Kiss my ass, lady. At least the kids are honest — they groan, they resist, they drag their feet. Adults could learn something from that.

So to the kids: I’m sorry. I’m sorry your summer has been confiscated like contraband. I’m sorry the adults are laughing about it. I’m sorry you have to sit still in desks designed for Victorian factory workers. And I’m sorry the first thing anyone’s going to ask you is, “How was your first day?” when the answer is, and always will be, “Worse than yesterday.”

But take comfort: school can’t last forever. Just feels like it. And someday you get to send the people who sent you to school to retirement homes.