To be annoyed at 'hope you had a great 1/2 term'

so one person said it and because they forgot you weren’t also term time.

and the school wishing you a happy half term…. see it like wishing you happy holidays (and you may not be going on a summer holiday) or enjoy the weekend (but you are working all weekend)

The vast majority of us have to work school holidays and try to make 6 weeks annual leave cover 13 weeks the kids have off. Most people do a mixture of taking it in turns to take days off with the children, getting grandparents and other family members to help and holiday clubs. It's not an unreasonable assumption that most people will make at least 1 or 2 days of time to spend with their DCs. Pull yourself together and stop looking for offense where there's none

I used to get a little bit irritated by this too. I could never really take any time off in half term. Not allowed to as it is in the middle of the University term. Not when the sentiment was aimed at large groups of people, but when people said it to me individually year after year and couldn't seem to remember that University does not do half terms!

The hilarious thing is that I still get it a bit now when my DS and DD are 21 and 22!!!

It's an empty platitude. Not that deep. Much like, 'you alright?" People don't actually care.

I think you are overthinking it and probably need a break. I'm also a single parent working full time so a fair chunk of half term us letting DD watch tv while I work with the odd day off but even then I still see it as a break as the morning rush to get ready and get to school is gone so it's less stressful and we try and do something nice on my days off

Exactly, I wished the Tesco delivery man a nice day at the weekend- even if he is doing deliveries all day, some days are better than others and I mean I hope it goes well!

Are they meaning did the children have a nice half term?

I mean surely most people have work during school holidays and have to juggle it all somehow !! It’s not easy but I couldn’t give a shit if someone says hope you had a nice half term

Careful now - I'm pretty sure I read a thread on here recently saying "hope you are well" is far too personal and prying into the recipient's personal medical details 🙄

I tell people at call centres "hope you have a lovely rest of the day" and I don't mean "of course I assume you're going home the minute you get off this call" at all, I just hope the rest of their day is not shit, as some customers are dickheads. Pleasantries are just... pleasantries. They're wishing you well. Regardless of what you are doing with your time.

I say "Hope you had a nice half term" even though I think we have only been away in October half term once. I did take a couple of days off this time but that was it.

For me, particularly having one of DDs being a school refuser, half terms and end of term breaks, even if I was going to work the whole time, still felt like a break, as I'm not doing any school related stuff during that time, and I could just go to work unencumbered with all the usual school-related worry.

Oh, get over yourself. 'Hope you had a lovely half-term' isn't implying that people think you had a week off. It's literally just a casual, non-specific pleasantry and literally no other working parent I've ever met gets offended by it. People can't be expected to know which of their many family and friends does/doesn't find half-term stressful and tailor their conversation appropriately, ffs.

FWIW I've worked over Christmas before and have never been even remotely annoyed or bitter when someone's said 'Hope you had a lovely Christmas' because it's really not a big deal.

Wow. Give the OP a break.

Are you going for the highest number of posts on a thread record

Here. Have a

It's just small talk. So to those I know we'll I say "omg, we survived half term. Bit crap wasn't it." In polite company and those I don't know I say "hope you had a lovely half term". It's basically weather chit chat. Don't read into it. And yes, I work full-time and juggle 2 school children, one who's autistic and a 1 year old. Yes, it is pretty shitty a lot of the time and I still say I've had a lovely half term if someone makes polite chit-chat with me. It's fine.

I think people generally just mean “hope the time when your child was off school was good”- they’re not assuming everyone gets the time off.

Yes I'm confused too. Did you have 2 weeks off or not OP?

YANBU. I’m currently a term time worker and I’m always very mindful of not doing this to people! I might ask them whether they got a break at half term, but it always feels very self-centred to assume everyone did. The ones at book club sound lacking in empathy... School email, fair enough though!

Also I really don’t think these teachers are hoping you, specifically, had a good half term, specifically. They hope the week or 2 that was half term for their students, were smooth sailing, whether you were working or otherwise. It’s just a pleasantry.

You are massively overthinking this. It’s just a polite turn of phrase, like hope you had a lovely Christmas. Some people work over Christmas, some people are on their own with no family etc.

If we all went around not saying phrases like that in case some people didn’t have a nice half term/Christmas/whatever it’d be a bit sad.

That's my point. I accept I get paid less because I chose to have time instead of money. I am happy with that choice and don't think I need to not mention my half terms etc because of it. Op has money instead of time. Different choice, just as valid but yes half terms are going to be a different experience (and not necessarily more enjoyable either way).

that’s a good point