Am I being unreaosnable to think that having kids shouldn't automatically give you more right to have the bank holidays off?

[KitKat1985]

Hello all.

Maybe Mumsnet isn't the best place to ask this question but I'm fed up. I work as a nurse in a hospital unit (open 24 hours, 365 days a week). It is, obviously, a fact of our job that the bank holidays need to be covered on the nursing rota, and I have no problem with this per se, as I accept that it's part of the job. What I am fed up is that my boss seems automatically to give the large majority of bank holiday working to those who are child-less, and gives priority to have the day off to the nursing staff who are parents. I could understand more if this was a child-care issue, but no, 95% of the parents where I work have partners / husbands who are also off on the bank holiday, so that there is already child-care available. I have just worked all 4 days of the Easter weekend, not spent any quality time with my husband, and missed one engagement party and family gathering because of work; and yet a lot of my colleagues with children have been off the whole 4 days (again). I'm down on the next rota to work May-day as well. Christmas and New Year is even worse (and causes a lot of staff tensions) as a lot of child-less staff find themselves working all over Christmas and New Year, inevitably leading to a lot of bad feeling against the nursing staff with children, who seem to automatically get priority to have the time off. I'm not anti-family (and am indeed, currently pregnant) but am I being unreasonable to think that the bank holiday working should be shared out a bit better? It's very difficult to discuss this issue with my ward manager, who has several children herself, and is very adamant about not working bank holidays as it's 'family time'.

It's very easy to be turn this into a dismissive 'You spat some kids out, your choice, you look after them' rant.

However, the reality is not so clear cut. Yes, I do think that people with children should get some leeway when it comes to school holidays, particularly bank holidays. As should anyone else with caring responsibilities for another person/people.

Parents are not some huge, pointless drain on society, producing kids for no reason. Having children is a necessity to the Country, the World, the continuation of the human species etc. For those that do it, along with it come caring responsibilities. And unfortunately, there are some times - i'm thinking specifically bank holidays here - where parents will need to care for their children.

I'm now in a role where I don't need to work bank holidays, but when I was a single mum (in a different job), I was unable to work ANY bank holidays. Ever. It probably did make me unpopular with my colleagues...too bad. When nurseries and CM's are not working, you have no family or friends that they can be left with...what's the alternative?

All right, SystemIDUnknown.

I was once in a job which required rostered Saturday working.

One Friday at about 5.30 I was witness to a furious row between "Jane" who was on duty next day and whose childcare arrangements had fallen through and "Jim", the only one of us without children, who refused to help because he was as a bachelor going to be the best man at his nephew's wedding. Who was right?

(DW, DS and I were leaving on holiday at sparrow's fart, before you ask!)

YANBU. I'm training and the midwives and HCAs in our unit all put in offers to work for BHs and Christmas. If there are not enough offers to cover then last years off duty is consulted and those who did the previous year go to the bottom of the list to work. Seems fair to me.

I know that I will end up working some Christmas shifts. I knew that when I applied to train, that's the job. Oh and I have 4 DC aged 11-4

System, did you volunteer for extra bits and pieces though?

That is what I notice from the mothers I have worked with.

Completely anecdotal, but true in my experience, the mothers are the ones who want to avoid appearing to have 'special treatment' so they spend most of their working lives volunteering for the other shitty stuff that no-one else wants to do.

The mothers ime are those that are least likely to play Rota roulette and try to quietly slip under the radar whilst giving nothing up in return.

That's just in my experience though.

I couldn't possibly say tbh...it would depend on the type of job, how many people worked there, the 'history' of the employee (Is this the first time he's mentioned this apparent 'wedding'? Is she a well known piss taker with last minute holidays?)

If someone had to be there, i'd look at compromise/alternatives...could she attend and take the kids in with her? (age dependant obviously). Is there anyone else who could cover? If the wedding is an afternoon wedding, could he do a couple of hours in the morning, she do a couple of hours in the evening if she could get a babysitter when they were in bed? Could work be transferred/pushed back?

