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.

Scandinavia have the answer.

Which Scandinavian countries and what is their answer?

I think OP is getting a hard time on here. She's asking a simple question that many of us have had to get around. Simply saying she should have thought of this before deciding to have children is at best unhelpful but mostly rude.
Nowhere has she said that she views school as child care.
We didn't all know what out working situation would be like 4 years down the line, that we may be living far away from family who may have been able to help, that some might end up as single parents.
I have two DC. Struggled with holiday cover for the first but managed to juggle with holiday clubs, shared care with other mum's and staggered holidays with my DH.
I was lucky as when my second DC started school I had a job where I was able to check my time to work term time only

There was a proposal a few years ago to make childcare cheaper but by reducing adult to child ratios, not bringing in any subsidies.

Childcare is cheaper in other countries in large part because of much less favourable ratios of adults to children.

It's something we factored in when deciding to have children. And why we kept to just 2.

The solution is to only have as many children as you can afford and not expect the childless to subsidise those who choose parenthood.

Single parent here. When DD needed childcare we had a CM. She went for an hour in the morning before school, then all day in the holidays. Luckily my CM let me pay a higher amount during termtime to build up a credit with her to cover the holidays iyswim.

Eg termtime was £20 per week and holidays was £150 per week but I'd pay £40 per week in termtime so it wasn't so expensive in the holidays.

*We all know who in theory should fund this. What I’m asking - which you’d know if you’d read my posts - is how will that be put into practice?

Going round in circles saying the government should do this and that with no proposals for achieving it is pointless.*

And you'd know if you read my posts that I've already explained where the money could come from.

Of course it's pointless. It's an internet chat room. 99% of everything discussed here is highly theoretical and pointless. Sorry did you want me to actually solve the problem through to completion while I'm sitting in my joggers on my phone?

The op is venting, I'm venting in return at how undervalued the citizens of this country are by the government and at how easily we accept this and blame each other instead of those who are actually deserving of some blame.

The op has done nothing wrong.

Just wait until the holiday clubs stop at age 11 if you think your current situation is hard!
Just because our 2 have just turned 11 doesn't mean to say they are magically able to stay at home all day over the half terms so we're staggering leave to cover it. The longer holidays have clubs up to 16 so we're covered then.

@cucumbergin yes!!!!!

I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. To be clear, I don't think school is childcare. I'm not suggesting out of school care should be free. I don't think other people should be paying for my children. The 3pm finish was not a surprise, the 13 weeks holiday was a bit. I was not anticipating my work would be so shocking at offering reduced hours (they want me to be doing 40 hours 'part time' as a manager).

What I am saying is that the government can't push a policy of working mothers without ensuring that society is set up so that they actually can. It doesn't make sense. Things they could do include:

• Policies to ensure all working parents can 'buy back' say four weeks holiday a year
• Ensuring there is sufficient before, after and holiday care provisions for working parents in local communities and investing where there is not (this does not need to be free, it can be charged to cover costs)
• Making it harder for companies to just cite one of eight statutory reasons for refusing flexible working requests
• Encouraging companies to offer part time jobs

There is so much more that could be done. And, yes, I realise they are currently a bit tied up with Brexit.

Thank you so much for those of you who have offered suggestions and shared how you make things work. We'll consider all of them and it has actually made me feel less panicky about the whole thing.

I think you just have to think about all this before you have children. Quite a few years ago before we even had children we considered how all this would work when we both want to work. We could have moved away for jobs to the other end of the country but chose to move back to where we are from after uni (we are from the same town). I remember it was a running joke with my uni friend’s who moved here there and everywhere and thought I was dull moving home. We have had the last laugh as we have lots of people on hand to help and don’t pay thousands in nursery fees.

My husband also career changed to be a teacher, part of the decision was that we’d always have holiday childcare. Our eldest is just about to start pre-school they have a really good before and after school club which is very flexible and has spaces so we know if ever gp are on holiday we’ll never be stuck.

It’s a juggling act and I realise we are fortunate having people who want to help, but we chose where to live and also my husband’s job based on having children.

Childcare hassles - It is for the reason alone that I stuck with teaching even when I knew it wasn't what I really wanted to do. No other job guaranteed me time at home during the school holidays. I say home rather than 'off' because believe me..... I still had a lot of work to do. But there really was no other option with my four. Wish I had another suggestion, but that was ours.

I used a holiday club 3 days out of 5. Oh took a day of leave. Gp did 1 day.
I used breakfast club daily at £3 per session. I finished at 2.30 so didn't need after school care.
Now, at high school I work 3 days at 6 hours . I see her off and get home 15 mins before her.
She's got a key and is left alone in the holidays. It's not about paying, i am willing to pay for care. She won't go to clubs and needs quiet time as her school is full of violent, disruptive kids.
I'm here 4 days out of 7, it's the best i can do. I've changed jobs alot to get these hours.

