To think that annual leave should be used primarily to cover the school holidays?

[Windymills]

DH and I have one DD, 6. DH works full time and I part time, 3 days a week. Obviously this means that during the school holidays we require childcare 3 days a week.

It is my belief that as much as possible, this is what our respective annual leave should be used for, covering school holidays. This means mostly taking leave at different times although we do go on a family holiday together. It also means that there isn't much leave left for anything else.

Fortunately my parents live nearby and they have her a few times during the holidays (not masses - they're having her 5 times during summer for example). This is lucky as we wouldn't easily be able to afford much paid childcare.

DH still likes to pursue various hobbies and as a result books a handful of days off each year which are for him solely. This is where we are in disagreement. He thinks that he should be entitled to do this. I however think that our leave should be for the whole family's benefit, whether that be a holiday or day out together or just looking after DD. It goes without saying that I don't do this.

I think he's quite presumptive that my parents will look after her so he can effectively go on his jollies.

AIBU?

I have two days a week when I'm home without DS (he's just over 3) and I don't use those days to do housework as such but more to relax, see my friends, do things I wouldn't normally get the chance to do. As long as I've washed up, put a load of washing on, I've got something sorted for tea and the kitchen is tidy I generally class that as my housework for the day. I probably spend about 1-2 hours doing housework/house stuff done and then use the rest of the time to myself.

My DH also plays cricket on a Saturday so I feel your pain.

Space your jobs out so you're doing some at the weekend. Your DH obviously doesn't view weekends as 'family time' so don't run yourself ragged in the week with the purpose to free up the weekend.

My DH does a lot of sport, playing it and going to watch it and if I'm working it's always:

Can you ask your mom if she'll look after DS....

Can you ask your dad if he'll look after DS.....

Do you think your sister will look afterwards DS......

It drives me mad. I just tell him to ask them himself. My attitude now is that if he wants the childcare to pursue his hobbies then he can arrange it.

Household admin, phone calls etc

Sorry if I'm being daft but what's household admin? By taking phonecalls do you mean business calls or generally answering the phone?

"It's all very well saying send her to play schemes for a few days, but that money adds up and then DH wouldn't be able to afford the few things he does so it all becomes a bit pointless!"

If him using annual leave to do something for himself means you need paid childcare at another point in the year, then he needs to factor that in as part of the cost and work his hobby accordingly, surely?

Having worked PT since my dc were born (so over 10 years now) I can see how DH (who's worked FT from the age of about 21 to 50) is getting quite burnt out. Call it midlife crisis or depression but it's significant because we are totally reliant on him bringing that wage in.

So personally, I think if he can continue some hobby or have the odd day off for complete relaxation, fair enough. Equally you should have the odd day off to pursue whatever you're interested in/see friends or whatever.

But what we did is pretty much stop all hobbies, used all annual leave (mostly separately) and it doesn't eventually make for a happy family imhv. You get to a point where you just wonder what it's all for.

Do your parents mind? And can you really not afford two day's childcare a year? Personally I think it's worth it. One day those dc leave and you have to have something left I think. Friends, interests, hobbies - whatever.

Well. I was planning to go into town this morning but have decided that actually none of what I was going to do was urgent today and will just have to be done over the weekend instead. So instead I am sat here with a coffee on MN

Sorry if I'm being daft but what's household admin? By taking phonecalls do you mean business calls or generally answering the phone?

You know, when you have to phone the bank or a utility provider or whatever? Book a doctors appointment for somebody? Do something online? Obviously this isn't every day but I was just trying to demonstrate the kind of stuff that is easier for me to do than DH during the day

Household admin:
Insurance, Council tax, bills, movjng money around to keep solvent, letters to Child Benefit office, dealing with all forms and letters and one off payments to school nursery, booking a holiday, booking dentist, dr, haircuts, being in for or going to post office for deliveries, family liaison over birthdays, get togethers, Christmas, etc.

purplecollar, seconding everything in your last sentence. You have to invest in yourselves as a couple as well as individuals and parents.

Having dependant children at home is such a short part of your lives together (hopefully) and there has to be something more than that.

We are by no means wealthy, and were even less so when our kids were little, but I could manage to save £30 for a night in a Travelodge and a bag of chips for tea. Ok, I'm sure plenty of people will sneer at that, but it was fun, which tends to be in short supply when you have kids and work and responsibilities.

Yes exactly?

What I've done in terms of admin type tasks this week (non housework stuff) includes phonecall about ds's eyetest, choosing and buying gifts for nursery workers & teachers, measuring ds's feet and taking him for new shoes, arranging a car service, making a payment to ds' school, transferring money between bank accounts, going to bank to pay cash in, paying childminder, sorting visa paperwork, booking swimming classes for after the summer, booking stop-off hotels for holiday. Much of this done on working days, mostly stuff that ends up on women's plates whether they work full time, part time or stay at home.

I hate it when posters write nonsense like 'I have no admin, so how can you?' Your amount of admin has no bearing on another families amount.

Today I have spent 3 hours doing the following admin - organising costumes for dds next performance, organising a triathlon for dd1 and booking the necessary accommodation, investing some money for them they've got from their grandparents.
Rather obviously if one of your daughters doesn't do ballet, and the other doesn't do sport, and yo didn't get money from your gps, then you would have had no admin to do. I did though.

