Island Parent Magazine Dec-Jan 2023

without feeling the existential economic
strangle that every single one of you
reading this probably felt this year as
I throw my younger on a bus to get to
his school—middle school now!—because
he still gets on that thing for
free for another glorious year or so. I
mutter to myself, half-convincingly but
somehow simultaneously like threequarters,
totally unconvincingly that it’s
worth it to take out a second mortgage
for a Christmas tree because, hey, it is,
afterall, Christmas.
“Might as well!” I scream at the
clerk at the tree lot, through a totally
unconvincing smile as I throw my credit
card in the air and wander off, stumbling
like an elf in a snowstorm, kids
chasing after me, other moms and dads
walking into walls, muttering about
money, making jokes that just make no
sense, crying, laughing, crying, crying.
Yeah, it’s been one of those years.
I got a hernia a while back and our
medical system is about as mangled as
everything else is, so when I laugh it
kinda, well, moves around, making
me involuntarily grab it, an endless
source of humiliation for all my family
members. It’s okay, I scream into the
air, the specialist will call me at some
point! But they’re not calling! They’re
too overwhelmed! And I gotta stop
screaming because it’s just more pressure
on the ol’ hernia!
So, merry Christmas, as grocery
stores tease us with slaps to the face
disguised as price freezes, and as we
are thankful gas has gone down a teeny
bit so it’s only, like, ten thousand
times more than it was a year ago,
and, let’s face it, we are approaching
the finish line here totally dazed and
battered.
But never defeated.
Honestly, you can’t defeat parents.
We get woken up at unholy hours. We
get screamed at. We literally get excrement
on our hands, like, kinda regularly.
But we just keep going.
And despite our corporate overlords
chasing dollar signs to such a degree
that they’re now destroying society as
we know it, hey, we’ll just keep going,
because we’re parents, that’s what
we do, and, honestly, those corporate
overlords, they have no idea what we’re
capable of.
So, it’s been a tough year, an ugly
year, a brutal year for many families in
Victoria. Let’s see if we can turn that
around. Let me rephrase that: I know
we can turn it around. This year got a
bit tough, a bit dark. But we’ll make it
through to brighter days.
In all seriousness: Merry Christmas.
Happy new year. 2023: We’ve got this.
Greg Pratt is the father of three
children and a local journalist and
editor. His writing has appeared
in, among other places, Today’s
Parent, Decibel and Douglas. He
is @gregprattwriter on Twitter.
IslandParent.ca
December/January 2023 31