Christmas leave priority

I always expect Christmas off 24/24/26 dec. if im not awarded the leave (my boss is really unpleasant) I call in sick. I never take a day off sick the rest of the year so theres literally nothing she can do about it.

I do wonder whether prioritising grandparents would be potentially illegal, though - definitely age discrimination and I’d struggle to see that it could be objectively justified.

To answer your question...as I said, it was a small team relevant to the type of work we did , banding experience etc I picked up an almost entire extra caseload of patients. Don't know if you're aware that means, particularly in the nhs, that an already pressured nurse was doing double duty.

It was my choice to not have children, but I didnt not have children to always be able to accommodate those that did. Surely those that had children were aware they would have to make sacrifices themselves.

I did not say I never helped out at any other time, i did, but there is a limit of what is expected and in some cases demanded . Being expected to carry 2 caseloads over simultaneous maternity leaves ( nearly 3 years) i was exhausted. As a side note i had an elderly mother and aunt. But hey I didnt have children so what else have I to ddo with my life... isn't that the mentality !!

I have as much right to take time off at chosen times as the next person, if YOU have children its up to YOU to weigh up how that will work for YOU not EXPECT the childless others to cover for your choices.

I actually accommodated many colleagues over the years. The coming in late for school drop off, leaving early because something was up, the child is sick, the appointments etc all covered by myself and other colleagues. It was when I realised it was neither appreciated nor reciprocated, that my patience ran thin.
You talk about my 'bitterness' , when we had another mum join the team the feathers really began to fly about who was entitled to what, now that was when the 'bitterness' and demanding behaviour really came in to play, it actually refocused my colleague who started to see how easy she had had it with me!

If you don't think mothers are supported in the workplace that is not my childless fault...that is a management or policy problem and not something that I or any other childless person needs to fix. As far as i can see in healthcare there are many child friendly policies, amended working times, flexible hours, good maternity leave and managers falling over themselves to accommodate them for fear of being accused of breaking these policies. One colleague even got out of a fraudulent situation because he was stressed due to having 4 children under 5. I would have been out of a job.

In the past i wouldnt have minded covering for a parents leave occasionally but having seen parents post what they really think of the childfree, (like we shoudnt be in SH etc) i would think twice now

I learned this myself the hard way before being self employed, @JenniferBooth, in that when I was single and later when my DS had grown up I always offered to cover so that parents could have the time off

I should have known better really because even though a yearly rota was in place they'd still whine, but at least it seemed to work ... until that is I had a severe emergency of my own and absolutely nobody wanted to help

Funnily enough, once I stopped covering, there was no "Well after all Puzzled's helped us all these years" - just condemnation and more whining of the sort we're seeing on here

I would encourage you to think less about yourself and think more about the greater good.

The problem is that we never come first, or even second or third - we always come last. As I've said above, I usually do try to cover times like Christmas and in fact have volunteered (as per usual) to not only be working every work day but be the one to cover the office itself so whichever one other person is working they can at least do it from home. Where I work now tends to be pretty fair about letting me have time that I want off when I want it, as long as someone else hasn't already asked for that particular day.

But being always the one who HAS to be last is pretty discouraging (as happens in many workplaces), so you can't really blame us for feeling very much like second class citizens who are only there to facilitate others. Words like "compassion" are being thrown about on this thread, how about some for us child free people?

This is such a horrible thread.

I was ready to back you until I’ve seen you’ve just essentially started a thread to bash people who have kids and labelled them selfish.

your fault for choosing a shit employer. Don’t blame parents. Blame your employer for the strange system.

I have kids and I manage teams. We all take turns with leave and there’s no priorities as such. But I know that some parents don’t have childcare and I’ll lose good staff if I don’t help them to manage their leave. Luckily we’re a helpful bunch and leave is shared and we all understand. I work to pay for stuff too you know. Loads of parents do. I’m paying towards your pension too.

you sound super bitter. Go and find a job where you have Christmas off or the office closes. Oh wait - it does! Plenty of people in worse off situations.

It isn't automatically illegal to prioritise parents for festive leave.

Grandparents being in that list is crazy though, particularly putting them above parents of children who are 8 or older! I presume that list was written by someone who is a grandparent?!

Regardless, UK law/ society sadly doesn’t recognise the importance of children in very many ways so what they’re proposing isn’t legal and no doubt will be challenged by someone determined to ensure everything is equal who doesn’t care about some poor kid without their parent on Christmas Day.

I would agree with you and I have children. No one has a right to Xmas off over someone without children, you can't know what other aspects of family life are going on. It could be your parents last xmas, your nieces 1st xmas, what is important to one person isn't the same. If you choose to work somewhere where you will potentially be working xmas eve then it should be equal for everyone unless there are extenuating circumstances.

It’s not fair. My rules for Christmas as we don’t work bank holidays is if you had last Christmas as leave, you won’t necessarily get it this year. If no one request it I look at what people did last year! Definitely not first come basis as the same people end up getting in first, so that’s not fair on others!

