To think school isnt a childminding service

[Xcountry]

So many posts about schools closing half day for end of term and god forbid you have to be there for your child.
Teacher strikes so you have to be there for your child.
School holidays so you have to be there for your child.
Child was ill and got sent home so you have to be there for your child.

Am I the only one who reads this and thinks well yes your career is probably important but you chose to have your children and this comes as part and parcel of being a parent? A school is not a childminding service. Yes it can be a pain in the backside to juggle and work around but that is what happens when you have children, they impact on your professional life and your social life.

Ah, now we have the real answer. Op is perfect parent. Rest of the world isn't....

Xcountry you may be happy taking a part-time job around the children, but the consequence of that, if every single woman does that is that women's skills are woefully underused as most part-time jobs are not at the same level as full time professional ones. We have a massive underused capacity of well trained well educated women working silly hours around school hours in the UK- in some other countries where there is greater representation of women both in management/politically there is better childcare. Even just having people use buses pick up at 8am would be an improvement, in the UK much of the school seems to require an individual parent present at strange times of the day and for everyone to congregate, with cars or walking, at the school premises. This is massively inefficient and disruptive to people wishing to work as well as those living around the school.

I do think of school as part of childcare to be honest, I would be prosecuted if I didn't send my children there (or provide a HE alternative myself) and would have to pay for alternative childcare if they weren't there. I don't understand what 'not childcare' means- they have a duty for care and legal responsibility for children to educate them during certain set hours- there is a childcare aspect to this even if this is not the whole of what they do. I pay taxes to enable this, and could choose to pay more privately if I wanted different hours or a different type of education.

It is extremely annoying when schools act as if they are not part of a wider community and society and I don't think it is tenable for us as a society to continue to keep funding that for very limited hours. I find it bizarre that at the last school my children attended, no-one is allowed on the premises before 8.40 and have to be off by 3pm. No afterschool/breakfast club. This means there are unused facilities, playground equipment available for many usuable hours a day- all just locked up by the caretaker as apparently these are only to be used for education. Why not community projects, why not out of school childcare, why not for sports clubs? I find this an unsustainable model of what a school is and the more forward thinking schools indeed do have a wider range of activities on their premises and work alongside the working patterns of the general population- otherwise why are we sinking our taxes into them?

Great post, pole

xcountry I'm assuming either your DH earns substantially more than you, or you have other income, to post such bloody annoying opinions such as women taking lower paid work?

Regarding infants and juniors finishing at different times - I do think that is ridiculous and I would be one of the ones moaning if that was the case in our school.

I'm very lucky in that work, home, school and childminders are all within ten minutes of each other. So I work full time but use my lunch hour in work to collect the children and drop them to the childminders. If I had two pick up times half an hour apart this would be impossible though, and make it pretty much impossible for me to work.

Even if it wasn't to do with work, I wouldn't want to have to hang around for half an hour waiting tbh.

What genius came up with that idea?

Of course he earns substantially more than me. I'm not saying its a perfect solution. I earn 160 quid a week but you don't hear me moaning that we had no TV in the sitting room for 3 weeks or the tumble dryers packed in again and I have to wait for DH to fix it all the time because I chose to take a lower paid job to fit around the kids, but I have to sit and listen to self righteous people moan about bloody schools not being at their every whim for their children, even wanting the government to lengthen school days, sending kids to breakfast clubs, then school, then after school clubs and whingeing because these are not on in holidays etc and they have to find a childminder,

Did I know money would be tight when I opted to have my family and take different work? yes, do I whinge about it everywhere? no.

Ho hum, more middle class thick smuggoes unable to see beyond the end of their own noses. If you've got a rich husband, of course you can take some pissy little part time job so you can 'be there' for your children.

As to blaming the poor for their 'bad planning' in having children and not being prepared for the problems of juggling school and work - engage your brains and consider this. School age children, whether planned or unplanned, were concieved BEFORE Cameron and co came into power and embarked on their War On The Poor with all its conflicting demands and vicious propaganda.

