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.

They're not idle snuggly, but spend the rest of term in state of panic about how much of the curriculum there is to get through. Makes no sense to me.

Parker, they may be legally entitled to go full-time from September, but they are not allowed to by the school. Maybe there is just too much pressure on school places?

Also, the school holidays here are often more like 8 weeks in the summer than 6 - they sometimes get the last week of June, along with the whole of July and the first half of August in the summer.

Some people say that schools are not supposed to be free childcare - they're not. We pay for them with our taxes.

Also, the time children spend in school is, ideally, time when we know they are in a social situation in a structured environment, being well-looked after and being given imaginative and interesting things to do. Some children's home lives are pretty impoverished in many ways, and they could do with spending longer at school, just to even out their life chances and bring them up to the level of their peer group.

I know teachers will hate me for saying this - because they have children too, and want to spend time with them - but I think the school day should be longer and the holidays shorter. Going a bit off track now, but I think local 6th formers or college students could be paid to come in for the last hour of the day to supervise 'private study' time, overseen by teachers on a duty rota (so that each one only has to do one day a week, say). That way, everyone gets their homework done before they go home. Imagine not having to nag your child to do their homework!

@longest - we (and other parents) did I have to put it in writing that our DC’s would be attending full time from day one. We had no option as DH and I both work full time and we wanted to use our holiday entitlement for holidays and not wasting our and DC’s time on a staggered start. DH is a doctor so no chance of him nipping out of his GP surgery to collect DT’s after two hours of school for the first few weeks and I regularly work across three countries so planning is already complicated enough.

Snuggly! Teachers bone idle?? Have you any idea how hard they work?

I am one, by the way. And I take Umbrage!

Dh and I tag team over the holidays now. I work shifts and fortunately his employer is flexible, so if I do an early dh will go in when I get home, or vive versa for a late. We take a week together at Easter, a couple in the summer holidays and at least one of the half terms. I don't get time off at Christmas (NHS).
This has been the case for the last few years since dh came out of teaching. Before that dh obviously had them during the holidays as much as possible, but he did have to work plus taught in a different LEA so we used holiday clubs/swapped days with friends/he worked on my day off.

Having read most of this thread, one thing stands out to me...do none of you have to 'share' the school holidays with colleagues for cover purposes?? There's lots of comments that seem to imply people can take whatever they want. However, I suspect in the real world, as well as the juggling between 2 parents that is required, there is also a third issue of also having to slot in with the holidays that are available in the workplace.

Certainly, that is an issue for me and DH and it is a constant battle between me and my colleagues (my position has to fit in with 2 different sets of colleagues who predominantly also have school age children) and DH and 2 of his colleagues who also have school children...it is a bloody nightmare!

My 2 have always had to go to holiday clubs for approximately 4-5 weeks each year and I'm fortunate that they accept that is the way it is and don't moan about it.

Fitting in taking holidays with colleagues is definitely an issue. I have 90 staff and holidays are approved on a first come first served basis and on occasion, staff with school age children have not been approved for any time off during the school summer holidays.

Yes, both dh and I have to fit around other people too. My colleagues don’t all have children but they all have lives, family, friends, partners. I can’t claim first dibs because of having a child. I am extremely fair with holiday requests in my team. That’s my personal view and my team do appreciate it.

Theromanempire yes, and then on MN childfree people usually hop on the thread to point out their equal right to holiday during school holidays, which reading MN one could sometimes be forgiven for thinking specific posters insist on purely on principle, not because they actually want to pay over the odds and go away at the absolute most crowded time... Obviously childfree people married to teachers want school holidays off though...

I've got 2 weeks off in August but a condition of that is extra weekend working and promising to be as available as possible the rest of the month - boss has allowed 2 of us to be off at once, for 2 weeks each throughout the summer holidays, meaning that if anyone is ill the rest of us will have to do extra hours in the weeks we aren't off...

DH has an office job where he doesn't have to work around anyone else, only around deadlines, so is taking 3 weeks off. We're going away but I'll come back alone before DH and the kids. I have enough holiday days but can't take more than 2 weeks during the summer.

My kids are older though and I am allowed to take them to work with me if I want. There are no holiday clubs which work logistically for us and no extended family within 500 miles atm but flexible work for both parents is key.

Swap days with friends? You have theirs. They have yours. Buys you some extra days.

@JennyInGucci
How poor would the health and/or relationships in your family have to be for all 4 grandparents to be dead, demented or otherwise completely unavailable for childcare when your children are young?

It happens. Three of my DD’s grandparents are dead - it’s what happens when they had their children relatively late, and then we did too. Not out of choice. Both generations had fertility problems.
The remaining grandparent is mid-70s, lives 4+ hours away (I had to relocate to find work), and not well enough to do a full day of childcare (she has once or twice babysat in the evening when DD already asleep and she’d come to stay for a visit).

