Sunday trading

I remember when Sunday trading came in.

‘It will be the death of the family’ said my mum.

It hit her first. She was of the generation of women who had stayed at home to look after my sister and I and then, when she got divorced, found herself struggling to get jobs which fitted around family life. There was a whole load more stigma about being a single parent and a whole lot less child care and so she ended up doing work in a supermarket. Who expected her to work Sundays.

She resisted because Sunday lunch was an important ritual even if she was sitting at the table with teenage children who were either babbling about stuff she couldn’t engage with or sitting in silence sulking.

Refusing to work Sundays made work life hard for her, she was seen as ‘difficult’ and it was only when we got older, that she moved roles and took on more hours.

She had a point though.

The move to Sunday trading was a national prioritising of consumerism and commercial activity over family life, spiritual life (neighbours when I was young, went to church on a Sunday) and, remember that old thing called ‘being bored’ or even ‘doing nothing’ or ‘having a rest day’?

I spent time on a Kibbutz in Israel for a month when my first child was very young and I loved shabbat where from the first star on Friday night to the first star on Saturday night, the whole community rested.

They played, sang, read, snoozed, talked, walked, rested. For some it would have been a time of spiritual contemplation. For the more orthodox, there was a stepping away from technology. I loved it because it was a time when everyone was guaranteed to be free at the same time, time to catch up with people.

Now, there are no guarantees that people are free at the weekend because some people work.

Listen, there isn’t any judgement here about people who work Sundays, just a mourning at how that social shift de-prioritised family time, rest time and play time. It feels like this was the first step into our 24/7 culture where stress is high and rest is low.

I didn’t work weekends and instead spent many of them by the side of football pitches or on rainy walks. Or doing not very much. I am glad I did.

I remember from times when I have been single, pre-children, that Sundays can feel like the longest day, when no one is free and I am wondering how Sundays will be when son has left home.

Maybe that was the reason mum started working at weekends when we left home.

(Thanks to one of my school teachers, Jon Lydon, for the photo)