Well xcountry what the fuck do you suppose those of us who earn a wage which pays the mortgage should so? It wouldn't be a case of fewer holidays - it would be a council house.

DH and I are in an equal relationship, so excuse me if I have the odd whinge about the ridiculous lack of wrap around care in this country whilst you pick apples in the sun.

Ho hum, more middle class thick smuggoes unable to see beyond the end of their own noses. If you've got a rich husband, of course you can take some pissy little part time job so you can 'be there' for your children

What a nasty post.

I've still arranged my job, as has my dh so that we minimise the time the dc spend in childcare and have a degree of flexibility for sick days/snow days/early finishes etc.

It's nothing to do with being a 'thick middle class smuggoe', it's to do with being a grown up with responsibilities and amending your choices to best fit your own family.

How wonderful that you describe anyone not working full time as having a 'pissy little part time job'. Chip on your shoulder much.

Fuck me, talk about bitter.

If it's so horrendously bad having both parents working full time then change it. Move to a smaller house, rent instead of buy.

No need to rip people who make different choices to shreds.

Xcountry, you will have a reduced pension, reduced career opportunities and reduced earnings over a lifetime even accounting for the time-out. You are happy to make your sacrifice, however I am arguing that it should be a choice, a genuine one, not enforced due to lack of childcare/wrap around care, which massively discriminates against women who are still, in the main, primarily responsible for childcare in the UK- including childcare in school hours. You are arguing for a lifestyle choice (I can't chose it, I have to work f/t and still struggle to pay the rent). I am arguing you need to see that this is your own personal individual choice and that others simply do not have it. It also has wider political implications for the position of women in society, and as I'm bring two girls up, I'm pretty keen for this not to remain the status quo by the time they are required to make the identical choice (which isn't one if there aren't any other options) themselves for want of childcare.

washing most of us on two salaries in the UK are barely managing to survive, financially, working extremely hard and wondering why the UK is spectacularly bad at providing reasonable provision for pre-school care and wrap around care. Then we wonder why women are paid so much less and struggle to advance in our careers. We have so much to learn from our Nordic counterparts.

Pole, excellent post. Far better than I could be arsed to write once I saw ops posts about how we should really all follow her example as she has it right and the rest don't. :)

Do you not see we are all dependent on each other? If women with children can't work, that's more tax for your husband to pay, that's less wealth in the economy and less pay for your husband, that's fewer teachers in the classroom , that's your house in negative equity. And if that means that teachers are to some extent child carers as well as educators, I would argue it is in their economic interests to do it. And I don't know at what point they became so grand as not to see that as part of their role that the general public pay for them to do, Thee would have been no economic growth in this country without women with children working more and more.

How do you support the children on low paid, part time work, OP? Plus, not everyone can do that or has the option to do it.

This is a ridiculous post, so naive and unintelligent.

Of course school isn't a childminding service, it's school. Somewhere my child is required to be. If I want them to take time off during term time it's prohibited, but the other way around, then suck it up? We have to live with it but that doesn't make it easy for those that have to, or choose to work.

The difficulty is that school is enforced unless you're homeschooling (and obviously that's not conducive to work) so that removes the option of childcare / nursery settings that have work appropriate hours. So, yes it's not a childminding service (you must win wards for your observation skills, OP) but given the obligatory nature of it, it would make sense to be a little more respectful of parents who work.

"but given the obligatory nature of it, it would make sense to be a little more respectful of parents who work"

Hear hear!

Xcountry - the difficulty of juggling work and school is not just an issue for people with a career, it's an issue for anyone with any level of job who is working for someone else. You have to commit to a contract of x hours on x days in most cases. You get x days holiday and x days dependants leave to play with. Once this is used up, you are dependant on other people to help or potentially unpaid leave if your company can accommodate it.