Childminders, after school clubs, holiday clubs, swops with other parents, annual leave, additional annual leave and a bit of GP help in the past when both they and DD were younger.

That's got us through almost 7 years of school. It's a juggling act, at the start of each year we work out the holidays we're taking together, divvy up the rest, put in requests for additional leave then book up holiday club as soon as slots are released.

Agree meercat. Special unhelpfulness mention for the post asking her what they'd been doing until now. As if it wasn't plainly obvious that they'd been using a full time nursery, and this is a standard issue moving from preschool age, expensive but available full time childcare to school age underprovisioned patchwork.

I would certainly agree with doing some planning, but it's also important to recognise the limitations of it. A child starting school this September was conceived in 2013-14. The childcare provision in my area is not the same now as it was then. Funding gets stopped, providers move house or have career changes, more children might move into an area. I live in a city, but in smaller areas, these changes might be very significant.

If there's none in your area, and demand is high, then I would grab the opportunity with both hands, to switch careers and set up a new own business as a holiday club.

Or, there are areas like mine where no childcare options exist because demand is so low. I live in a very rural area, tiny village school with no before/after school club. No childminders around, or holiday clubs.
I work in a school now, in a low paid role, so I can manage - but working full time was a nightmare, as I've no family to help.
It's a bit shortsighted of pp to say there are plenty of childcare options, as it's just not the case everywhere.

I’m a teacher, so I’m very lucky in that I don’t have to worry about the school holidays usually. Although my DC go to school in one authority and I teach in another, which is a pain as sometimes the holidays don’t match up. My DH works abroad, 5 weeks away, 4 at home, so it’s great when he’s home but more difficult when he’s away.

None of our local schools offer wraparound childcare and I haven’t been able to find a childminder willing to do it. There are no holiday clubs either. After years of juggling and struggling I gave up my job because I couldn’t secure childcare for 30 mins before and after school. It was very frustrating!

I now do waitressing/bar work because getting babysitters in the evening is easier than finding wraparound childcare.

We'll be using a combination of annual leave, grandparents visiting when they can and the holiday club at DDs nursery (where she will also be going for before and after school care).

Holiday club will be cheaper than out of school care (and significantly cheaper than nursery!) so we'll save a bit and can still use the tax free childcare scheme.

I'm lucky to have a very flexible job now (after redundancy and a 2 year job hunt) but it's still not enough to cover holidays and we would want to spend time as a family.

I actually agree with you that the government should be doing more for working parents, but not specifically related to school. Childcare costs are so prohibitive and it's far too easy to discriminate against parents.

stepaway I'm glad you've got some ideas from this thread, it is really hard to juggle working with child care responsibilities which is why some people don't work. You could consider a childminder for before /after school care who would cover some of the holidays too. You could have a 'mother's help' come to your house after school and in the holidays ( we used a former nanny who had her own children and who brought her own kids with her), we've used student child care workers in the holidays, we nanny shared with a couple of mums in the village ( when each had one child), we used Baracudas type holiday clubs, we used work place nurseries who did holiday clubs, we swapped with friends ( so I took a week off and had my kids and other kids on basically play dates and they did the same for me for a week). It was bloody hard! We only had elderly Karen's ourselves so they couldn't help much sadly. But you start planning early and somehow it works out. Good luck

The op is venting,

And I asked if that was the case, so if you’re now saying it is, anyone who wants to can join in the venting without suggesting any practical solutions to resolve it.

Which is fine but ultimately pointless.

Arrange and pay for childcare for your child. That's your responsibility. You say you don't think school is childcare, so 2hat exactly do you mean when you say the government should ensure that the school system works with working parents?

Surely all of this occurred to you before you actually had a child?

RTFT slowknitter...

This has been an issue for years, it isn't new. Back in the late 80s and early 90s I went to holiday club at a local church for one week of the holidays, various play schemes at the local library and my mum had a reciprocal arrangement with another Mum of similar aged children so for so many days we would go to their house and then we'd return the favour. We would take packed lunch and it was just normal unstructured play and going to the park but we enjoyed it.

@FamilyOfAliens

Never said it wasn't the case

Don’t people think this through when they have children. We knew that we had no family support. Moved frequently due to DH job and I cannot work as disabled , however people think as I don’t work I am automatically available to child mind . So therefore when we worked it out that we could not afford to have children as we couldn’t afford the help we would need. I don’t understand. Sorry. But why have them if you can’t look after them most of the time. I know I’ll get flamed for this but it’s how I feel. And no I don’t feel sad or that im missing something.

During school holidays:

1. Grandparents.
2. Annual leave.
3. Paid childcare.

In that order. The 'some people are lucky enough to have grandparents around' sentiment strikes me as bizarre. 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?