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.

It must surely be clear from reading the thread that many areas, OPs included, don't enjoy the same level of provision as yours longestlurkerever?

I do remember once at university, we were in and schools had holidays, our lecturers allowed us to bring in our children if we didn’t have child care and were really stuck. Funnily enough it was teacher training! The majority of my group were mature students, so there were several children amongst us. But they set them up at a table with paper, pens, glue, scissor etc and they done there bit as we had our lecture.

I also had to take youngest dc when they were 5/6 to work with me a few teacher training days. Trying to train a class of 30 adults with a little voice popping up every now and then ‘but mummy what does that mean?’ was hard work!

I agree with all of Nanbread's posts.

To those saying it's not the government's responsibility, why didn't you think of this before you had children, you only have to look at Scandinavia to see your dog eat dog view of life contradicted.

On the other end, it may dawn on some of you that there are not enough staff in your parents' care home, or that the NHS has a nursing shortage. The idea that it isn't the government's responsibility to look at the big picture and legislate so that society's needs can be filled is preposterous.

Completely agree that it shouldn’t necessarily be this way today but the fact remains that childcare is primarily the parents’ responsibility
Mary54

Apparently, childcare is primarily the mother's responsibility though, isn't it?

I disagree that childcare is solely parents' responsibility. We are (perhaps) about to leave the EU. We are going to need all the skilled workers we can lay our hands on. Our productivity still hasn't recovered to pre-2008 levels. The last thing we need is to keep forcing skilled workers (mostly women) out of the workforce when their kids hit 4-5. Besides, the more senior you are, the more likely you are to be able to flex working arrangements and you can cut back on hours while still earning a reasonable salary if that's what you want. We have got to stop seeing this as a women's problem for women alone to solve.

Our DD is currently in Reception and it's been fine so far. We are fortunate that she is an outgoing child and we have a decent income - she loves holiday clubs and we can afford to pay for them. The rest we juggle with holiday.

Your reception class will probably have a Whatsapp group - see what other people are doing and try to coordinate holiday clubs so there will be friendly faces. If you have friends with school age kids, you take them one day and your friend the next day. Maybe send the DC to stay with relatives for a fee days. It's not as bad as it first seems IMO.

Agree^^

(Agree with Phineyj )

There is a teacher shortage too and it's increasingly hard to find a school where the expected workload doesn't require you to throw your family under the bus, so to speak. I teach 0.5 plus have one extra responsibility. It takes me approx. 35 hours pw plus a commute of 12 hours. I earn a little over average wage. I am a fast worker and mark on the train too!

Did you not realise before TTC that children that you would need childcare? Quite how so many fail to realise that children need financing and childcare is beyond me. So many expect everyone else to provide and care for children' they chose to have.

Maemae06

How is the view from your high horse? Majority of people don't plan life like that and it's not absurd to expect that affordable childcare is available. When I decided to have my children I sincerely expected that and was shocked to find out that my first year returning to work I would only break even after paying for childcare. The government want people not to deppend on benefits they should ensure women can keep working during the child hearing years.

DH has just helpfully pointed out I earn under the average wage for London .

The government want people not to deppend on benefits they should ensure women can keep working during the child hearing years

Or maybe the parents should be the ones taking responsibility and not having children until they can afford them themselves. It's not the governments responsibility.

@sitdown - I find it hard to believe that most places don't have holiday clubs, unless you live in the middle of nowhere, and if they're not that accessible you make efforts to build a community of people that will help each other out. Access to amenities is something you factor into where to live, surely? I just find it a bit helpless-sounding when people say "the schools are closed, what am I supposed to do?" and I am not one of these people who bark "schools are not childcare" when people bemoan sudden closures at short notice.

Maybe it is a London thing, because most families I know have little local family support and both parents working, but people do put themselves out there to build communities when they have kids. I have a patchwork of friends, neighbours, parents from my dd's school, who take my dd for some days in the holidays, or drop her at holiday club, and I do the same for them. I start working on a plan for Summer around now - I have booked canoeing and violin camps and have a breakfast/pickup rota in place. I'll book a few days of forest school and drama when they release the dates after Easter, and will take the rest as leave.

It is actually the responsibility of governments to ensure that the economics of family life make sense.

IceCreamAndCandyfloss - and what if you can never afford to have children ?
Most people who have any expectations of life if they sat down and costed out children like an investment would decide against it. So then all the skilled, intelligent people in the world would just not do it. What are you then left with

IceCream.

Yes, let's end up like Japan and some other countries with dwindling birth rates and increase in an aging population and consequent pension crisis this will generate. Society needs new people to continue to thrive. Or we can allow more immigration. But some people have problems with that too. I find absurd the amount of talent is wasted in this country because women have to choose between motherhood or having a job because childcare is so expensive. The government should offer childcare. Other poorer countries, such as Italy, have better provision than here. It makes economical sense

find it hard to believe that most places don't have holiday clubs...,, maybe it’s s London thing....,

It’s a London thing. We live rurally, although by no means out in the sticks. Most holiday clubs run 10-3, which is hardly handy for working parents. None run for the whole of a school holiday eg: 2 or 3 days in a half-term break; 1 week at Christmas/Easter; 3-4 weeks in the summer. If these don’t fit with the weeks I cN take off around my colleagues’ requests, then I run out of annual lea e pretty quick.

Maybe it is a London thing, because most families I know have little local family support and both parents working, but people do put themselves out there to build communities when they have kids.

I think it's a big city thing. We live in a town where most people are local or have family reasonably close by. We've struggled to make an effective network because other people rely on grandparents for childcare, even if it's just for babysitting so we don't go out as much as we'd like as a couple.

Like most working families we make it work. Family, childminder, holiday clubs and our own holidays have been used. Imo it is one of the many things you need to think about before having children if possible. If not possible before then at least a consideration early on in pregnancy. Not thinking about it till a few months before needed is silly and irresponsible imo

You do what everyone else does. After school clubs. Pay for nannying. We have no parents to help so I use all my leave and my husband uses his. Any days we miss out of we hire a babysitter.

Now imagine trying to cover

8.50am school start
3.10pm finish
13 weeks of school holidays

As a single parent with no help practically or financially from either grandlrents or absent father.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned but we could do with summer camps in the UK as they have in the USA (which have up to 3 months' holiday in the summer for parents to cover). A bit like PGL but longer and less expensive.

bikerun nice selective quoting there but you might well be right. On the other hand when people say they would miss things about London life they generally get scoffed at and told they have a very skewed view of life outside big cities.

I totally sympathise, it's very very hard on families. But what did you think would happen when you had kids?