September is a time of sweet beginnings, of dimpled, small children posing on dewy lawns for the mothers and fathers who want to capture their first day of school. These precious moments are commemorated on iPhones and enthusiastically uploaded into perfect little Instagram squares and processed with one of those artsy filters that make them look like they were taken during an acid trip in 1972.

Shared on social media with embarrassing, tearful eagerness, these photos solicit online cooing, a wide assortment of creative heart emoticons, and they get nearly as many "likes" as any cute kitten or Ryan Gosling photo. The annoyance is palpable from the non-parent community during the first weeks of school. Snarky online posts, or perhaps simply the passive resistance stance of complete media black-out to counteract the overwhelming, insulin-stimulating sweetness. Sometimes the irritability culminates in the temporary blocking of the offending parent's feed.

We parents know we can be annoying. Most of the time. We also know you don't always get it. But to be fair you don't see the whole picture that we are taking. I'd like to offer another reason for this virtual tsunami of children's photos on social media during these first days of September: It's guilt.

Not guilt for sending them helpless and alone onto a bus full of other child strangers, not guilt about feeling like you didn’t do your best this summer, not doing enough of what one is supposed do in the summertime, and not guilt about lying to your kid that that summer circus tent over at the Snow Bowl in July wasn't really a circus at all, but a festively decorated Broccoli and Liver Convention to which they, your children, wouldn't have any interest in going.

Yes we do have all of that guilt, but here's the worst guilt of all: We are so goddamn happy to finally get them back on a schedule. It is the truth of which we do not speak. I tell you this with the sincere doe eyes of a post-natal Brooke Shields on antidepressants: Most of us exhale and collapse on the first day of school.

Don't get me wrong. We do, of course, love our children fiercely and want to take pictures of them. We love our summers with them, especially here in an area that people south of us pay thousands of dollars to come visit and enjoy. A summer wonderland with untold riches exists just outside our doorstep if we are willing to look for them. We genuinely appreciate and treasure this. But I can tell you right now that the hydraulic hiss of the school bus door closing is also suspiciously similar to the sound of champagne being sprayed around the locker room by a dozen half-naked men after winning the Super Bowl.

Just witness the parents re-uniting and embracing at Zoot for a 8:35 a.m. latte, dazed and blinking like prisoners just let out of a dank, dark P.O.W camp for the first time in two months.  They are joined by equally giddy parents who grasp each other with sadly under-manicured hands and exclaim things like "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? HOW DID SO-AND-SO'S FIRST DAY GO?" before slipping off to their Subaru with a foamy latte to blast Raspberry Beret and sing aloud without any accompanying aggressive Simon Cowellesque verbal commentary by their 7-year-old.

This isn't limited to the financially strapped single moms such as myself, who pretend a summer trip to IKEA for the $3.99 meatballs and the free kids play area is pretty much "exactly like" a blow-out vacation to Stockholm, Sweden. As far as I can tell, this guilt is an unspoken truth for most all of my parent friends: well-to-do families, financially struggling families, married, divorced, straight and gay, large and small.

Because as wonderful as summer is in Midcoast Maine, especially with (or perhaps because of) kids, sometimes it's also a hell of a lot of work managing non-stop fun along with the day-to-day obligations that never go away — no matter how sunny the skies and how refreshing the ocean water is. Sometimes, quite frankly, finally sending them off to seven hours of school is like an all day, all-expenses paid sanity treatment at Beauty Mark-My-Calendar-September-Third Spa.

For September in its late summer glory and with the still sunny weather is for all intents and purposes the month when parents finally get a vacation. Even if vacation simply means avoiding the task of coordinating YMCA camp schedules to work with job obligations, diligently checking for ticks in unspeakable places, slathering sunblock onto a child who is screaming at you like you are getting ready to pop them on the barbecue, or the thankless task of removing sand out of the already-questionable cleanliness of an independently self-wiped butt.

So next time you see those sweet photos being posted, and you just want to punch the mother or father in the throat for hogging your newsfeed with this gratuitous sentimentality, please remember this: It's only a few weeks until the snow starts and with it the inevitable snow days that make some of us want to go suck our thumb and cry in the shower.

If you see a post of a happy child going to school, you would be well advised to simply respond to the parent, "Bon voyage, Mom. Enjoy it while it lasts."

And then enjoy the break before the Halloween photos appear.

Anneli Skaar is a graphic designer living and working Camden who spends a significant amount of her time trying to establish a functional balance between single motherhood, career and sanity.