Dh gets judged constantly for not taking time off in school holidays

[Mydogsmellsofwee]

His parents do this all the time, despite knowing our circumstances and so do some of our friends.

It’s half term next week and two of the families we are closest to are lucky enough that the dads are self employed trades people and so don’t tend to book work in school holidays. Me and the children are doing a couple of things next week with the familes and once again, it’s all “oh is your dh not coming? Doesn’t he take time off work?”

Every bloody school holiday we get this. And from PIL.

One of our DDs goes to a selective school 45 mins away. The school bus service is eye wateringly expensive and the routes are long - she would be on the bus 90mins each way. We don’t live in the nicest place so I don’t want her getting public transport and there is no direct route anyway, it would still be a PITA. It makes more sense for dh to drive her (I can no longer drive due to a medical condition).

His work is fairly flexible, he works from home 4 days a week and can make up time.

But school holidays, with no school run is where he can go into the office everyday and really plough through and be at his desk 9-5 (or 6) with no distractions.

He does take off a couple of weeks in the summer holidays, but it makes far more sense to take the rest of his time off in term time so it’s less of a rush with school runs and we often get a long weekend away as he takes off school inset days.

It works for us, but my god, even when people know this, and I explain again and again, I get the faux shock, or even people asking why he doesn’t want to be off when the children are. It makes him sound like a bit of a prick who is avoiding his children, but he’s literally worked his entire working life around getting dd to and from this amazing school which she worked so hard to get in to and loves.

And even if he did take all the holidays off, he gets 6 weeks holiday, not 13, so he wouldn’t be around for all of them anyway.

Clearly you think the man walks on water, and that's quite lovely. Other people probably find it a bit less plausible than you do that having 9 rather than 7 working weeks a year where he doesn't do the school run is absolutely essential and transformational to his entire working life and just so happens to result in him getting a third of his annual leave childfree. But again, they should keep that to themselves - I can see why his parents wanted to make it clear they think it's a bit off, but at this point they should drop it.

That's all fair enough but I would give a stuff whether someone else's husband was there or not. Just because mine was.

I don't like this thing where it feels like they aren't treating you as an individual. Just half of a couple and one is missing.

Oh and no one’s judging him for the jiggle of taking those two weeks in term time.

They understand that he’s taking dd to school and that he just has to do that; he can spend his entire working life saying “sorry, no meetings, no calls, I can’t respond between 3-4:30pm”. There has to be weeks he can do those times and that’s why he doesn’t take all
his leave in the holidays - he has to be able to have a bank of weeks where he can do that.

It’s the expectation that he can magic 13 weeks holiday from thin air so he can join in with everything our friends and family are doing.

Ds has had the same from the in laws. They decided they wanted to book the whole family a week away in the summer. But we’ve already booked to go away. So they said that’s ok, ds can come. He’s already booked all his time off to go on holiday/to festivals with his friends, so that didn’t go down well. They just expected him to be able to book more magical time off.

This has nothing to do with the annual leave situation, but he's driving 3 hours a day to get your daughter to a selective school? That sounds insanely unsustainable.

No it’s not like that. We are all good friends. They just can’t get that dh just can decide not to work all holidays like they can. They have spent most of their adult lives doing that, it’s so ingrained.

@katepilar @YoBetty It was the dh’s 3 hours per day commute to do the school run that I was talking about… 45mins in the car x 4. I have done long commutes for work in the past (driving over an hour each way) - and that is bad enough, but 3 hours a day is really grim. I am not being judgemental - everyone has their own priorities - I only commented to say that it seemed like it was putting them under pressure- and was there anything they could do to make things a bit easier. I have a friend whose dd went to a selective school a long way away, and they managed to find another family with the same school run, so shared car journeys on the way to school, and the girls were able to get public transport back together on the way home.

Lots of people there do it. There are people who drive their children further than that. It’s not something we took on lightly, and like I said, we all want to do the best for our children and this is what’s best for her.

When we lived in London, dh would drive an hour and 20 mins to work, 3 days a week for four years. So he doesn’t see it as a big deal.

