During this era of educational dystopia, my kids have started whining endlessly about having to go to actual, physical school. It sets my teeth on edge every time they grimace and say, “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

“Yes, you do,” I reply without fail, feeling cross. I blame all the school closures for this. For making them think it doesn’t matter if they miss school. That going to school is negotiable. 

“Can’t we do online school instead?” they wail.

“No,” I snap, my blood pressure rising. It isn’t up for discussion, in my books. How will they get through life if they think it’s okay to just absent themselves or hide away online the moment they have to do something they don’t want to do. 

I try to explain that the past two years are not the new normal, that the cancellations and closures, the rolling out of bed two minutes before online registration, the virtual classrooms, contract tracing, non-stop masking and threat of exams being suspended are NOT acceptable. But it’s been two years now. That’s quite a long time in their lifetimes.

I want them to learn that showing up – in person – is one of the most important things in life. But maybe I’m just being old school. It’s so hard to impart this lesson when Covid has encouraged a no-show, stay-away culture. 

Anyhow, their constant campaign to skip school was stepped up a notch on Friday, the last day before half-term. I heard all about how half the school would be missing due to being close contacts (probably true), and because lots of parents far nicer than us had given their kids the last day off (really?). They also told me it was digital detox day.

I laughed out loud at their dismay! I could imagine the teachers talking it up, telling the students they’d be on a digital detox the next day, trying to make it sound fun. And my boys visibly whitening, horrified at the prospect of not getting their electronic fix.

“Look, it’s only half a day,” I argued back to them. Fridays in the UAE for the public sector and schools are short, half-days now. Honestly my kids are home at precisely 12.05pm, in weekend mode. I’ve had to start going to the office on Fridays as it’s impossible to get a whole day’s work done with them – and their equally demob-happy friends – in the house.   

Happily (for me), they both went to school on Friday, and suffered (their words) through digital detox morning. I refuse to call it a day when it was only four hours.

“How was it?” I asked Son1 that evening.

“Horrible,” he replied and I found myself wondering if they’d actually switched the entire school wifi off (hehehe). I pictured him holding his phone in the recovery position, raised above his head, desperately hoping it would pick up a signal. 

I was tempted to tell my sons for the umpteenth time that I didn’t have internet as a child, and when I first got on the world wide web at home it was a noisy dial-up connection that crawled along painfully slowly while I grew older waiting for pages to load. But they think that was back in the dark ages.