As kids start heading back to school across the country, it’s normal for parents to feel a bit sad about another summer vacation gone by, not to mention stressed about the responsibilities of the coming school year. Still, just as in past back-to-school seasons, we will take first-day-of-school photos, pack lunches, and await stories about the teachers and friends our kids will encounter.
It’s a cycle that happens year after year, and one that ultimately means we’re doing a great job as parents, keeping our kids moving through milestones and helping them ultimately become functioning adults.
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But the #18summers social media trend — which insists you get just “18 summers” with your kid — threatens to make moms and dads feel guilty for not doing enough over the summer, and many parents are fed up with it.
“You only get 18 summers with your kids,” such social media posts begin. Then parents share emotional photos and videos of their kids growing up from summer to summer, suggesting that soon, our jobs as parents will be over and we’ll be left with nothing but regret about all the things we should have done over our summer breaks, but never got around to.
But plenty of parents are rejecting this narrative with a new take on the trend. Now parents are posting videos with their adult kids to disprove the notion, and adult kids are posting funny videos about how they still spend summers with mom and dad well into their 30s.
“They say you only have 18 summers with your kids,” an Instagram caption from Natalie Warren (@natsellscharlotte) reads. “Yet here I am, 38 summers later with my kids, dog, and friends, in my parents’ pool praying they will be feeding us all dinner.”
In a similar TikTok, mom Stacey Mullaney notes, “Who came up with the 18 summers rule? Because my adult kids definitely missed the memo.”
The trend is hot across social platforms. And inThe Guardian, columnist Emma Brock recently wrote an essay calling parents who take part in the original trend “clingy” and pointing out that it’s easy to miss the magic of summer if you’re constantly trying to force the season into being something extraordinary for your kids.
“I love the summers. Even when things get frazzled towards the end, I love the sense of having nothing to do, which makes a walk to the shops with my kids something to draw out for as long as we can, rather than race through to get to the next thing,” wrote Brock. “The whole point of summer is that you’re not held to account, or a schedule, or in this case, a hashtag. For a short time, we can inhabit that state hovering right on the edge of boredom that—if we don’t ruin things by overthinking—seems to go on forever.”
Child psychiatrist Dr. Willough Jenkins agrees, noting on Instagram, “Treating each summer like a countdown creates a quiet pressure to make every moment count, which paradoxically makes it harder to just be normal together.
Critics of the trend are right, as there’s no point in agonizing over whether or not we “did” our summer break “right.” And, what’s more, it’s often inaccurate that parents only get to spend 18 summers with their kids anyway.
Many of the posts show adult kids on cruises, in pools, or tropical vacations with their parents.
And this kind of future relationship with our kids is truly the goal.
In a Mother Jones essay, editor Inae Oh wrote about the stress of believing you only have 18 summers, too, saying if anything, seeing so many posts about those fleeting summers reminded her that she wants to sit still in every moment and enjoy it without worrying about what she should pack into her kids’ schedules next.
“Nothing about parenting will ever be perfect,” she wrote, ” just like those final weeks of August will never deliver the perfect summer. But it’s never been about the pursuit of some elusive perfect summer anyway. Summer is a season that celebrates saying f–k it.”
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