Today I walked by the empty and padlocked playground of the elementary school in my neighborhood. Closed for the summer! I think back to when my kids were growing up: waiting for the yellow bus to bring them back – always slightly damp – from day camp; then in later years sewing on name tags and filling up trunks for four weeks of outdoor living; and finally after dropping them off, the peace and quiet at home. But I don’t miss the cost.

It was hard for families like mine then, and only a fraction of the kids in my city had parents who could swing it. It is that much harder now, and the silent empty schools make me wonder what the kids who play there the rest of the year are doing this summer. And how in the world their working parents are coping with the long summer shutdown. Are they leaving the kids with relatives or neighbors? Are they putting the older ones in charge of the younger ones? Are they plopping everyone in front of the television? Are they running home during their lunch hours to check on things? And what kind of a summer is that for kids – no exercise, no nature, no time with their parents?

It has always seemed outrageous to me that the school day (the three o’clock dismissal time above all) and the school year are almost perversely detrimental to family life. But this year, the situation is worse than usual: I recently read that summer school classes – which used to keep the more restless and unfocused kids busy – are being cancelled by financially strapped municipalities. So, I ask again, why are those playground locked? And the art rooms and the libraries and the computer rooms? And the nurses office? Why aren’t those public facilities refitted for a summer of activities for the same children who attend them the rest of the year?

I’m told it is insurance and security concerns and the unions that are the issues. Basically, though, the long summer holiday is based on a fantasy of a long-age American life embodied in an agricultural calendar designed to make kids available to work the farm. (If only those kids wandering our community streets looking for something to do were actually harvesting crops!) The other, bigger, more amorphous and intractable but equally unrelated-to-reality explanation is cultural. We have come to think of having the summer off as a gift, a time when families can take it easy and kids can chill out from all the pressure of school (teachers report that it take months to get them back up to speed in the fall). We see summer as a benefit, not a problem. But it is a problem, and parents are expected to solve such problems all on their own. Not only manage, but if they are really American, make summer vacation memorable. If ever there was a Trojan horse, summer vacation is it.

Like so many care-giving responsibilities, including responsibility for elderly relatives, this one puts us in the position of feeling guilty if we fail to carry it off and weak if we ask for help. It is time to reject the do-it-yourself model? Those who are raising the nation’s children need – and are entitled to – the help of the village.

What were summers like when you were kid?

Where are your kids and/or grandkids this summer?