To ask how families with non teaching parents manage DCs during school holidays?

[Sheitgeist]

Just that, really.
I am an out of work primary teacher in an area where there are rarely any vacancies. If they do crop up, there can be in excess of 100 applicants. I'd gladly be a TA, but it seems impossible to get that job too!

I'm looking outside of education now, but if I get a basic admin - or indeed any other job - I'll likely get around 5 weeks holiday. DH gets 6. Our two school age children (still at primary) get 13!
If I put them in a holiday club it will cost around £250 per week; childminder (if I can find one for school age children) would be a bit over £300. More than I'm likely to be paid!

We have parents or inlaws to help out. I'm feeling pretty unemployable now. What do other working parents do?

DD is now 15 but when she was primary school, it was a lot of holiday clubs, child swaps but holiday club $50 per day. I'm a single parent, I got 4 weeks leave which includes the christmas break leave my company provides from 24th Dec to 5th of Jan (private sector) but I'm lucky that I'm in the southern hemisphere so the Christmas holiday breaks up the summer hols. Though it means I'm only left with 2.5 leave leave for the further 9 weeks of the year. I earn a reasonable wage in a highly skilled job but it really does cut out a chunk of your income. No family near by, widowed so it was just me.

From 11-13 I had my own office, so she could do sports clubs, hang out with friends etc then come back and sit in my office so I was very lucky with that.

We have managed so far with a combination of overlapping holidays, GPs and holiday club. And a lot of luck.

We're lucky that DH is currently allowed to work from home one day a week. DS is approaching 6yo now so not sure how much longer DH's employer will allow the arrangement.

We're lucky to have both sets of GPs but they're getting on now. Dad is 80 this year. All of them have health issues which are not going to get better so we realise that they are not going to be able/willing to look after DS for extended periods of time for much longer.

We're lucky that the holiday club attached to the school is excellent, very cheap and lots of DS's schoolmates go. But the club has just increased its rate by £1 an hour, adding another £7 a day to our costs - not much compared to other places but it adds up.

We're lucky to have more than the statutory amount of annual leave. I have five weeks and DH has six. Last summer we staggered our time off, overlapping for one week. We want to take longer family holidays, though so this year we're taking two weeks off together and will have to cover the rest with holiday club so more expenditure there.

On the plus side, as time goes on we're building up a network of friends at school so we can do odd days of child swaps in the future. I will be happy to do this so DS gets more company his own age in the holidays - and he has nice friends.

So in answer, just like everyone else, we compromise our lifestyle, we sacrifice income and we take whatever help we are lucky enough to get.

School play schemes, leisure centre play schemes, children centre play schemes, trading days or even weeks with other parents, building up flexi leave, parental leave or unpaid leave as last resort. It can be done. . . It takes a lot of planning though.

We don't have one but I am pretty sure a summer au pair would be your cheapest and most flexible option. About £85 a week with a room and food.

Verbena you realise that £85 a week (£350 a month) is a lot of money for many people. Plus food. Plus a spare room to house them. Plus the avialability of au pairs (outside of London I think they are pretty much unheard of)

fourteen shall we call a truce? especially as I think we pretty much agree anyway

This thread has scared the life out if me, DD starts reception in September and i hadn't really thought about what I was going to do with her in the holidays. I spoke to some colleagues about how we were going to sort out annual leave in school holidays and was told that its on a first come, first serve basis - guess what, October and February half terms are already booked and our service (NHS so needs people to be working) is already running on skeleton staff those weeks.
This prompted me to call my very lovely and amazing childminder who has agreed to have DD in the holidays so I can breathe a sigh of relief and call a meeting with my manager to try and find a fairer system of booking leave now that 3 out of 4 of us have school holiday issues. (I'm a single parent so don't have a partner to share this stress with)
Stressful!!!

I think that many PP have highlighted what is to me, the essential difference between holidays as a teacher vs otherwise - planning and organisation. My DM was a teacher and not only do I remember long weeks of unscheduled take-it-as-it-comes time, but it has become clear that DM still can't wrap her head around the way our lives work. She will rock up with some bright idea of something she thinks the DC would like to do the next day, or even in a week's time, and is then that I have scheduled and paid for every week of the holidays months beforehand even though it has been that way since dc1 started school 8 years ago. She seems to think our DC are missing out, and to some extent I agree, and have taken advantage of them being older and DH and I being able to work @ home to give them more unscheduled time, but the organisation and advance planning are both a fact of life for working parents and a shock to the system if you are moving from either having a SAHP or having a parent who teaches.

I agree with your mum to some extent too Stealth. I remember our long, lazy Summer holidays (admittedly perhaps through rose-tinted glasses) and often feel a little guilty that DS doesn't get many days when he can get up late and just stay in his pyjamas all morning or mooch about in the sun in the garden.

bitoutofpractice my £85 per week was a lot cheaper than the OPs £250-300 for holiday club or childminder though.

We live in a rural area in East anglia and quite a few families have an au pair if both parents are working.....and that's a full time au pair, not just in the hols. It works for them very well and they aren't all wealthy. It's just a significant saving compared to other options.

I work when DH is at home. He works full time Mon-Fri 9am-5pm and I work part time (24 hours) Friday and Saturday nights 8pm-8am.

It means we can take our annual leave together and use it for things other than childcare (like DIY projects or family weddings etc). Also means zero childcare costs for our 4 children!

I am a SAHM so do all childcare during the holidays. I do get asked quite a bit to have friends children but try go be firm but polite. We struggle financially because I stay at home. It shouldn't be up to me to look after others children. My Sil took great offence to this but her children are her responsibility not mine.

Let's hope you don't get sick and need emergency childcare then eh Butterfly?