They wouldnt cover you for your Grandads funeral after you bent over backwards to do all that

Agree Fuck "em

It's not one upmanship but intended to highlight that prioritising parents to spend Christmas with their children when they're young doesn't mean that those parents then won't miss out on Christmases with elderly relatives, last Christmases or be unable to travel to see family. Being a parent just adds another set of demands on adults at Christmas so even if they can tick off being with their kids on Christmas morning, they still will potentially miss out on seeing our wider family and parents etc. in fact this is often more likely because they have used their leave allocation on their kids.

So basically my point was all adults are or will be dealing with similar kinds of stuff. Being parents adds an additional set of demands on top of it all and responsibilities for small humans especially at Christmas. Even if they get the so called privilege, they might still find it harder to meet all the other demands that are placed on them at Christmas.

This is a very strange arrangement, adn one I haen't seen before.

These things aren't usually arranged around you, ie, parents/grandparents, but around the employee. So, for instance, I know my son who works in the entertainment sector will have to work Chrisstmas day this year, but last year he had the day off (although he worked on 24th and up until 1am on 25th). it's a fact of life if you work in that arena.

Having children is a selfish choice?? Please explain….because I am genuinely lost. If everyone thought like you and stopped having children there would be no one to care for you/others as they age, who would be workers and keep the economy going as you age?

I really believe your anger is misplaced as you have an employer problem not a parent problem. It is very unusual for an employer to deny multiple leave requests like you are describing, so I would really suggest that you look for another job/company as their priorities/ethos clearly doesn’t work for you. Have you ever had a direct conversation with your manager about your dissatisfaction on the leave policy? It sounds like you love to moan about an issue but do nothing to change it.
in my opinion there are two choices :-

1. do you enjoy the job apart from the unfairness of the annual leave policy - if yes then speak to a manager about the unfairness and ask if they would consider a rota of one year work it the next year off (or something similar)

2. you don’t particularly like the job and hate the unfairness of how they treat you as a childless woman - start looking for another job so you don’t find yourself in this same position next year.

either way stop moaning and do something about it.

There is no childcare over Christmas. It doesn’t exist. In reality some people simply cannot work at Christmas even if they wanted to.

Personally, I would never take any job where working at Christmas was a requirement now that I’m a parent, but didn’t mind doing it at all before I had children and would have felt terrible to insist on time off just to make it “equal” when that would mean a parent and small child not being able to be together: it wouldn’t be equal for us to rotate years because our situations weren’t equal and the consequences were different.

I do think it is very sad that any employer would make a parent teacher of children under 10 or so miss Christmas with them unless all staff had young children so there was no other option, and very sad that colleagues without young children would expect them to do so. There are a whole lifetime of Christmases and only very few for each employee during which they have young children. These few Christmases are very special for the children and the parent, and completely different to Christmases spent only with adults. Sometimes there is a difference between “equal” and “fair”.

Wonder how many of them will be encouraging those children into care work!

Fortunately the law doesn’t agree with you and your beliefs cannot be enforced in an employment setting.

Well going by the amount of MNers who expect grandparents to do childcare maybe her daughter is on this very site

I’m sorry but this is quite ironic given you seem to be a pretty selfish person; ‘why doesn't anyone put me first??’ Society doesn’t care about the individual, it doesn’t care about you, me or Tom, Dick and Harry. What matters is collective society, and children are the basis of that. They are needed to keep humanity going. And at the rate we’re going humanity will die out as the replacement rate is falling. Would you prefer to be in a society like Japan where there are 2.5 elderly people for every 1 child, which is having a detrimental impact on not only the economy but also the health and happiness of their society (significant increase in feelings of isolation etc). You might not feel ‘seen’ in society and perhaps feel lesser-than mothers, but I would encourage you to think less about yourself and think more about the greater good.

But I wasn’t claiming my needs trumped the needs of others. Some on this thread are doing exactly that, though.

Out of curiosity, though, your final sentence sounded very ‘top trumps’. If you really do consider all adults equal, why is it even relative that parents are doing ‘all that and more’, so to speak? It sounded an awful lot like one-upmanship to me.

This is high grounds for a discrimination case. Also I’m a part time carer for my mum, won’t take meds or eat if I’m there, yet I’d be expected not to see her? Doesn’t fly with me.

I “agreed” with her as I thought it ridiculous to have grandparents in the list.

doesn’t mean I agree with the point that those with children shouldn’t be prioritised over those without. Of course they should. Children should come first in any caring society.

I think yanbu but first come first served isn’t fair either.
I think fairest is to rotate who gets first pick each year. FWIW when mine were little we rarely celebrated Christmas Day on Christmas Day. They never minded.

I’d be fascinated to see the vote if OP posted this on Gransnet

This makes no sense. Why do you have to go home? Can't you put things in the boot of your car? Or have you decided not to have a car in the same way that you've decided not to have children? Why do you have to meet your partner? Can't they come to you workplace and meet you? Or have you decided that this also isn't feasible? You probably think that you also can't have a larger meal at lunchtime and take snacks so you can drive straight through, or that you absolutely must do a million and one other things before you set off. It's all an invention. Scupper your own xmas if you want to, but don't blame some 4 year old kid.