The possibilities are endless...it's not really black and white. I manage a team of 12 people, so I have had this 'kind' of dilemma before, and those are the types of things I would consider.

YANBU OP

I think it should be done on a rota basis otherwise in jobs predominantly employing mothers of young children there would be fights. it has to be fair, everybody can't have every bank holiday off, the same with xmas.

Andrew, if Jim had pre booked leave, then Jim goes off on leave.

Jane has to sort out emergency childcare.

If Jane was signed off sick on the Friday for a week, who would have covered for jane on the Saturday in that instance?

Yes, I did. I never minded working a NYE for instance, which was normally a pretty popular day for people to want off but a 'normal' day for childcare. Staying late (again on 'normal' days) was no problem for me with a bit of notice, so I once covered for someone 1.5 hours a day at the end of their shift for a week, as the equivalent of a day off etc.

I am assuming that Jim, Jane and you are the only employees though, obviously.

Jim was not on pre-booked leave; I was. Jim simply had other (and very important!) plans for Saturday and would be back on Monday.

As for your second question: one of the other parents would have mucked in, me if I had not been on pre-booked leave. But not Jim-with-the-wedding. Of course on other Saturdays Jim would help - we all did - by way of exchange. The parents then had to sort out childcare.

The point of my story is that Jane was using Jim as emergency childcare, and in a workplace where parents are given special treatment that is what is laible to happen.

System, that is the case with 99% of the mother's I have worked with.

It's the fathers that don't seem to volunteer for the crap, and those without carer responsibilities.

It always seems to be the mums and the carers.

Have people found that since the clampdown on taking term time holidays that this has caused additional problems with allocating leave in school holidays between those with and those without dcs because dps CANNOT take their dcs on holiday outside school holidays?

Much to my relief I do not have school age dcs anymore but I can see that the clampdown on term time holidays may cause problems.

Also when I was working in the NHS we ended up with the situation of most people not having school age dcs anymore and fighting over the holidays weeks outside the school holidays!!

Oh and Jane wasn't a piss-taker and Jim had mentioned the wedding earlier, in fact he'd been boring the arse off us about it for weeks!

He should have pre booked leave if he desperately wanted that exact day off. If you don't have leave in in my place of work, you are fair game for any duty that crops up.

So there were other employees other than Jim who could have worked the Saturday, not just Jim?

In that case, if she cannot access any childcare at all, can she bring the kids in? If not, then another employee will have to do it.

I'm sure Jane would have repaid the favour in some way, maybe working an extra Saturday to cover the person who stepped in for her at the last minute (unless of course she was a knob).

Christmas is different because it's for the child's benefit to see their parent not the other way round.

Posted too soon, if you care more about Christmas than a young child you are a bit strange imho.

I am a nurse and do agree that bank holidays should be shared out fairly but I have been a nurse for 15 years and for every single ward I've worked on there is a system by which you can request days off in advance. If you are really never getting your requested days then you need to take it up with your line manager. Could it possibly be that your colleagues with children are just getting in there quicker with their requests? Having also been the one to do the off duty it is a flipping nightmare keeping everyone happy. To be honest in my experience everyone is usually fighting to do bank holidays because they love the extra pay! Nursing is actually not a family friendly profession at all, I no longer work shifts and do not miss the chaos of trying to organise family life around an ever changing work Rota one little bit. Have a chat with your line manager but I bet everyone you work with Will feel hard done by in some respect. I do agree though, people with kids should not get priority, they need to take their fair share of the shitty shifts too.

monicalewinski - that may be your experience of mothers, but it is not everyone's. Until recently I worked part of my time in a GP practice where most of the employees were women with children. It was an absolute nightmare for the practice manager (a man with children) trying to arrange the rotas (not for BH or Xmas or any other national holiday because they closed for that) as all the mothers were adamant they wanted school holidays off and the very few childless employees, of both sexes, would have to cover them. This is just not possible and the PM refused to give in to them as the work needs to be done and there needs to be a certain number of staff in order to keep the practice running and do what's needed for the patients. We had a few walk out, claiming unfairness etc., but tough, really. Leave has to be fair. As someone upthread said it is work-LIFE balance that is important and everyone is entitled to a LIFE.

