Is this the summer I’ll learn to fight the capitalist urge to ‘do’ something? | Emma Brockes

The maddening impulse to be productive on holiday has given way to having fun - and I'm enjoying every minute

It has been the same story every summer for the past 20 years: a conflict between the desire to kick back and chill out, and the guilt triggered by taking time off. (When I lived in Britain, I could stretch this period of relaxation out to a fortnight. In the US, where no one takes two weeks off at a time, anxiety kicks in after roughly 10 days.) It's the most self-defeating dynamic there is - taking leave, only to fret that you're not using" it profitably. How am I being improved by this holiday? Am I catching up on my reading? Am I seeing and doing new things? Am I recharging in a way that will sharpen my performance come the first week of September? It would be nice, one day, to stop doing this.

This summer, I've come the closest I've been to silencing this voice. It hasn't happened by design, but rather, as is often the case with parents of young children, by becoming aware of an unhealthy behaviour because I'm passing it down. In June, I chose a summer camp for my kids that promised to improve them through eight hours of intense activity a day. From nine to five, for six weeks, they would be in a programme with almost no breaks, no fun in the sprinkler, no goofing off. Instead, they would be living (my) dream of having new skills - in this case, ballet, music and voice - drummed into them. After a week, one came home crying and the other looked miserable. I ripped them both out, with no idea how we'd get through a further eight weeks of summer.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York