Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
According to daily weather updates, I was anticipating that half of the United States of America would face some sort of impactful winter event this past weekend. I live in Washington, D.C., which means I was bracing blanketed by 6-12 inches of snow. I was not happy about this.
There was a time when that would be exciting news. Granted, some of that was a time before remote work. There was a point in time when “snow day” meant the same thing for adults and children. Now, even if my kids are out of school for a week and going stir crazy in a home that none of us can truly escape from, I will be diligently working (hey, boss!) while my kids yell in the background about this, that or the other as my eyes twitch since there is no peace in a home with six people and one animal.
Back to the time when snow days were exciting; I remember those days fondly. Before I was married and/or had children, the biggest question about a possible snow event would be who might you want to get stuck in the house for days with? Do the homies all come together and hang out for days? I also remember when I was in a fledgling relationship, and that decision about whether the relationship had matured to the point of spending multiple days together in a confined space was a real dilemma. I imagine that there are legions of people who are wrestling with those questions right now, and I love that for them. Because at the end of the day, no matter the circumstance, everybody more or less understands the assignment, and you can make decisions based on that. Maybe somebody will have to shovel snow, maybe not, but the point is people who want to be locked inside together will get that chance.
That’s not my lot in life any longer. Of course, I love my family and want my wife and kids safe and secure around me. But things that seemed breezy when unattached and childless look a whole lot different now. For instance, when it’s just you and your boo (or you by yourself), you kind of let the flow of the day carry you through. You wake up when you feel, you get out of bed IF you feel the need to.
My life, though? Whether there is school or not, my kids will be up with Jesus yelling and arguing, and yelling and arguing about Roblox with their friends via their iPads. They don’t care if I’d like to sleep in. True story, I’ve forgotten how to do that. I was in Minneapolis in November for five days BY MYSELF and could not sleep past 7 a.m. no matter how hard I tried. Unless I’m inebriated, I’m up dumb early. So even on days when we could all just lay around, my kids want to be up running up and down stairs making all of the noise. And that’s before 8 a.m. Around 8 a.m. they want to eat. Nevermind that they can all make their own breakfast, they will inevitably need SOMETHING that requires me to get up, get out, and get something.
I’d like to add a wrinkle here. I am now a pet-owner, which has been an experience I have not enjoyed in the slightest. With that said, since I do have a dog I am obliged to make sure that he lives a good and happy life, no matter how many of my expensive shoes he eats. This means I need to figure out how to make sure my dog can get out of the house and back in to relieve himself, and if not take him on wintry walks myself. This means I have to make sure I’m able to shovel snow early, and/or find some hack on social media that makes that an easier process. Even if my kids weren’t up yelling and asking for things—and snacks—I’d have to get up early JUST to make sure my dog, my poor, defenseless dog, could be at peace.
Of course, my dog isn’t the only one that needs to get out because nothing screams outside louder than snow. My kids are absolutely going to want and need to go outside, eat snow, jump into it, and do all the things people do before they realize just how cold snow is. So even IF i didn’t have to let my dog out, I was going to be up super early anyway, letting my kids go outside, which means I’d have to go outside with them because safety first.
Long gone are the days of lying around with a glass of wine, binge-watching a show with eight seasons, eating throughout the day, and napping. Now, I’m playing referee in and outside of the house, making sure everybody else stays alive while the decibels in my house reach (and stay at) roughly the level of a small soccer stadium in northeast England. My dog will bark, my kids will yell at each other while playing Madden—when they’re not asking for the family to play Clue or Monopoly for the third or fourth time each day (and I’m not joking about that; my kids LOVE Clue and will play it for hours and hours at a time). Oh, and lest we forget the UNO No Mercy that sends my youngest child—age 5—in fits of tears when he has to draw 42 cards. That happened at Thanksgiving; it was quite funny, but I’m not sure he has recovered from it yet.
Despite how I might be making this all sound, I love my life. I love my family ,and even though I long for peace, I’m not sure I even know what to do with peace anymore. When my family isn’t around, I don’t go out and hit the streets. I just sit on the couch and enjoy silence…while I wait for them to return. I do long for those days (and years) when my time was all my own and the prospect of a snow day was one filled with sleep and hanging with the homies or being bunned up with a person of interest, but that’s just nostalgia talking.
With that said, snow days and events absolutely hit different for me now that I’m at this minivan stage of life. For the record, I don’t have a minivan, but so the record is clear, I think I want a minivan. All of the things that young people take for granted about how freeing it can be when you only have yourself to be concerned with is something that I smile and shake my head at because I know that as soon as the snow begins on Saturday night, some folks will be smiling, and uncorking bottles and me and folks like me will be mapping out our 6 a.m. snow shoveling shift.
Happy first major, nationwide impactful snow event of 2026!
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
