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.

This is why it’s important to realise this before you have a child.

@Inliverpool1

How come blow your mind? Too high?

Why is it still so difficult for working families?

Nearly 40 years ago as a single parent I had the same problem. I used a combination of nurseries, childminders, family members, holiday clubs, friends and students who came in. 20-odd years ago, when I had my last child, the before-and-after school club was born, and it morphed into a out-of-school club in the holidays. It was fantastic, and it made all the difference.

Now I have grand children (aged 6 months to 10 years old), and their parents struggle in the holidays. I would love to be able to help out - but they've raised the retirement age, and I am going to have to work until they are all in their teens (except for the baby). I can't afford to retire, and I feel so sad about it, because I love looking after the children.

I cannot imagine 4 babies, under 12 months old in the care of one person. Even two people with 8, three people with 12. It’s a lot of babies

Is holiday provision really that poor? Admittedly I am in London but there is loads of choice, including one at dd1’s school, one at dd2’s nursery and one at work. The ymca run another option, as does the Council. Those are all very affordable compared to nursery sat about £20 per day, and you can use childcare vouchers. Then there’s a plethora of sports camps, forest schools, mad science days, music camps, theatre camps etc which are admittedly a bit more pricey but cheaper than nursery. We also do a lot of swapping favours with other parents and neighbours.

UK is pretty crap with this stuff. Just look at Norway/Sweden etc to see how much better it could be.

We cracked and got a nanny/babysitterfor school pick ups, it is great, she does homework/dinner. She isn’t a registered childminder but we pay through an agency so we can still use childcare vouchers.

For holidays we use holiday clubs. Kings Camp is great because it is one of the few that do 8.30-5.30 and accept childcare vouchers. If you book in early Jan/Feb you get 10% off as well.

Leisure centres often do good clubs quite cheaply.

It is a ball ache but it can be done.

I use a mix of

Annual Leave
Holiday clubs (some of the ones near me you can use your childcare vouchers which is good at £25 - £35 a day)
Grandparents

It is a juggle. Next week DS is off and he has 3 days at holiday club and 2 days at GPs then I have the second week off. A part of me feels like he's only getting 1 week's holiday but in reality he will have a great time.

@Mary54 - I never considered giving up my career so that I was at home over the school holidays. There are alternatives which posters have listed. Our families don’t live in the UK so we used holiday clubs. It’s complicated but workable but never write off your career for holiday cover.

UK ratios are 1:3 for 0-2 year olds so not massively different. Also, I wonder if in other places where ratios are higher, staff also need to be more qualified. I've never looked into it so don't know, but maybe part of the reason ratios need to be so high in the UK is that childcare staff in nurseries are often very young and inexperienced due to the woeful pay.

Oh and Brownies and Woodcraft folk both do week-long camps in the long Summer holidays.

When DS was young, now a long time ago, I used to look for a student teacher to cover holidays. If you have a university locally with a teacher training department, it might be worth clubbing together with one or two of your child's friends and sharing the cost and rotating the location between your houses. Student teachers are often glad of the opportunity and up to speed with child development, and young enough to play enthusiastically. If you get it sorted over Easter, then you can work and have a holiday without calling in every favour you're owed.

Excellent post blueskies.

It’s all very well saying you should have thought about this before you had children but yes, you know you will need childcare but you don’t necessarily know the availability in your area until you actually need it and it changes all the time.

I had two childminders in succession who went on maternity leave. I had an after school nanny who left with less than a week’s notice. I found one childminder who could only offer a Friday and I was so desperate I took it and the dc had to go to different people on different days. Then the school had a breakfast club at 7.30 but the demand wasn’t there so they changed the time to 8am leaving me late for work. I had one day a week from grandparents but they became suddenly ill. That’s just from the top of my head. It was even more complicated than that in reality and how I kept my job in those years I do not know.

Oh I had forgotten there’s actually also free provision at supervised adventure playground and the athletics grounds in the park, both run by (two different) local councils. I am not sure what else people expect tbh. I am the first to mosn about things like prolonged settling in sessions or a zillion events at school requiring an audience, but holiday cover seems fine round here.

