Teacher married to non teacher

It's exhausting.

EVERY day of my holiday I have 3 kids to entertain.

If I want to do something I have to get DH to take a day of holiday!

This summer my eldest is finally old enough (13.5) to babysit his brother and sister for a couple of hours so I can go to the gym!

It's not so bad. We have a lot of fun.

Well that didn't take long ...

Wont your partner have some annual leave?

I have Aug off but use childcare to give myself and dc a break!

I agree it’s a perk of the job. I am a teacher and I have only ever known one person who puts their child in childcare for the whole holidays like they did for the rest of the year. That is an option for you though!

When mine were younger I used to send them to an occasional holiday club.

It’s good for the family to have downtime without all the rushing around for school and activities.

To me it read that she's a teacher but her DH does childcare over the summer

I would find that a lot.

I am always surprised that so many posters view term time working as desirable

But what will your DH use his annual leave for? I would ask him to do a few days at least over the summer

And my kids actually enjoy doing some clubs over the summer so I wouldn't feel guilty about that

I worked in schools as a nursery nurse/playworker and absolutely loved having the summer holidays off to spend with my children. How old are your children?

So work FT and kids can go to nursery 5 days.

Bully for you. The summer holidays aren’t such a joy for every family unfortunately. In my experience we’ll be dragging our way through the 6 weeks hoping that none of us have a breakdown. The op evidently feels like absolutely all the child care falling to her when she’s meant to have an equal partner is not all fun. The op deserves a little time to decompress (especially from the summer term which can be horrendous) and will need time to prep for September. It’s not all on her to find alternative options for the children they both share.

Why can't you a use holiday club? They are considerably cheaper than nursery. One day a week would make a big difference to how you feel.

I think this is one of the reasons that teachers marry other teachers (I did)! I always think it's hard if not everyone in the house is on holiday at the same time. This has quite often happened to us as we are all in different counties. I'm always the one that matches the kids and it does feel like I 'shouldn't' have too much fun if DH is still at work. It changes the flow of the week if he still needs work night/ morning routines. It can also lead to resentment from the parent that's still working.
So, I don't think you're being totally unreasonable but like others have said- do try to remind yourself of the many many positives, (a busman's holiday can still be a nice one) and try and book at least a couple of days for yourself without children!

I can’t imagine your partner will be taking annual leave to have time without the kids so surely it’s all the same really?

Do most people not go into teaching specifically because they are off with their kids in the holidays?

I do the 100% of childcare in term time as I'm not the teacher and my job is more flexible. He does 100% of childcare in the holidays because I have to keep working. "Childcare" includes both doing it yourself and deciding and booking childcare/clubs if needed but I hand back the mental load at the end of term - so if he wants child-free time in the holidays, he finds and books the clubs etc. just like I do it in term time. And this includes if the bookings need to be made in advance during term, up to him to think about it.

What job is he in that gives him so much leave?! Does he never take annual leave outside of the summer holidays?

Be completely honest. If you weren't a teacher, would you still be taking on the lion's share of the childcare? Or at least organising it?

That might be your issue.

I am also a teacher married to a non teacher but I gladly leave a lot more picking up and dropping off to him in term time.

You do the job then. Bet you’d not last 10 minutes without finding a genuine reason to ‘moan’.

I’m not a teacher but I work term time only and I feel so privileged that I get to spend the summer with my children for as long as they want to spend the summer with me, which will be the blink of an eye. It’s sad that you see that as a negative. Are you children young? I admit it’s hard work then but once they’re school age they’re great fun to hang around with in my experience.

Both of us are teachers. Both of us work at least part of the holidays so we swap with each other and/or use childcare. The children have different holidays some coincide with my holidays and some coincide with his. We have to work round it. It's not necessarily easier if you're both teachers!
Many families have less leave and have to negotiate. Often this falls on the Mum who has to flex her time for the holidays/beg childcare from family or use clubs.
I think you need to have a conversation about general expectations. Just because you're 'off' doesn't mean you should do everything.

If you were in another job you'd be working, so why don't you book them into clubs?

If I were in your position, I'd book them into a club once or twice a week. I'd expect DH to take 1-2 weeks annual leave for us to go somewhere as a family.

You're very fortunate you get to spend that amount of time with your kids.

Sorry but to me that's the perk of the job.
I have 9 weeks off to spend with them.
They don't have to go to childcare or be woken early for a creche etcn plus I get to spend time with them.
My husband would love to have the time off to spend with them

Now where did I put my violin...

In our house, although teacher DH does all the childcare in the summer, I have to pick up all the term time issues like illness, covering inset days, attending all the random assemblies, concerts, decisions to open the school at 10am at zero notice to recover from a sodding football match etc. So it more than balances out.