Do you use your annual leave to have ‘time for yourself’ when you’re a parent?

[EllieQ]

This is inspired by another thread about whether teachers should cover all of the holiday childcare (but it’s not a TAAT!). Quite a few of the replies have said that they use all their annual leave to cover the school holidays/ spend time with their children and never use it for a day to themselves, which surprised me.

DH and I both work and don’t have family nearby to help with childcare, so use a mix of leave and holiday clubs to cover the school holidays. However, we occasionally book a day off while DD is in school/ in holiday club as a way of getting a break, and sometimes book a day off together and go out for lunch. I know we are lucky that we can afford an extra few days of holiday club through the year, and that DD (age 7) enjoys going. We did this while she was at nursery as well.

There were some comments on the other thread about ‘why wouldn’t you want to spend all your leave with your children, don’t you enjoy spending time with them?’ which made me feel a bit crap. Obviously I love DD and enjoy spending time with her, but I do need a break sometimes! DH and I try to give each other a couple of free hours at the weekends, but that’s not the same as a full day off.

So, do you use annual leave to have a day to yourself occasionally? And if not, I’d be interested to know why not - lack of holiday clubs/ can’t afford them/ have family who will look after your children for a day or overnight so get a break then?

We use annual leave all the time for days to ourselves either together as a couple or apart - my 3yo is at a school nursery full time, we have help from 3 sets of grandparents (2 grandmothers who don’t work and in their 50’s the other grandma who work part time for a school so off in the holidays) an example might be if we are going on holiday I would book a day off to get all my appointments in - nails, hair etc. I can’t imagine not having this time to myself.

Yes, we do. Usually we book off a day for each other's birthday and do something like an art exhibition or a matinee and a nice lunch, then sometimes a day or so to do something boring home maintenancey and a day or so each just for whatever we want on our own.

I enjoy time with our kids but they are both under 7 and it's frankly not especially relaxing spending the day with them.

We don't have enough leave to cover school holidays so doing this means paying for more holiday clubs than we would otherwise need to, but we can afford it. And our kids actually like holiday clubs so it's not a big deal.

I found that other thread weirdly sanctimonious about it. I don't understand why doing something on your own at the weekend is fine but taking a day of annual leave to do something without your kids means that you're a terrible parent and should never have had kids.

I think there are a few factors:

Family support - if you have grandparents who regularly take your kids especially overnight, you probably won't feel the need for this (we don't)

Age of children - ours are under 7 and not relaxing to spend time with. Fun but not relaxing

Money - we can afford a few extra days in holiday club without sacrificing anything else but if it's that or going without something, you may not want to

Full time work Vs part time work - if you have time to yourself through part time working, this may be different

Temperament of children - some are more easygoing and self sufficient

Temperament of parents - we are both introverts and really do enjoy some time to recharge

What you like to do - I saw some comments on the other thread saying things like "what would you even want to do without your kids?" - for us, there's loads, museums, art, theatre, walks, but if your interests work better with your kids, I can see it's different

Childcare before school - we had ours in private year round nursery so we had a few years of not needing to be in the mindset of covering school holidays so I guess we are just more used to having that time. I suspect if you were a SAHM before your kids went to school, you might feel differently

Oh and one more factor:

How much your kids enjoy holiday clubs and the options around you - we have lots of choice and our kids really enjoy it

Agree with @Theelephantinthecastle

I'm an introvert and there is no way I could parent my extroverted child if I didn't have regular breaks from him (but also breaks from my job where I have to be a bit more extroverted than I'd like). Down time is an absolute must and we are lucky that my mostly term time job means I cover a ton of the school holidays, meaning we can afford extra holiday club so I can get time on my own. Being an extrovert, my child loves holiday club!!

We also have no parental support locally so have to buy in childcare when we need it.

“I don't understand why doing something on your own at the weekend is fine but taking a day of annual leave to do something without your kids means that you're a terrible parent and should never have had kids.”

I certainly would never have said the thing about taking annual leave without your children making you a terrible parent etc etc but one of the reasons why I personally don’t tend to is that it would be risky in that it would leave me with less leave to cover last minute things like illness - my children are both under 7 and so far I have needed all my non-school holiday leave to cover illness during workdays in termtime. A bit galling but nothing I can do about it and hopefully it will get better as they get older. My husband is a teacher and covers all school holidays (even before my children were school age) and I cover all termtime. I work full time Monday to Friday. That’s why all the “time to myself” stuff happens at weekends.

I’m an introvert. I just have to deal with it for now.

I'm retired now, but when I was working I wasn't allowed to take all my AL during the school hols even if I wanted to so I had no alternative but to have "me time". Not that I ever did anything wildly exciting. Go for a walk or a bike ride, do the shopping or housework in peace, that kind of thing. Or sleep. I confess I would sometimes do the school run and then go back to bed, but then between my job and children I was always hugely sleep deprived so that was a productive way to spend a day off really.

I hope it will improve for you illness wise

We are fortunate that we both have flexible employers so we can do things like WFH around ill children and make up the hours in the evening and as long as we're not taking the piss, it's fine

I tend to budget 7-8 days a year for both child illnesses and me time/us time so if the kids have a healthy year, more me time, if an unhealthy year, less. Rest of annual leave goes on holidays or spending time with the kids

We are lucky that we do have parents who help with childcare in the holidays, but we don’t take annual leave when the kids aren’t at home as there just isn’t enough leave to manage holidays otherwise. One DC is too young for holiday clubs still, and one has SEN and doesn’t cope well with them, so it’s all on us or helpful family.

I have tried to have maybe one day a year annual leave when the kids are at school as a break for me, but every time I try one of the kids gets ill and ends up at home with me anyway!