IT’S easy to believe that taking your young family to a festival will be fun. Here’s why the reality will be horribly different:
It will be ruinously expensive
It’s a given that festivals charge £15 for a burger, which is fine when you’re 19 and on a three-day bender without a care in the world. But multiply that charred lump of reconstituted vegetables by your partner and two kids and you’ll be wincing into your wallet, even before one of your offspring chucks it on the floor because the tomato has touched the bun.
Someone will always need a poo
In the middle of the petting zoo? Someone needs a poo. Enjoying a balloon sculpture demonstration? Someone needs a poo. Waiting for the one actually good band to come on? Someone needs a poo. Forget having fun and traipse off to find a toilet.
You will need a shopping trolley for all the equipment
You’ll be carrying jumpers for when it’s too cold, hats for when it’s too hot, toys for when they’re too bored, and medicines for when they get allergic to the face paint they’re slathered in, while also trying to smuggle in a bottle of contraband gin. Good luck trying to mosh with a Trunki child’s suitcase in tow.
Less sleep won’t make your family more fun
Everyone knows children become little shits when they’re tired, and spending three days trudging around a muddy field while their parents pathetically attempt to relive their youth will completely exhaust them. It’s like you’re asking for them to have a full-scale meltdown in a baking tent when you’ve got the mother of all hangovers.
They would have had a better time on the internet
For one brief, fleeting moment, maybe as the sun goes down on the last night, you might catch a glimpse of your family all cracking a smile at the same time. And you might think it was all worth it. Until you remember the same effect can be achieved with 15 minutes in front of SpongeBob SquarePants.