That sounds a bit annoying.

Dh has just informed me that it’s actually a 30 min journey to school 🤦🏽‍♀️

Of course it is. I’ve done it with them. I don’t know why I kept saying 45 mins. But for some reason, 45 mins is etched in to my brain. I’ve just checked on google maps and he’s right. Fucks sake.

But the coach journey would be 90mins. It goes all over the bloody shop.

@Mydogsmellsofwee Might you be able to start driving in the future (I know you mentioned it was a health condition stopping you, might this be something that resolves?)? As it would potentially mean your dh could have another 3 hours a day to work during term time, and he could take your younger child to school (which sounds like it might be very local / small journey)? This would then mean you get more family time during the holidays, and your dh gets more of a break.

My dh occasionally has major deadlines, so has to work during our holidays - when this happens, he tends to get up and start working at 7.00am, and works for 3 hours til 10.00am, so can join in with holiday stuff from 10.00am onwards, which can work really well.

Could your dh do something similar? Take annual leave for some half days during holiday periods, then work remotely from a holiday cottage?

edit to add: just seen you have now said the school run is 30 mins.

Well that's kind of a drip feed and means that your husband is also a bit more available for meetings than you originally said. The friends questioning his lack of availability in the holidays need to just understand that not everyone has the good fortune to be able to take weeks of annual leave every year, but actually there's no good reason why he can't spend at least some of it doing his parental bit.

I’m going blind. So no more driving for me.

Dh job doesn’t work like that. They block out days for meetings and presentations. He does take time for plays etc but thank fully, both schools let us know well in advance.

He could absolutely work from a holiday cottage - if we could afford it! We can’t though.

Plus, the kids love seeing their friends here, we have a house full most days in the holidays.

He works for an LA so there are set working times. They aren’t allowed to start before 8am or work after 7pm and the nature of dh work, he has to be logged onto the systems to do it.

Can you come up with a phrase that doesn't require too much emotion from you to say, closes the conversation without it resulting further snipes / offence being taken.. then just carry on repeating it..

You know DH takes his holidays in August - his work is not as flexible as Bill's.

I feel lucky that I get to spend every holiday with them and DH takes as many days as he can.

Oh you know how it is, he is a wage slave - lucky you having a husband with a flexible job!
We treasure the days we do get together and don't dwell on the ones where he has to work.

Yeah - he simply doesn't get as much work done when we are all at home so it works for everyone this way.

I can't believe you have forgotten that DH only gets 25 days holidays, he has to choose them carefully. I am looking forward to our 2 week holiday in August though, besides, I love hanging out with the kids in half term.

There are plenty of places in the Uk that do not have adequate or reliable public transport to enable a teen to get to school.

Well it’s a half hour drive. So when he’s working from home, he has to log off at 3 - that’s just how it’s done. I won’t say what he does, but it’s for an LA, the meetings with professionals are quite regimented. He’s worked out with his boss that he’s not available from 3-4:30. That’s how they have planned his calendar for term time. So in the holidays, they schedule these meetings all day, that’s how he manages to swing it.

He drives to the school, if there’s no traffic it’s 30 mins, if there is traffic it can be 45. He checks emails while waiting for dd to come out, they get home at 4:30. It is usually 45 mins on the way home at that time. Google maps says 30 mins now, but it’s a Sat afternoon. I’ve only been up to the school for events in the day.

Frustratingly it’s a 10 mins walk from the school to the closest parking spots. Ever tried to get a 13 year old to hurry the fuck up?

He does though? I mean, he’s taken on a massive commitment with dd and her school journey.

And he does more parenting than me when he’s at home, all the cooking, more than his fair share of housework, even more now as I trying to get to grips with my failing sight.

He’s certainly not getting out of any responsibilities because he has to work to make up time.

If this is a regular occurrence simply say ‘you ask every school holiday and the answer is always the same so shut the f**k up about taking time off work’ !!! Sorted!!

In all honesty OP, as you're asking - and only because you're asking - ^ is what I think too. I've read all your comments and I haven't changed my opinion. However, those would always be my private thoughts - it's incredibly rude to question you!

