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.

We pay for childcare.

@RoboticSealpup taxes are barely covering the necessities in the uk at the moment??!!! Wraparound care is the least of their worries 😂😂

YANBU. I have a child starting school in august, and I'd happily throw money at this problem. I assumed that the options that people on this thread are taking for granted would be available to me - e.g. child minders, breakfast/after school club, holiday clubs, etc.

However, it turns out that these things aren't available everywhere, and even semi rural areas have massive shortages of available childcare. Also, while some children would love an Easter sports camp, some would be very upset at the very notion.

We will muddle through, as everyone does. But I think I'm entirely reasonable to be upset at the prospect of having very little shared holiday time with DH for the next 10 years.

@familyofaliens re: Going round in circles saying the government should do this and that with no proposals for achieving it is pointless. and other comments from you repeating this same point.

It's the job of MPs and the policy makers in the civil service to come up with the solutions to problems faced by swathes of the populace. It's their well-paid and specialised job. We are a bit busy working, paying taxes, raising children, and partcipating in society.

What do you think those lumps of flesh sitting about Whitehall and the houses of parliament are actually for? They are certainly not ornamental.

The nursery my youngest went to offered holiday care up to 8 yo. I thought they all did? We couldn't use it because work moved me but there are several companies who do camps - we've used Supercamps and Kings Camps, and the local University does a club too.

DH covers the Feb and Oct holidays; I cover one week at Easter and she goes to camp for the other; we go away as a family in May; July and August he takes 2 weeks, we have one week together for a holiday; then I take 2 weeks at Christmas.

We are lucky that now she is older she can go to PGL for a week (paid for with childcare vouchers) and grandma will have her for a week, but we still have to pay for 3 weeks in day camp.

I get childcare vouchers of £100 a month which pays for the year's care, so that I don't have to pay out actual money when I book.

DH work didn't offer vouchers but lots of my colleagues get two lots plus one will drop the kids off and start work late, while the other starts early and picks them up. I have to pay the extra for extended days because my DH doesn't work normal hours.

"I live in a very rural area, tiny village school with no before/after school club. No childminders around, or holiday clubs."

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.

It's the nitty gritty you don't always appreciate. My DM thought we'd be able to go to a holiday club when she was working but it was 9-3 and totally useless for working parents for example. I imagine these things appear and disappear pretty quickly so there may well be good provision at the time your child is conceived but not when your child is 5.

I think it might be more people who have kids later and are children of older parents themselves jenny? If a couple have a child in their late 30s and their own parents were late 30s when they were born, so not particularly old, the grandparents could all be nigh on 80 by the time the grandchild is school age. I had a bit of a realisation of this myself when I had my first. All four grandparents in our case were 50something and in good health, but I had a 38 year old friend at baby group where there were grandparents 20 years older.

OP - legally you can get up to 4 weeks unpaid parental leave a year, up to a total of 18 weeks until child is 18. DH can get it too. Check out gov.uk site.

"It's the job of MPs and the policy makers in the civil service to come up with the solutions to problems faced by swathes of the populace."

Only if you vote for left-wing parties. If you vote Conservative, you are voting for them to reduce your tax burden so that you can sort your problems out yourself.

I don’t want my taxes spent so children can spend even more time in “childcare”.

OP is talking about a three week period she can’t cover. She and her partner need to put away a day and a half’s money a month and get on with it. When people plan a family they surely don’t expect the rest of the country to subsidise that?

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?

As poor as mine? Thanks for the understanding, not.

mamma

Thanks for explaining how governement works. I’ve been in the dark about it for so long and now thanks to you it all makes sense.

Only if you vote for left-wing parties. If you vote Conservative, you are voting for them to increase your tax burden so that you can sort your problems out yourself.

I've fixed that for you.

With so many people relying on grandparents this is a problem that's going to get bigger and bigger as the retirement age goes up. Many people in the future will need to work until at least 68.

some ppl on here stating that clubs ONLY open from 9/10-3 etc what do you actually WANT?? it’s practically the same as school hours?? Jeez sometimes I think ppl want the child collected from the labour ward and handed back at 18...for free of course!