It will be interesting to see what will happen once everyone is entitled to ask for flexible working - whether employers will find spurious reasons for turning it down if the employee doesn't have children.

And I do have young children btw and admit that I am very lucky as I always have childcare. But the issue is not childcare - no-one, either with or without children, would refuse to help out someone who is genuinely in need of time off for childcare or because their child is ill. It is the other times when parents act completely entitled and more important than those without children that take the piss.

At my workplace ( Nursing) it is very fairly worked out. We all have to work 2 of the Bank holidays ( excluding Christmas). We get alternate Christmas days off, but very rarely would we get Xmas Day and Boxing day off. It makes no difference whether you have kids or not. Parents tend to take most of the summer holiday and half term weeks off but then again those without kids don't generally want to go away during school holiday times anyway. It is a first come first served basis with Annual leave, the weeks just prior to Christmas are already booked up !

monica Saturday - unless you were the one on duty - was not part of the working week so booking it as leave did not arise.

There were others, but none of them did it; Jane found emergency cover.

The point is that she assumed that as a non-parent Jim had no commitments that could not be abandoned. And that is just plain wrong.

Atos - I do get what you are saying about it possibly being that the parents are getting in first with their requests, but I think the ward manager/Sister should be keeping an eye on who is requesting and getting the Bank Holidays - so,if someone is always getting in first with their requests! they should be told those requests can't always be honoured, if it means other staff are losing out.

SoonToBeSix - Why shouldn't others care more about Christmas than other people's children?

Is there a reason why shifts are scheduled so frequently?

I could find out who was working Christmas this year in a few clicks (assuming I was on my work computer), and Christmas 2015/16/17/18 in a few more clicks. The shifts are there, and pretty immovable. You don't book a 2 week holiday when your scheduled to work - be that school holidays or not. If something comes up when your scheduled to work (wedding etc) you find someone to swap with.

But this is 2 days, 2 nights, 4 days off and repeat land. After a set of repeats, you get 18 days off.

How would the NHS rotas deal with this rigidity?

YANBU.
Drives me mad when people with children expect privileges like that. We have staff who are paid to work with children in a school as teaching assistants and who regularly ask for time off for things like child's play at nursery and say they will make the time up in school holidays- when there are no children here. They offer to do admin. We want them to do their job with children. Council contracts allow them to work flexibly because they aren't teachers so we have to let them and pay them. The teachers lose 3 hours pay to go to the nativity play.

A few years ago I worked in an office where we had a middle aged lady working with us she has no kids and always worked at the times when people who did wanted time off.

She had booked the day after Boxing Day off one year as a Holiday day as we were normally quiet then there should have been no problem

Her co-worker who had 2 DCs announced just before Christmas that she wanted that day off as well because she had family staying over Christmas and wanted to spend more time with them.

She was told that as the other lady had booked the time off even though we were not that busy she couldn't have it.

She really went into a strop and tried to bully her co-worker into giving up her day as 'you have no children'.

At first the other lady tried to be reasonable stating that as she did not drive and her parents lived in the North that as there were no trains running on Boxing day she wouldn't be able to get back to the Island to work the day after and would therefore not be able to go and see her family at all.

That was not good enough for the co-worker who continued to snipe and at one time burst into tears.

I will always remember what happened next the lady stood up and said ' I have something to say I haven't told anyone this as it is my business BUT my Mum is Dying she has at best 3 months to live this will be the last Christmas I will have with her, it may also be one of the last times I will see her alive so I AM taking that day off and no amount of crying and nastiness is going to stop me.

She did take the day off and just 6 weeks later her Mum died