The preschool years have been tough with a lot of money spent on childcare, but I’m expecting the school years to be a lot harder. Although thankfully my work runs a subsidised holiday activity scheme for age 5+ so we will be able to use that (it’s still not cheap, even with the subsidy).

Gosh that's harsh. Plenty of older people are in poor health. My fil and df died before my DC were born, which is a source of great sadness to me. Obviously we should have put more effort into keeping them alive.

@JennyInGucci
How poor would the health and/or relationships in your family have to be for all 4 grandparents to be dead, demented or otherwise completely unavailable for childcare when your children are young?

I would say this is relatively common, esp amongst professional couples who have left having children til they are older. Add into the mix where one or other set of grandparents lives overseas. We have 3 living GPS. 2 live overseas (and wouldn’t be capable of looking after the children anyway), the 3rd lives 120 miles away. Equally I have several friends whose parents pretty much refuse to do childcare. A rare emergency, yes, at a push. Covering school holidays or a regular school pick up, no way.

People really live in their little bubble. Grandparents aren't always available, health or alive. Lots of people moved away from their home town. I don't have any relative living near me even if they were no guarantee of being willing to do childcare.

Losing the will to live reading this thread, till I came across @phineyj’s posts. The economy/treasury/society is losing out in so many ways because of the government’s failure to provide quality, affordable and accessible childcare, fit for purpose. The gender pay gap is widening again (and it never closed). We’re (as a country) investing millions into training women, who then leave the workforce (or work in a role less well paid and beneath their qualifications) because there’s not suitable childcare. Of course this situation also impacts women on an individual basis too, and women generally find their lifelong earnings much lower than their male counterpart.

I definitely do not think schools should be providing childcare or filling this gap. But the government should be looking into ways to prevent this massive brain drain and contributor to inequality. They’d do well to look at countries with less inequality, higher productivity and their infrastructure that allows high quality childcare alongside better work/life balance and standard of living.

Does anyone have a rough realistic amount of the cost an average child costs by the time he/she hits 18? Web sources are giving wildly confounding values.

Childcare costs vary wildly depending on where you live, where you work, how many hours a day your family needs.

Kolo I agree with you. But what’s depressing, going by some of the responses on these sorts of threads, is that some people just don’t seem to want what you propose.

Eg: look at the appallingly low take up of shared parental leave. Not quite the same as childcare but as a policy it reflects precisely the principles you’re describing: ie women’s and men’s careers being seen on an equal footing. Parents taking on caring and earning responsibilities. Similarly I can’t help feeling that if childcare was made more readily available at a lower cost as in some countries, we’d have women saying it’s wrong for the govt to try to ‘force’ women into work and what about the poor kiddies in daycare. It’s already been said on this
Thread.

There aren’t any simple answers. As an ‘oldie’ I can see that childcare is far more readily available than when my generation were having babies, but clearly there’s still room for improvement. As for the cost: yes it’s very expensive but that’s not new, it was ever thus. My nursery bill in the early 90s was no cheaper than it would be now, allowing for inflation. And at least there are free hours for 3 years up, plus much longer ML which cuts down the amount of time you’re paying full price.

But I agree that the real solution is about achieving greater equality but there has to be a willingness for that. The govt can make whatever policies it likes but if couples don’t take them up then it’s a wasted opportunity

I'm sure teachers aren't bone idle in of themselves but a whole term of half days is having a laugh

I walked past our school today and couldn't help feel sorry for any kid stuck in holiday club all day. They weren't outside because it was raining and I thought how miserable it must be stuck inside. And yes, I use the occasional day for my child but I thought 2 or 6 weeks of full time school holiday club must be awful. I realise this comment helps no one!

You also need to be aware that most holiday clubs don't cover working hours. You'll see 10am - 2pm or 8.30am start by arrangement, finishing at 4pm, so your leave will still be eroded by having to take a few hours a day to fit around the holiday club.

I feel your pain OP. We have no family nearby so it's just me and DH. OUr pre-schooler has just had a bug and wiped out 3 days of my leave because she couldn't go to nursery so I now have no annual leave available in August.

What a very odd post! Do you feel sorry as you walk past every house in case there are children stuck inside because it’s raining?
Would you feel happier if you saw loads of kids forced to be outside in the rain even if they’d prefer not to be?

What have kids at home in the pouring rain been doing that's so amazing then?

Not because they are inside but because they are in a building that's not home/friends - an institutional building where they are nearly every day of their lives. They don't have a pick of the kids that are there or the play workers...or the food....or the activities to an extent.
I don't think it's "weird" to think that at all!

And you’re making a massive assumption that all those children must be miserable?