I don’t think this is one for the government to sort out for you.

It’s one of the things you should consider when having children, that you’ll need to find ways to look after them, be that by yourself or by throwing money at someone else to do it for you:

I don’t think my childcare needs should trump the NHS or any other the other more needy causes

It's not privileged to be able to arrange to cover before and after school childcare and the school holidays. It's choices, and luck, and giving up lots of other things sometimes. That's not 'privilege'. That's desperation for many.

Yes, I was 'able to' take a massive downsize in my career. But at the expense of other things that other families do. And at the expense of my own security should our marriage fall apart or my husband become seriously ill/die ... as it will leave me with very little income/resources of my own and three children to sort out on it. I won't feel privileged to have a dramatically reduced pension in the future for the choices our family had to make to cover childcare issues, especially as they'll also be needing help with higher education costs around roughly the same time! And, again, if my marriage were to break down, I will definitely struggle ...

It's not privilege. It's luck and hard choices and planning ... and I do feel more should be done by the government like Scandinavian countries do ... But, also lucky in that a lot of ranges of holiday clubs are on offer in our region but I know that's not true everywhere, and I know even those are a stretch for many.

What do other European countries do then?

I know many of them offer more affordable childcare before children start school and better maternity leave, but once they are older don’t they encourage more independence for the child eg I thought after school care in Finland seems to stop once they are about 7 and they are expected to walk home alone and fend for themselves until their parents get home a few hours later.

The UK Government have brought in more measures to help with childcare costs before children start school eg free hours.

Childcare costs and how to cover holidays are things to factor in before having children

I’ve been in the dark about it for so long

Yes, I though as much. You're welcome.

Just pointing out that a 9-3 club isn't much help to working parents, it's obviously aimed at SAHPs who want their kids to have something to do. It's an easy mistake to make thinking a holiday club might be aimed at WOHPs

Youngandfree that was in response to people suggesting that OP could use these sort of clubs for childcare. IMO they are not aimed as childcare for working parents but entertainment.

@JennyInGucci not always the case I live in Ireland (rural) and we have a wonderful school with a fantastic (and affordable) after school facility.

Jenny, plenty of people don't have grandparents available or working. I am a full time working grandparent. My children's grandfather worked until he was 77. My mother died aged 75. Also in families where parents have chidlren late (my parents were in their 30s and their families die you)., you just don't have grandparents who can help compared with families where everyone has their children at 20 and women don't work - vast difference.

How we managed - we had quite a few children so paid someone to look after the baby who also cared for teh toddler and could do pick ups for the 5 year old too.
Then when youngest at full time school that person had gone part time and had 1 and then 2 babies so we let her bring them to work and also mind our 3 after school.

Then later we paid someone from 3 - 6pm in term time at £10 a hour and used the before and after school club when she wasn't available. In holidays sometimes she could do all day but we tried to use summer camps. Eg oldest daughter's school had one for first 2 weeks of summer holiday you pay for which all 3 older children could go to. Other times we used clubs like Barracudas for a week or too. For the oldest she sometimes went to grandparents (grandmother wasn't working, although that grandfathe worked until amost 90!) in Yorkshire for a week when she had a 2 week October half term and the other children had a one week one which did help (not possible with younger ones as grandparents too old or dead).

i also did some working from home which I still so and which helps although the downside is I am self employed - no holiday pay so tend just to take 2 weeks off a year, no sick pay, no pension etc.

At one point 50% of each of our net full time salaries went on full time childcare back in the 1980s.

Passithea as some previous posters have said, circumstances can change very quickly. Before we had kids I made sure I had childcare in place and also back up childcare. I also had friends and family willing to help in an emergency.

My childminder moved, the nursery closed, friends and family were no longer able to help and my DH had to find another job. All of this threw a spanner in the works!