We had to make the decision to wait until we could afford children and so i was 38 and 41 when we had our two boys in the 90s. There was no free childcare/nursery provision at all and we had to struggle on one salary but i managed to start up a small business from home which i made successful by working in the evenings when the boys were in bed. Exhausting and yes, it was tough at times but we had worked hard and my husband helped at home as much as he could. It was a recession then so just as hard as now. Everyone has to make a life choice - and schools are not child care. Sorry this sounds as though i'm preaching but maybe waiting until you can afford kids is the way to go. It is not the responsibility of others to provide child care whilst you carry on working.

Just come back to say that no doubt a lot of companies could come with a holiday club on their premises should they put their minds to it. That would help a lot (even if it was only a proportion of the holidays) as then the care wouldn't need to cover the commute as well. My friend's DH actually organised this last summer at his work and it was popular. If employers were more aware this affects both parents perhaps this would get some action. I also wanted to second the point that some DC are really hard to leave in holiday clubs. My DD is very anxious about groups. She'll do the holiday club at her school but is very unhappy about anything else.

Holiday clubs and some annual leave. It can be expensive but less so than nursery was so we just have to take it.

In addition, school is education, not childcare and so is the early years funding for nursery places (also only 38 weeks a year) as nobody has a right to childcare, just a right to education. It might seem crap but we made our decision to have kids. (Although I admit it can be a logistical nightmare especially when your child goes to a school that take irregular weeks off and there are no clubs available!)

@longestlurkerever - I'm my experience things are very different outside London.

Round me there are no council run clubs. There are plenty of private clubs from £40 per child per day and which generally run from 9-5 with late fees for pick up after 5. Not entirely compatible with normal working hours, let along with a commute on top.

If you have room in your house, then quite often, and surprisingly, an au pair is perhaps the cheapest option. As you provide and lodging, they sometimes are mainly interested in just being in UK for a year and their pay is far less than it would cost for after school clubs or holiday clubs during the holidays. They are mostly free to do their thing whilst DC are at school and look on it as an experience. As long as they are not exploited and asked to do cleaning and chores etc that are not child related it can be a great experience for all parties. And holidays are not such a nightmare, the au pair may also come on holiday with you so you can have some time grown up time. Otherwise, it is a universal problem. Juggling, play dates, holiday clubs, scouts camping trips! PGL holidays for kids. All expensive, but I guess we knew all this before we decided to have kids.

Argh but why oh why is it considered so selfish for women to want to work at the level we're qualified for? It means we pay more tax!

When I was a student teacher I used to nanny quite a lot in the holidays but tbh I wouldn't be interested now with my own children as I have to work round them anyway.

A lower wage earner loosing 20 mins per day is more affordable than their higher paid partner loosing 2 hours per day.

Not if they end up with a Universal Credit sanction as well.

@Parker231

Too late for me unfortunately. My children are now 23&25. When they were babies the alternatives were a nanny or child minder ( my mother was full time carer to my disabled father). Prevailing wisdom then was that mothers should only work if they had no choice. Dh and I had both been brought up to believe that it would be irresponsible to have children before being able to cover costs of living on one salary ( I do know I’m a dinosaur and tines have changed😊)

Cost of childcare would have been my entire salary as a junior solicitor so I gave in to very subtle pressure.

I worked when possible, teaching evening classes etc when dh could provide care and started working during daytime hours when they were in secondary school.

Completely agree that it shouldn’t necessarily be this way today but the fact remains that childcare is primarily the parents’ responsibility

I must say though, it is daunting sorting holiday care compared to preschool childcare.

At baby age, you can use a nursery, you drop them at one place every day, you pick them up from the same location, it's open throughout the year (possibly only the week between Christmas and new year to cover), and if your childs key worker is sick, the office staff sort a replacement for you - the only cover you need is when your child is sick. All very straightforward, usually you can book your place as soon as you have your baby, can book what suits your commute, a year before you need it. Done.

School age, and suddenly not all childminders will go to the schools you need, some schools don't have enough childminders serving them, breakfast clubs can often not start until 8 (most nurseries will take children from 7:30 here to allow parents to be on early trains), and then with holidays, you need to make different arrangements with different providers.

It is tricky and provision is patchy. It's a range of different private businesses, without standardized practices or times.

It's not just a case of thinking about it before you have a baby, until your child is 4 you often won't know which school your DC will go to, so can't plan in advance like you can with preschool care.

This is something that should be thought about when you decide to have children. They are your responsibility not the governments.there are plenty of options but most will include you paying unless you have very lovely friends and family. Make sure you get plans in place as soon as possible because child minders and after school clubs will get booked up early. Blink and this time will be over and your children will be all grown.