Easter hols have destroyed me

[YukoandHiro]

I'm an absolute husk. And there's an inset day tomorrow too!

I can't believe how hard I work only for my holidays to be much much harder work. For reference I have a 2yo and a 5yo and work 4 days a week. I am so much less exhausted when completely flat out working!

Tell me the teen years are a little easier on this point? I feel like a shell of myself

Just one three year old? Not the same!

You do realise teachers arent paid for holidays???? Inset days are required by the education authority outside of holidays and are vital for staff development - they are usually harder work than teaching a class

It’s been hell. I have a 5 and 10 yo and I hate to tell you, but the 10 yo is the most exhausting. Maybe it will be better when they get to the age they no longer leave their rooms for days.

I’ve spent the entire 2 weeks cleaning and shopping for Easter house guests, bloody catering for them for 3 days, and then Dh buggered off for 5 days to help a family member (which now seeing what he’s been helping with, I’m not exactly sure why the hell they couldn’t have done that themselves, they’re younger than us, healthy, childfree by choice…meanwhile while Dh is sorting them out, I’ve got 2 miserable children and a car sick dog who we can’t even take anywhere, so stuck at home, and everything is falling down around me).

I’ve decided I’m going to take off most of this week as AL because I just need to lie in a dark room.

Oh yes, I didn't really enjoy the baby stage. Infact I didnt massively enjoy toddler years either. Don't get me wrong older children (12 and 10 ) can be frustrating too but I enjoy that they are older and I don't have to monitor their every move stressing about what they might swallow or how they'd hurt themselves or just generally how they'd wreck the place lol. My DP works from
Home so I was able to waltz out the door on the morning and do my own thing knowing they are self sufficient and don't need constant supervision. You will get there op, it'll come quicker than you think !

Why are so many people not reading the thread and realising that @roarfeckingroarr's post has been replied to time and time again?

All the duplicate replies are just taking the OP's thread off topic.

Would you happily do training for work in your unpaid holidays?

OP, I think with a 2 year old it’s particularly stuff. In a few years time it will be much easier.

I agree, it’s balancing the needs of children at
different stages which is the difficult part.

I was kidding about holidays! Interesting to hear that insets were actually taken out of teachers' holidays in the 80s.

Maybe because it would seem teachers are constantly bashed all the time on here, when the majority work so hard and are passionate about their jobs and care for the welfare and education of the kids in their class as if they were their own. Walk a month in the life of a teacher who gives up their own family time to make sure their kids in school get the best and maybe there would be less criticism

It does get easier and physically less tiring as they get older, but obviously teens come with a new set of issues!

I walked past the play park with dd yesterday, and seeing the packed out equipment, and frazzled parents pushing kids on the swings brought back the trauma 😂I do not miss those days one bit.

@lipikar - yes. But usually he’s at nursery every morning whilst I work. So in holidays we were both off. The last few holidays off I found really stressful as still had some of my own work to do whilst looking after him, and trying to fit in more activities that I felt we should do. Was just trying to say having a week mainly at home instead of rushing about has been easier.

Teens are easier in a way as they rarely surface before lunchtime so you do get a lie in and a break.

However they’ll then piss off to “a gathering” and you’ll get a 1am call from their worried friends as they’ve drunk too much and you have to head out in your onesie and crocs to retrieve them (meaning you can’t relax with a glass of wine in the evening).

Or, worse, they say they’ll be in around 12/1 …. you’ll get up for a wee at 4am and see the empty bedroom. Then you’ll spend the next hour texting them, imagining them dead in a ditch or in the boot of an Uber.

@roarfeckingroarr took the thread off topic by goading in the first place. Why should people not react to what she said?

I'm glad you've learned something. The point has been made on MN time and time again over the years.

I don’t think it gets easier. It gets ‘different’ as the stresses shift.

We took a foreign holiday. 3 children under 10 - one of whom is under 1.

We haven’t had a holiday since before Covid and we missed out last year because all the prices went up and we had to save for another year.

So, to say I was looking forward to it was an understatement. But, I have literally come home more tired than when I left. This isn’t a complaint, as such. I am so grateful for our wonderful family holiday. But fuck me. Exhausted.

Exhausted and with 40kg of washing to get through before work on Tuesday.

Do you do training at work on your days off?

they are legally contracted to 195 days - 190
teaching and 5 training. Children are entitled to a max of 190 days at school. You’re not being short changed by inset days.

Who isn't? All I seem to hear is how hard it is

Totally different ball game 1 child to 2.
It's soooo easy looking after just one when we separate our 4 year old with additional needs and our 2 year old. Absolute walk in the park compared to them both together 🤣

INSET days do come out of teachers' holidays - but most younger teachers and even fewer parents know that.

The Tories introduced them in the late 80s. The requirement for teachers to attend 5 training days was introduced; the number of days children were required to attend school didn't change.

What a surprise. Yet another ignorant person who likes to publicly criticise teachers but doesn't realise that a teacher's holidays are unpaid and despite this, they still work through at least 50% of them 🙄🙄🙄 Not to mention that the number of school days in a year are set by government, not individual schools.

Oops! Replied before reading the whole thread.
Glad that others have corrected the misconception about INSET days.

Honestly it will get better. I used to start dreading the summer holidays from the start of the summer term! Mine are now 10 and 11 and it's MUCH easier. They sleep in, sometimes until 10am, and can sort their own breakfast and lunch largely. Days out are enjoyable and when they're at home yes there's a ton of sibling scrapping, but they don't need watching like a 2 year old does and will amuse themselves most of the time. They're also at the age where having their friends round is less work than having no friends round! So keep faith. In a few years you'll feel very differently, but you have my sympathy as the this age is absolutely shit, no two ways about it.

17 replies to roarfeckingroarr when it was pretty obvious she was joking.

It wasn't obvious at all.