Teacher married to non teacher

Find social things to do with them if you need adult company? Park picnics or whatever. I was a teacher and my daughter did lots of summer camps and drama so I could go into school and get organised for the coming year. She loved the camps btw.

Are you the teacher?

You posts are very confusing.

If you don’t want to spend time with them put them in childcare like the majority of the population have to…

Id love to be in your position and have all that time off with my children every year rather than the 5 weeks I get. Of all the things teachers have to complain about this is not one of them FFS.

Op I work full time. My youngest is 3. I get 5 weeks annual leave, all of which I use to spend with my kids. I'm either working, or parenting, bar the odd lunch with friends. That's just being a parent, isn't it?

I was the main carer over the holidays when my children were small.Maybe I am lucky, but I really enjoyed the time with my own children.I am older now, so I get to enjoy summertime adventures with my granddaughter:)
I was and still am working full time in term time.

So it's not even 5 days- it's 3 days a week?

I have no sympathy for you at all.

Sorry.

You shouldn't have had children if you feel like this.

Many parents would give their right arm to spend time with their children but they need to work full time.

Why won't you have any break at all? Doesn't your husband take annual leave?

I get it. Your kids are little. It's totally full on. It's kids all day and kids at home
I used to dread the summer holidays when mine were very little. Work was always mental, then I knew I'd have to switch from high school mode to tiny, clingy, demanding children who were up from 5or 6, but no intellectual simulation all day. So actual down time.

I also struggled with the change in routine, so I used to make my own summer routine. Kids were also still in nursery a could of days a week so I could get on with summer prep.

However, it really does only last a few years. This year I am mainly only going to spoken to when they need lifts, money or permission to have sleepovers at ours. There will be some shouting when I inevitably see my arse at their crockery hoarding and when they complain about being asked to do basic tasks, but other than that, it will be quite chilled.

Why did you ever have children if you don't want to enjoy your time with them?

And the irony is you work with children.

Maybe think about all the couples who can't have children and count yourself lucky.

OP works 3 days per week, term time only. Therefore has a lot more free time than most

And children get easier as they become older / more independent, so I expect that, in future, school holidays will be easier than she currently fears

I suspect the real issue isn't really about school holidays at all. I think it's that she does most of the chores at home while her DH works away from home. I can see that's tough for her, but OTOH, I don't envy her DH either. I'd hate to travel every week for work

One reason I became a teacher was so that I could spend the holidays with my dc.
It is tiring, but they soon grow up.
I Lowered my expectations and didn’t worry if we didn’t do much on some days, or if the house got messy.

You're being ridiculous

Probably best to a) not think too long term then (it's obviously going to be depressing to frame it as you "won't have a day off for two years"; b) book something short term to look forward to (some kind of holiday activity for them?) and c) have a proper conversation with DH about his work pattern. Could he e.g. book a few days AL and take the kids to family?

Have the tough conversations now. A friend has teenagers and her husband works away more and more these days. Sometimes he's away for the best part of a month. He has almost totally dodged the hard parts of parenting for a decade and a half now!

We didn't have a term time nursery available to us and those "extra" days that fell into the school holidays were incredibly useful. I appreciate nursery has gone up in cost, however, it's best to have a little more childcare than the bare minimum.

but the days with them both last forever and while there are nice moments it’s exhausting and not massively enjoyable if I’m honest.

Well you're going to struggle teaching a class of 30 day after day if you can't manage your own children for a few hours.

But I'm guessing you're not a teacher and is this a thinly and poorly veiled attempt to get everyone's backs up banging on about having childcare throughout the holidays when most parents struggle to cover it.

It's that time of year when teacher bashing hits a peak.

I was a (full time) teacher and single parent. One of the best things about the job was the opportunity to spend extended periods of time with my children in the school holidays.
“Count your blessings” is generally good advice.

AIBU - i think so yes.

My OH is a teacher. I take all the kids sick days in term time. I do all the assemblies, Christmas nativities and whatever other nonsense

To save money in the holidays. Yes the majority of childcare falls to him. He's off work, he birthed those kids too and he's free. I don't see an issue (nor does he)

However, I enjoy family time and take one or two days off per week, in school holidays, so we can do family things.

I don’t really understand why people are being so unpleasant on this thread. I’m in the same situation as the OP and it is hard. Why can’t we acknowledge that?! As soon as I finish work I’m with the the kids full time. DH uses his annual leave to cover the inset days that I have to work when the kids are not in school. He uses the rest for picking the kids up when their school closes early for parents evening etc, some for Christmas and one family holiday. There isn’t anymore to give me a break. I’m either at work or with the kids.

OP my older one will happily do a couple of clubs during the holidays but my youngest has SEN so won’t. That said, it has got easier as they have got older. IMO the nursery years are the hardest to keep them occupied (especially in this weather)!

And like I said, if circumstances meant they separated he’d have to work full time and actually find the means for childcare on his days with them. There’s a difference between ‘the bulk of childcare’ and recognising from the op that she does everything in terms of looking after the kids regardless of what time of year it is.

I'm a teacher (married to a non-teacher) and I always used childcare to some extent in the holidays.

I had to pay over the holidays anyway for nursery, so they went it for shorter days/half days/less days but they still went in.

When at school holiday activity clubs, tennis 'camps' etc. Not every day, of course, or even every week but I always felt like I had plenty of time to myself/to get stuff done over the summer too. They wanted to do these things, so that helped!

With the careers they have both chosen childcare will naturally fall more to one parent. He is working she is not.
His work allows her (I presume she has not got other income) to work 3 days and use 5 days childcare.

I have never used childcare during my holidays and I would never resent my husband for it.
Quite the opposite in fact when I hear him creeping out early in the morning while we all snooze in bed!

I think I understand op. I work term time in Early Years and have two children, who are now a little older, but when they were younger I felt like I was completely emotionally burnt out during the holidays. Teaching is an intense job and the holidays are so vital to decompress. Going from teaching, to being entirely responsible for the holiday childcare feels like you never actually have any time to breathe, there is no break that is away from children in general, no alone time, no adult time. It's hard work. I used to feel that DH would get to take time off with no worries whatsoever, just to spend doing a hobby, with no thought as to who would be caring for the children, whereas all my time off was spent on the children.

People will say that teachers are moaning, but I would put money on the fact that they wouldn't even contemplate spending even one day in a room with thirty kids, let alone 39 weeks.

I'm feeling old/ old-fashioned reading this. I feel sad that people feel the need to have a break from their children. Don't get me wrong - I very much enjoyed a few hours to myself when I packed them off to a church-run one-week club in the summer holidays, but they were school age by then. While they were preschool age (and I had 3 within 3 years so petty full on) it was just normal to be parenting them full-time.

I can see in the OP's situation though that her OH needs to be doing more to support her when he can.

Having children is a privilege, make the most of building a relationship with them. I know... easy for me to say now that mine are all adults.

People love to have a go at teachers. if a SAHM was here saying she was struggling, she would get support, but a teacher saying it gets a load of nastiness, even though they are working many hors throughout the holidays as well as being a SAHP for that time

Don't take it personally, we all struggle sometimes, this is no reflection on your parenting.

I'm the first to slag off terrible men on here, especially those who don't pull their weight, but he's working FT year round with. She's PT term time only, of course the bulk of the childcare is falling to her!