To wonder what working parents are meant to do in school holidays?

[StepAwayFromGoogle]

DD1 starts school in September. DP and I both work because we can't afford for either one of us to be off. I have applied for part time but my work have been spectacularly backward and refused point blank, which is a whole other thread. I am looking for another job but work in a very specific field in a very specific industry so it's not looking likely that I'll get something, much less part time.
DD1 school have a before and after school club which is over subscribed so she won't get in for the first year. We have scrabbled around and managed to cover the week with GPs and a childminder.
So on to the holidays. DD1 will have 13 weeks off school a year. Between us, me and DP will have just under 10 weeks holiday. AIBU to think that if the govt wants parents (particularly mothers) to work then there needs to be better holiday provision? I'm not blindingly sure what working parents are expected to do after 3pm every day and for the 13 weeks children are off in the year. At the moment all our holiday days will be spent covering time off school and we won't be able to have a holiday together as a family.

BWatchWatcher

Holiday clubs, staggering days of leave. It is grim sad

Why grim? It doesn’t need to be grim.

Combination of fab holiday clubs.
And then I take leave.

Taking leave. In the summer holidays. Spending with my children in days out / holidays / chilled days at home.

Lovely. It’s really not so bad.

As for the other holidays - similar.

I think that workers should get longer statutory holiday time in line with school holidays (plus that means that those without kids benefit as well) or better childcare provisions.

You think commercial, shareholding companies should offer all employees ~13 weeks of holiday every year, and that it should (presumably) tie in with when school holidays are?

I'm not sure you've thought this through.

I think this is an example of patriarchial society in action.

In the past men ( breadwinners) would be working, women would stay at home to look after the children, who would also be used for crop picking in the summer months.

Long summer holidays don't matter if you have a partner ( uaually a woman) at home to look after children.

Same is true of a working week- 40 hours is too long, and if both parents work full time it is a massive juggling act.

Again the 40 hour week favours a working parent with spouse at home.
We need a shake up.
A 25 hour week, maybe not Monday- Friday, with a shorter summer break

Oh and I’m a single parent.

My ex has booked 2 days off for the entire summer holiday. Noble of him! his loss in my opinion

School is for educating your DC, stop viewing it as free childcare.

So many people saying don't have kids if you can't afford them. Let's be honest, if the only people to have kids were the ones who could easily afford every aspect of child rearing without difficulty we'd soon have a population crisis.

I hear a lot of people talking about limiting to 3-4 day weeks to spread jobs around better, maybe increasing everyone's annual leave would be another way to do this.

Combination of my annual leave, dh take some days off while i work, vice versa, work from home and childminder. This leave some holidays for us to spend together as a family.

Yes the goverment encourages mums to go back to work, but you and your partner decided to have children the goverment didn't make thet decision for you! Unfortunately childcare costs are part and parcel of having a family.

We work back to back, dh days, me evenings. Not ideal but saves money on childcare. It meant giving up a career to just do a 'job' for me but I knew this when I had children.

The government make plenty of financial decisions for us and our tax money though. Quite often the wrong ones.

*I assume that this is the village you grew up in, then? Are neither your parents nor your partner's parents nearby?

You can't possibly have moved to a small rural village when you had, or were planning to have, small children. Given that rural villages are populated by old people, and everybody knows they have no services for young families, such a move would have been idiotic.

@JennyinGucci you are a spectacular dickhead. No, it wasn't the village I grew up in. I grew up in the city of Glasgow, where childcare options for Ds1 were in abundance. I was a single parent but managed, with the help of my mum and the plethora of holiday clubs etc. Fast forward ten years, and I met DH, a farmer, and we set up farming in the Yorkshire Dales. Not such an "idiotic move". Did you not realise that farming takes place rurally?
As for grandparents helping out, my mum is now in her 80s, in a care home with bowel cancer and dementia. Otherwise, she'd love to help with her grandchildren I'm sure. My father died thirty years ago last week. Dh's parents are still alive, but are in their late 80s, in reasonable health if a bit frail - and live a six hour drive away.

Try looking at life outside of your own little bubble. It'll make you a far more rounded, empathetic person.

The issue is more that families can no longer get by on one wage and you need two just to survive

And the more that the state subsidises childcare, the less and less possible it becomes for families to get by on one wage. The price of housing is by and large based on supply and demand. The more families that have two incomes, the higher house prices go and the less and less possible it is for families to survive on one income. If the state subsidises one kind of family it by default penalises the other. And as just about every survey shows, the vast majority of parents want to spend more time with their children not less. Subsidising childcare makes more makes this less and less and less possible.

