Teacher married to non teacher

Personally I would be discussing with your partner how to divvy up the childcare/household maintenance as a whole throughout the year.

At the end of the day they are your children and you aren't at work for 6 weeks, but things should be 50/50 when their other parent is home.

Easy to say but try to enjoy it while they are young and you get to decide the plans for the day. If they’re pre school age they still get excited about simple things like going for a walk or a picnic. Plan some meet ups with friends and have some movie / pj days so you can relax a bit too. Tweens are more independent but harder to entertain without it costing a fortune ! Also surely your DH will take some leave so you can go on holiday?!

I kept my pre-schoolers in nursery during all holidays. It was better to stay in routine rather than disrupt it.

They only had 'summer holidays' once they were in school.

DD1 (age 11) now does a full week at Scout camp. DD2 (age 9) will do an Outward Bound week from next year.

Hi, I posted the above before getting through the whole thread and I can see it seems like a pile on. That’s not my intention.

Look, you’re allowed to find your kids full on and overwhelming. Remember Covid? Most parents went bonkers realising they were stuck in the house with their kids. And I’m not saying you don’t love them or shouldn’t have had them.

I’m saying that you don’t have to grit your teeth and just bear it. It’s okay to ask your husband to take on some extra load on weekends because you’re saving a heap on childcare and doing solo parenting all week long. It’s good for him to solo parent and you don’t have to pay him back with extra time.

In AIBU you do sometimes get answers to the question you didn’t ask. Here you asked if you’re unreasonable to be dreading this and I’m saying no, you’re not. But you are being a bit unreasonable to turn down any suggestion that might give you a needed break.

I reported the poster who said something along those lines, OP. Personal attacks are not allowed on here.

So for the third time of asking and being ignored

Why can't you send them to nursery for an extra day?

Why can't your Husband use annual leave?

Are there grandparents to help?

All I'm going to say is you've come on, said your struggling and can't cope then dismissed every idea to help and said you just need something to break up the long 3 days you have the kids.

All the suggestions offered would do that so what is it you want?

Maybe you could start talking to your husband now about the holidays in four years time when they are both at school about him taking some regular time off.

For example, he could not work every Monday and then you can have a break.

Because actually this summer you will have two days a week, but then you wont

Hang on, OP. Having to have your children all the time may be distorting your opinion on this. Maybe your partner wouldn’t mind some solo parenting?

It would be good for him to manage two children at once (a life skill you have mastered), it would be good for kids to see him do this (so they know mummy is not always there and Daddy can be the default parent too) and it would be good for you to have a much needed break to recharge.

Insisting you will never ever expect him to parent solo sounds like martyrdom. I’d put in a place a once a week three hour break as a minimum.

Perhaps you're just in a 'grit your teeth and get through' situation OP.

I agree with @BookArt
I think this rigidity and negative mindset is someone on the way to burnout.

Ask me how I know

Your rigidity in not allowing their DF to juggle both DC at the park is very concerning.
The insistence on doing things this way to provide the best/ optimum experience for your children is actually doing the opposite.
Your children need to spend time with him, whether that is fun or stressful,they need that experience and so does he.
Children need less than optimum experiences to fully develop and learn.
Black and white, right/ wrong thinking is at play here and it's controlling.
Defensiveness and jumping to extremes is not helping you here.
Taking an hour or two at the weekend is not " fucking off for the weekend"
An afternoon in holiday club/ childminder each week is not abandoning your children
These things would be something to look forward to and relieve that feeling of overwhelm
Essentially you are playing victim to circumstances that you refuse to reconsider or explore.
What is behind that?
Fear, loss?

All the best,I hope you find a way forward

Do you have any friends with small children OP? Turning some days into a social activity with similar people saved my sanity when mine were little. DH, self employed, working 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year was still available some evenings if I went to the cinema or took myself off shopping occasionally. I actually made some good friends at evening classes too.

I feel a bit envious of those teachers married to teachers

I get this. Being able to spend the long holidays together would be amazing. The same for people who are a teacher/SAHP pairing.

But this fantasy is based on a tiny segment of society. For 95% plus of us, we have far less holiday than schools, and the idea of being off for it all (or much of it) together is pure fantasy.

• I feel a bit envious of those teachers married to teachers* That was us! When we were out during the summer we would sometimes get comments like 'Bet you're looking forward to them going back to school!' and my deadpan reply was along the lines of 'Oh no, we love spending time with our children that's why we had them'

So you feel like you won't have any chance for a break.

You could do any of the following:

• Use a holiday club occasionally. Some aren't expensive.
• have the occasional day to yourself, whilst their perfectly good other parent looks after them.

Both are perfectly viable, perfectly reasonable solutions. But you choose not to.

You sound like you're in a fully stocked kitchen complaining about having no food.

The difference (and massive perk) that you have being a teacher is that you can use holiday clubs to get time to yourself, rather than using them to keep your job. Most of us are so short of leave that we couldn't dream of using holiday clubs to have time to yourself. Your can, but choose not to (and then complain about not having that time to yourself, that you've chosen not to have).

I don't mean going out for whole weekends (then there's nothing wrong with that occasionally either), but for a morning, or a few hours in the afternoon. And no, that's not a 'proper break' but it's what most of us get in reality.

Personally, we'll be tag teaming one of us being off, both of us being off for a holiday together and using clubs. I'll be looking after kids in the day and then making up time for work in the evenings.

I think what would improve your life a lot would be to get more confidence in having your children together (and the same for your husband).

Ps: yes, having two young kids is hard and relentless. The idea of weeks to yourself with neither work nor kids is just a fantasy to most of us.

Jealousy is an ugly emotion but it’s ok for you to say this? I feel a bit envious of those teachers married to teachers

Sorry, I'm confused about the point your trying to make?

The OP is struggling to parent on her 3 days off each week over the school holidays. Earnings are irrelevant because her husband gets annual leave so why can't he take some time off on her 3 days to help her?

Her feeling jealous of two teachers marrying each other is pointless but she doesn't seem to want to do anything that helps her, in which case she should just have said the post was simply for a moan about her not being able to cope but no advice on how to help is needed

Jealous of what? I don't quite follow.

Are you jealous of other posters?

I'm certainly not jealous of you if that's what you think.
What is there to be jealous of?

You don't read or engage with my posts?

Yet you've replied to almost all of mine very defensively, and now with another personal snipe at me.
😂

Earnings are irrelevant. No partner should have to do more because they earn less. They should do more of the childcare because they work less and have significantly more free time than the other spouse.
We do know OP works 3 days a week term time so had a huge amount more “free” time than her partner. It doesn’t make any sense to have that huge disparity in hours worked and yet expect things like childcare to be split more equally.

Probably yes but without the wife in the term time job childcare would be a lot more - wraparound as well as school holidays. So that would factor in.

I suspect she earns less working 3 days a week as a teacher than he does full time in a job that requires travel too.

We don't know what the earnings split is here.

I do know quite a few couples where the woman earns more and still does more childcare though...