Late to the thread but here is our solution - I work in a corporate job and requested annualised hours so I get paid for a 4.5 day week (actually work something like 45 hours a week, but hey ho) "bank" my half days to save for school holidays and then take as and when necessary. I am very upfront about my holidays and do occasionally do a bit of work to keep projects ticking over (mainly in the evenings) but is working really well for me. This way I can cover 80% of holidays and then DH and aupair do the rest

If I was sick my DH would take the day off or I would pay for childcare. I am sure most people make proper arrangements for their children. Unfortunately I have been bitten in the past by a Mum at the school. She got a full time job and expected the other Mums to have her kids on a regular basis without anything in return.

Butterfly is right to refuse people who want to take advantage. A teacher friend had DS for a day in the holidays last year and I reciprocated the following week, I wouldn't expect her to do it for nothing just because she's at home anyway with her own children.

That would be like expecting a holiday club to take your child for free because they're open anyway.

I am a SAHM and we have made mega sacrifices so that I can be one - not just out of idealism particularly but logistics and my job not being family friendly in the slightest.

So one perk of it I only just realised (DC only just in school) was the holiday/assembly/play thing. I can't imagine how the fuck people do the holidays :( how do you get time together if you have to tag team with your DH? and how the FUCK do you do it alone!

For me this is a national rather than individual problem. I don't think the kids should be at school longer, or that people should just not have kids or quit working or whatever lazy "told you so" smugness is trotted out. But rather lobby employers, or government to rethink childcare voucher support and more parent friendly workplaces. That genuinely do support working parents rather than lip service.

Ideas:
Imagine if you could save small a chunk of your salary through the year towards an unpaid August? So you are paid 11 months over 12. Plus holidays as normal. It could be called a "parent contract" - if employers did it the gov could subsidise or get apprentices in over August etc etc

Or upping the number of paid leave days for working parents - maybe an option of a number of "parent days" at half pay?

Or I dunno - maybe that is all stoopid. But Mumsnet is a pretty powerful lobbying force: what do you actually think would work?

A lot of mothers (and yes it is far more likely to be mothers) are effectively pressured to leave work because of unaffordable/unsuitable/insufficient after school/holiday care. Alternatively they're pressured into part-time work that doesn't leave them with much income after paying for wrap around care (even if they're only paying 50% of it).

That leaves many women with little savings/pension of their own and struggling to support themselves/their family in the event of illness of a partner/divorce etc.

I'd vote for the party that committed to providing quality, affordable wrap around care for all and/or bringing school hours/terms into the 21st century.

Sorry if someone else has already said this. Dc now young adults, but we used to employ local sixth-formers during the holidays. They were happy with the money, we were happy with the childcare.

Hear hear Nancy, quite right!

Rather than each family shouldering the burden themselves enabling employers and government to do nothing, we should be passing it onto the employer so that they are forced to consider parents (and guardians, and carers) when drawing up contracts and thinking about crèche/childcare facilities.

Hopefully we are moving (slowly) towards a future where flexible working and on site childcare will be the norm.

Makes far more sense to me than extending school days and terms.

Yes: when I was younger young my Dad's firm (American) had a holiday kids club. It was ace! It even had a pool. That was a super wealthy firm however, but it can be done.

This thread is so interesting but I thought at one point it was going to turn into 'no one has such a difficult time as me'. Luckly some people brought it back on track.

My thoughts are now that if you have little in the way of qualifications, a lone parent, no friends/family nearby, live in the middle of nowhere etc OF COURSE its going to be more difficult. There is no getting away from that but some of this is under YOUR control.

You can make decisions based on your own personal circumstances otherwise you trap yourself in the 'woe is me' mindset.

I was always London and Home Counties based. DH wasnt and moved miles away to get the career he wanted. Consequently we had little in the way of GD support (a little) as they were also in their mid 70's when we had the children.

I have my tin hat at the ready but I have found over the years less and less people are taking personal responsibility for their own decisions and the situations they have found themselves in.

As others have said - you have to make it work. No one forces you to have children with certain partners, no one forces you to stay where employment rates are low, no one forces you to fall out with your family so no one is speaking to you. Sometimes you just need to decide for yourself what will work for you.

FWIW - I didnt have a university education, went to a rubbish sec modern school. My children now go to a lovely boarding school where they have done better than I could ever dream possible. They hve opportunities and chances I never had. They have that confidence to try anything once (something I never had until much later on) and ocassionally when they can get a bit too big for their boots we bring them back down to earth

No one forces you to have children with certain partners

Actually yes, they do in extreme cases.

This 'you chose it, deal with IT' is horrible.

Hillingdon: "you have to make it work"

Yes and this thread is full of dozens and dozens of parents doing eaxctly that in myriad different ways.

Please do come back when something goes wrong in your life through no fault of your own - divorce, illness, bereavement, redundancy, whatever and see if you feel the same about the "choices" you have made. YOur smuggity smugness has made me feel actually nauseous nothing to do with the Easter cupcakes

Hillingdon - I do agree that to a certain extent, people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. Yes you can decide where to live, what job to do, where to have children etc, but its not always a question of making good decisions = being in a position to cover school holidays. I think you're being a little blasé about that.

There are other contributing factors to consider - the economy, age of your parents perhaps when they had you (and therefore ability to help with childcare), house prices when you were say in your 20s, opportunity etc which have a massive impact on someone's life and are to a large extent outside of your control.

Don't get me wrong, you can't sit back and wait for someone to hand a nice life to you on a plate, but not everyone is lucky enough (and I do think luck comes into it) to make their life the way they want it. That's not a "woe is me" attitude - its just saying, I'm in this particular situation, I'm looking for advice as to how to make it work.