He sounds like he's a great dad, but probably no better than many mums who are juggling the same - or more. I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your health condition, that sounds really shit for you. But that doesn't mean he is some kind of saint, he's just picking up the slack as any responsible parent and partner should do. There is a habit of hero-worshipping men who step up and act decently and that slightly feel like the case here.

I have to say though, in reality I'm not sure that I'd actually realise that your DH was taking his annual leave during term time. I have friends whose husbands work unpredictable patterns - sometimes at home, sometimes in the office, and sometimes away. I would also have no idea when they were allowed to take their annual leave - when I worked in an office, it was an absolute fight to the death to get any time off during school holidays! If their DHs weren't available for a planned activity in the school holidays, I'd just assume that they had no AL left or else couldn't get the day off. It wouldn't actually occur to me that they were deliberately choosing to use their AL at another time for their own benefit.

I think it's really nice to do activities like the zoo etc as a family so I'd be disappointed that my partner chose to take term time off to "de-stress" instead. But that's my preference and clearly not yours. If both you and your DH are happy with the arrangement, then you don't need to justify it to anyone else. Explaining yourself isn't working, so I wouldn't bother - "no, he's at work" is sufficient.

Just say "Why does that bother you though?"

Every single time. Its a polite, genuine question as part of the conversation but will make the asker look very silly.

I wouldn't have turned down a place, I moved!
But again, I would not say a word, not my problem.

You do have odd "friends" however. Not only it's normal not to have parents off all the time, also people make the most of having a partner so the other one can take care of the kids. Who wants to go to the zoo with other friends as a couple? Only one parent needed for that.

Opinions are like arseholes.. Everyone's got one.

Whatever you do, someone will judge you. You don't need to justify to others what you and your DH choose to do within your family. I get it. I've spent years working around school pick ups etc and you have to give a bit extra when you can, to make up for when you take a bit of time back. But honestly, it doesn't matter. If it works for you then that's good enough

they're surprised that he's off for 4 of them and uses 2 weeks of his annual leave to be off without the kids by choice.

Perfectly normal. All my "mum friends" take at least a week off to go away with friends, no partner, no child 😂.
Mine is booked for a long weekend next week , and a week beginning of July.

People go away on golf trip, shopping trips, beach holiday and a million different events where they are better off child free - and partner free because said partner is looking after the kids.

I don’t know how many times I need to explain this.

If he took all his leave in the school
holidays, he wouldn’t be able to take dd to school every day in term time.

he agreed with his boss to be blocked out 3-4:30pm in term time.

On the basis that he could do those times by working in the school holidays.

Having a 2 week break from working and the school run is a nice by product.

His boss could have laughed in
his face, but he accommodated it.

When he works in the holidays he gets a lot done and planned so he can block that hour and a half out in term time. Not many jobs would allow you to do that.

I am not saying he’s a saint. He’s just not some prick who’s not taking all his leave in the holidays to get out of spending time with his kids. He’s a grown adult - of course I expect him to pull his weight, there’s never been any conversation over it.

Our friends realise he’s not there as we usually hang out as families. They would like him to be there. Their work lives are different so they forget he’s not able to take off all the time he wants. They have no issue with him taking leave in term time, they understand. They just don’t get that not everyone’s lives are the same as theirs.

It’s not by choice though. He made a deal with his boss.

By working in the school holidays he can work it so he can take dd to school in term time.

Whats he supposed to do with the 2 weeks that he can’t take in the school holidays? Not take the time he’s entitled to off for some principle?

Its nice to get stuff done around the house while the children are in school to be honest.

I understood all that from your previous posts. And “not being a prick” is a very low bar of measurement.

I think the point I and some PP were making is that taking two weeks off in term-time to destress is an unusual decision that wouldn’t sit comfortably with many. The rest is kind of irrelevant really.

But as I also said before, it’s no one else’s business. You and your DH are happy with the arrangement so what any of us randomers think is totally irrelevant. I would imagine that most of us make decisions about our family life that some others would disagree with.