Teacher married to non teacher

Yes I agree (+ childcare is expensive and sometimes difficult to get).
I brought my DD up on my own and worked for nearly all that time (often part time).
It was really challenging at times with school holidays. I was lucky that my mum could help sometimes but I had to rely on holiday clubs/ swapping with friends a lot of the time too.

A lot of parents don't get huge amounts of time to themselves. My DD & SIL have 2 children now and I help out when I can but I know they struggle with arranging school holidays.
DD and her DH take different weeks as annual leave to cover some of it. I think that's what a lot of families have to do.

Reading your updates I completely get where you're coming from, OP. I understand your kids have only a 2 year gap... That must be very intense. Mine have a 4 year gap so i think I probably have it easier with them.

But just some advice for next summer when I assume your kids will be aged 2 and 4: if their nursery closes for the summer, could you book them both with a child minder one day a week? That will give you a day to recharge and will make it much easier for you to enjoy the rest of the week. Also please bear in mind that a 2 and a 4 year old might be a lot easier than a 1 and 3 year old. You can get both to watch TV for an hour a day so you have a break. If you have a garden invest in a playhouse and slide. My 1 and 5 year old can spend a whole hour playing out in the garden together while I watch/do the weekly shop on the computer.

My husband uses some of his annual leave during the week for appointments or when we need someone to be at home for repair/delivery etc. He also does a hobby that sometimes involves a day trip. He probably uses 5-7 days a year (out of 25) for this. Totally fine by me, but I also put the kids in holiday club in the school holidays so I get a similar number of days to myself.

Why should I work out of the home and then work all school holidays in the home as the sole childcarer, for 356 days a year? Meanwhile DH gets a week or so of 'me-time' just because he can take those days off in term time.

There is no shame keeping/putting your kids in childcare so you can take time off for yourself ocassionally.

The only reason I mentioned weekends because I found particularly when the dc were young that an hour or there to see a friend, go to the gym etc really did help me keep my sanity and made me fell like me again.

I get that.

I had DD at 40.

I would very seriously advise though that you change your mindset as 10 years will fly by and your DH will be on a wine tour or rugby tour or business trip or a business trip involving a suspicious amount of vineyards, while you stress about upcoming GCSEs/whatever.

Take back the power!

I put my dd into holiday club for a couple of days for a couple of weeks over the summer holidays, just to have a day or 2 to myself. Which is mostly doing jobs around the house.

I get it from a teacher side and similar to my situation - holidays aren't holidays and you have to man the children during school holidays. My dp only has a couple of his holiday weeks with us so his holiday is his own time!
But also understand it from many many other working parents who have to have holidays to work around the kids or have to pay for very expensive in general childcare

OP, we don’t have teachers in our family set up, but I completely understand that parenting can be hard work, stressful, overwhelming and sometimes not very enjoyable despite the fact that we love our children dearly. Some of the posts on here are very harsh and try to make you feel guilty that you even suggest such a thing!

When my children were little I used to find the holidays hard as the organised activities stopped and friends were away at different times, and our vacations were exhausting! My advice would be to not think about the next few years as a whole, as that is very daunting. Each year the children will have grown up and be at different stages to the previous year - this means that some years may be easier/more enjoyable than others, but it is not possible to work out which will be which. Look at each year at a time and work out what you can do to make it easier. Remember that you do not have to be Supermum!

The best advice I received was to enjoy the positives of good moments, rather than having the expectations of having good days/weeks. If it is too much, and is affecting your mental health, remember that your GP may be able to help (I had undiagnosed mild post natal depression for 2 years which did not help with the situation ). Good luck.

So he takes 2 weeks in summer, one in Easter, one in December (if that’s necessary? How many Christmas leave days he have regardless?). Take a day away from each holiday as ‘emergency’ ones.

I would also agree with this. It's really important for your DH to get practice at having the kids by himself.

@MassiveOvaryaction I clearly was then, we all have boundaries!

That's true but the summer holidays is the longest stint of holiday so while I'm not telling you how to live your life, I would probably have planned for my DH to have taken some time off during this time

The details are important here though. You want more time to yourself, you have a husband who is the children’s equal father. So yes, the key detail is why the whole 6 weeks is down to you alone for childcare. And now you’ve given a full picture it’s evident that something has to give for the rest of the year. You also really need to be clear as to why if and when your husband takes annual leave you have to do things together and not leave the children with him for the day - he’s happy to leave the bulk of parenting to you for about 90% of the year it seems.

You are pushing it though and being a bit of a dick devil's advocate so I can see why op is annoyed.

I do choir one evening a week and spend a whole day at the weekend playing music once in a while. The odd residential music weekend in the summer holidays.

When DD was about 5 or 6 I calculated I "owed" DH about two week so I packed him off to mountainbike for a fortnight.

Seemed fair?

Our DD is really really challenging. We're in the trenches together.

Two things

1. Could you go out at weekend evenings when they are asleep? See friends go to the gym?

1. Looking after children all day gets so, so much easier the older they get. You won't have both of them solidly until they are both at school. And a 7 and 5 year old is a completely different prospect to a 3 and 1 year old.

You won't be able to leave them but you will be able to sit down and drink tea, flick through a magazine etc while they play in the garden.

You won't need to look after their bodily functions, they can get themselves a snack. Going out you can only take a handbag. It's so much easier, so actually you can get a rest when you are with the children

You are feeling overwhelmed about having to do the lion's share of the childcare over the summer and feel like that doesn't leave much time off for you. I can understand you feeling that way. However you have made choices which have led to this situation in terms of DH taking leave at different times in the year, not wanting to put the kids in more childcare, and scheduling your weekend with children's activities so you don't get a break then. There's nothing wrong with any of these choices but it is worth acknowledging that they are choices which have led to the current situation which you initially posted about.

@spriots 😱😱😱

@Phineyj preach!

I haven't read the whole thread but I dont think this is a teacher v non teacher thing. It's a 'parenting small kids is relentless and frankly boring at times' thing.