The school holidays alone are normally more than a person's/ couple's annual leave. Striking, inviting parents in during the school day to watch/ join in activities and half days only add to the pressure.

No-one thinks that a school is a childminding service or that they shouldn't be there for their children but a job's hours and leave policies are defined based on the needs of the company not around what your child's school wants to do so it's simply not possible for most people to work around a school's entire schedule and the more extra days/parent invites a school adds on top of the standard school term schedule, the more pressure it adds to a family. When people 'moan' about these things it's because they are stressed and under pressure to cover more and more days/hours out of the school term which in some cases could be avoided and are simply asking for schools to be mindful of this and not put them in unnecessary difficult and stressful situations for the sake of being able to finish their job 2 hours early because it's nice for them. Parents under stress also do not help make for an enjoyable family life for children.

I think you are being unsympathetic and uncaring, just because you are luckily enough to be able to work around every holiday / illness / strike without being mindful of the fact that your situation is not the norm and you are lucky

Washing - our local council came up with the idea and it's been like that for years so they must think it works.

Infants work 30 mins less per day, so there aren't a lot of ways of getting around it.

I once worked in a school in England when the kids had a playtime from 3.00 till 3.20 and were then allowed to go home which was another form of madness.

We had to stand in the playground and supervise the pupils while all their parents were standing around wanting to take them home.

Well, OP you might want to research the history of universal state education to see that keeping the (wc) kids off the streets all day was actually one of the main drivers of education provision.

Also 1/3 to 1/4 of pregnancies are unplanned so it's actually only a minority of women who plan all their children. So your second argument falls flat too.

Thirdly, what is wrong with a 'childminding service'. Do mums not deserve a break?

Most people that schools will close for holidays, strikes, training day and there is a good educational rationale for these closures.

What merit is there in finishing at lunchtime on the last day? I can see no rationale for it whatsoever, even if it is technically a training day there is likely to be fuck all training happening unless you count the teachers pissing off early to the pub to get leathered coubts as team building.

See, generally there are parts of raising kids which are diffcult/tedious/stressful/expensive etc.

normally parents try to be sympathetic and supportive towards one another. I knew before I had kids that there would be broken nights and shitty nappies. It didn't make me impervious to the tiredness and wanting a good shower. Nor did it make people unsympathetic when I moaned about these things.

so, can I have a moan about the pressure & stress caused by gaps in unexpected needs for childcare? It's part of parenting, I know it will happen, but when I end up with 3 different people caring for dd (while I work, and DH is away), including one of them driving her across town to the next shift, another one sorting out dinner, and the final shift getting her to bed, then YES, I get stressed and worry. And I moan about it/share with my friends about my worries.

It's actually a sign of being a good parent. A shit one wouldn't bother.

DH isn't rich, I would hardly call 26 grand a year rich and I am far from middle class. Maybe it is just because of the time of year but it all seems to be moaning and finally after reading thread after thread I thought to myself 'did no one realise this prior to having children?' None of this is new.

Strikes happened when I was at school, Half days before term happened when I was at school, training days happened when I was at school but like another poster before said - people just got on with it. Like I said before if people are entitled to moan about it, then surely I am entitled to moan about hearing about it.

the school hours/holidays/inset days etc isn't inline with current facts that most families have both parents at work now. And if you'd asked me about school hours before I had my dc, I'd have felt the same, I just feel it more vigorously now as it directly affects me. The solution is more women working and demanding better wraparound care, reform etc. not fewer.

Strikes happened when I was at school, Half days before term happened when I was at school, training days happened when I was at school but like another poster before said - people just got on with it. Like I said before if people are entitled to moan about it, then surely I am entitled to moan about hearing about it.

When I was at primary school (1970s) there were no training days and parents weren't expected to turn up to assemblies and other school events during the day as they are nowadays.

Whatever. My mum turned up to everything!

She was head of the PTA and even sat on the stage with the head teacher. (I'm still traumatized)