At the same time, relying on two incomes makes families far, far more vulnerable to economic downturns and job losses. Works like Elizabeth Warren's The Two Income Trap, spell this out very clearly. While clearly women shouldn't be forced to stay home when they become mothers, the opposite is also true. Families who want to have a parent at home with their children, should not both be forced to work. Not least because of how financially insecure it leaves the household. But because children, like everyone else, really just need proper down time and even the most fun after-school club just isn't downtime.

Op is getting a really hard time here. Even if you have children having fully researched all childcare options, it’s still a massive juggling act.
For those of you saying go in to teaching for this reason, have you considered the reality of that? Never being able to drop off or pick up your kids? Therefore having to pay for breakfast clubs and after school clubs. Breakfast clubs don’t generally start until 7.45/8 , I have to be at work (in a school across town) by 730/7.45. Childminders are massively over subscribed.

Op I agree with you- there is no real incentive for mothers to work when they have young children. The state should subsidise childcare. Money should be taken from increased taxes and out of budgets elsewhere (defence?!) the economy would benefit from having more women back in the workplace.

Op in the meantime you just have to do the best you can and try not to feel the guilt!

It is a mixture of one i work term-time only but in a different authority so doesnt always match, holiday club that isnt covering dc’s easter holiday this time as they are covering the neighbouring school with a different easter, one remaining fit grandparent who does odd days, dh takes lots of odd days to cover aickness and the easter dates i cant cover, and as a result in his last appraisal was told he wasn't a team player.

Day-to-day i pick up one day at the school bell, dh picks up one day as he condenses his hours to leave at 2.30 on a Friday, mil does one day and after school club the other two. They go to breakfast club every day.

Has your dh applied for flexible working, or just you?

Sorry, bold fail.

And transpants just added a bit more to the guilt

We split our annual leave so only have our main summer holiday as a family, then me and my H cover the majority of the rest between us, supplemented by a childminder, holiday clubs and the occasional family member offering to help. We factor in the holiday care costs throughout the year and put a bit away each month so it spreads the cost.

Sorry trancepants even

@Jenniferturkington I know not all teachers can but I can drop and collect mine. So not impossible.

It absolutely is the Government’s fault! They are the ones who cut childcare subsidies and funding with their stupid Austerity measures.

When I started childminding in 2002, there were over 100,000 childminders. Now there are around 39,000 and dropping more each year directly because of Government policies putting them out of business.

We used to have community childminders that were trained and specialised in children with additional needs. All gone with Austerity - we were too expensive, as were the subsidised after school and holiday clubs.

As well as all these cuts, The People voted for 30 hours “free” childcare for 3-4 year olds instead. The rest of childcare provision is subsidising it from what little budget they have and parents are paying the price.

Me and my DH work together so can be a bit flexible about working through school holidays but its tough juggling holiday clubs esp as they vary in price quite massively, lots are 10-3 which isnt that practical for working parents and my kids only want to go if friends are going. Lots of their friends have one SAHP so dont always need a holiday club for all day... and now dd is at secondary school shes too old for most clubs.

I put ds into prep school, which meant I could drop him at 0730 and pick up at 1900 after prep and dinner. He got three meals a day and was occupied the whole time. It was not possible to find a childminder who would work to my hours.

I also retrained as a teacher,which meant I covered lots of the holidays. When there was a problem, ds either went to stay with his paternal GPS 180 miles away, or my Mum, who moved to be near us when she retired, would step in. Dh would help when he could, but being HM Forces at the time, things could, and did, alter.

JockTamsensbairns We moved to a rural village before we had ds, as I don't like cities all that much. It worked for us, play groups etc, and lots to do when I did a job share prior to retraining to teach.

Holiday clubs. We found one that was 8.30-6. £40 a day. He went all holidays apart from when we took annual leave to go abroad (max three weeks per year). Just wait til they hit senior school and no holiday clubs - that's when the fun starts believe me

stepawayfromgoogle you could email the leader of the council and your MP.

Where I live we are finding there are a lot of housing developments, but huge pressure on school places, Doctors surgeries etc. Lots of flats being developed, so more residents. Supply just isn’t meeting demand.