I think people accept that there is admin to be done but more that it doesn't (accumulated over a year) take substantial time. For example I imagine arethereany 's list would take about an hour or so in total but next week s/he may have nothing.

I've just wracked my brains for what admin I've done this week and I've come up with: completing DD's parents' evening letter (2 minutes), reading DS's trip letter (2 minutes), ringing school (5 minutes), replying to email from scout leader (2 minutes), paying balance of summer holiday (2 minutes). Which feels about "average" for a normal week and tends to get overlooked because other than ringing the school they were all done between things so I didn't really notice them.

It could also be that the amount of admin you do is, like housework, has a certain degree of how much you make of it.

Some people seem to do an awful lot of cleaning, but I'm surprised how many comments there's been along the lines of 'there can't be that much cleaning'. It doesn't sound like the DH is doing much and there's always kitchens, bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, washing, window cleaning etc etc as well as cooking, shoppin etc. It's not a 2 minute job and certainly adds workload that bridges the gap between the hours put in by her and her DH.

Likewise with admin. There's a few threads this week that have demonstrated what can go wrong if you don't keep on top of household admin. Someone paid £300 too much mortgage interest every month for four years and they are now trapped on an unnecessarily expensive deal, another has got in a mess with HMRC and there are threads complaining about increasing prices for utilities and insurance.

So it is vital to keep on top of this sort of thing - it can make a huge difference to family finances - the OP may earn less, but she can top that up significantly by making sure the family is always paying the best price for all their bills. Someone needs to keep on top and drive these things. Plus there's all the things about dentists, haircuts etc. I wonder if the OPs DH has ever thought about sorting out a dental appointment, haircut or eye test for his DD?

I disagree there is never a week without admin for many families. It doesn't just take the time it takes to do it, it's the thinking about it, planning, remembering - so did it take me long to phone the garage to book in a service? No, but I've had to keep in my mind when it's time for one and look through the calendar for suitable dates when I won't need the car. I think DH's head is mostly full of football scores when he's not thinking about work, he has so little responsibility load going on in his brain. This is hard to change unfortunately though I do plug away at it.

I do our "admin" because I choose to. It would be ridiculous for both of us to twat about with it, as we would still have to waste time discussing it to make sure things didn't get done twice or not at all.

A lot of these onerous tasks that are quoted take ten minutes once a year. You get a renewal for whatever, go on a comparison site, see if you can get it cheaper and pay for it. Paying bills? Do it by direct debit. Dentist appointments, eye tests, haircuts? I honestly can't see what is so complicated when they are small, unless you work full time Monday-Friday, but the OP has two free week days. You look at your calendar, find a good day, make an appointment, then go and do it. Make all the appointments on one day and get it over with.

Please note, I'm not making excuses for the OP's DH at all. Free time should be divided equally between partners, and also between family time and individual time with the bias towards family time (otherwise why bother having a family?). Housework should also be shared fairly, but not necessarily equally. Assuming DH works full time; if I'm at home full time, I expect to do the bulk of it. If I work part time I expect to do say three quarters. If I work full time, I expect a totally even split.

Nope red sky - it took 3 hours as detailed, I spent a long time making sure I made the right investments as it was a good amount of money. Next week will be similar, I've made a list - Monday I will be booking a camping holiday for us and 5 other families, Tuesday i will be sorting logistics for dd1s very complicated training schedule etc . I don't need to justify though really, I'm just saying that the admin for MY family, take s at least an hour a day.

If he's having a few days over the year to himself to do whatever he wants, why not. That seems fair to me provided the bulk of his leave is used for you to go on family holidays.

For both of us, at least 20 days of our annual leave is used on joint family holidays but we both have the odd days off to do our own thing eg long weekends away with our own friends.

It seems fairly reasonable to me.

I'm not sure why so many people are getting hung up on the minutiae of what I do on my "days off" and even starting new threads about it.

My question was just is it right to use annual leave for things over than childcare (when we can't easily afford paid childcare.)

Not quibbling over whether I should be doing top up shops in the week or why I haven't learnt to drive.

is it right to use annual leave for things over than childcare (when we can't easily afford paid childcare.)

My answer is yes it is, because it's important to have time doing things other than looking after children.

BUT these "things other than childcare" should be split evenly between you, and the NUMBER of days of "things other than childcare" is something that you should discuss and agree.

But you having time during the week is directly relevant to your question, it can't not be mentioned.

But the minutiae of what you do is COMPLETELY relevant, as it seems it's alright for you to have time off but not your dh.

Today I have spent 3 hours doing the following admin - organising costumes for dds next performance, organising a triathlon for dd1 and booking the necessary accommodation, investing some money for them they've got from their grandparents.

ha ha ha - most people manage this kind of thing whilst working full time - only on mumsnet does this kind of thing seem to warrant admiration

Um sleepy, I do work. Never said I didn't. My point, which you missed, is that how much admin you have to do for your family makes fuck all difference to how much someone else has to do.

I don't think having some time to yourself (if you can manage to avoid household tasks) between school run times (9 and 3?) once a week (as you'd need the other day for household stuff surely or the do needs to do 50%) would give you time for a hobby in the same way that a few days away would.

arethereanyleftatall, exactly. So whilst OP's husband works full time I am sure he loves hearing just how much 'admin' his wife has spent her two child free days doing!