My work is looking for creative solutions to make the budget work without cutting service or staff. Two interesting propositions happened this week. One is the ability to take unpaid time off and the second is a friend offering me the option to do before/after care for her children if schools are back in September. I was a childminder when my dc were young so am well used to this.
I have dc and summer is so expensive, but also the time my guilt at it's highest, wanting to spend time with my dc and feeling torn in so many directions. I have a child with complex needs it is very hard to find a play scheme for, so it's usually cobbling together things that mostly don't work and handing over more than 50% of my pay to cover it all.
I worked out if I worked full time during term time, and took my friends dc before/after school 4 days/week and saved that money in an account for summer, I'd have enough to go on unpaid leave each summer for 7 weeks. This is huge and would be such a relief. The reason it would work during term time is how my hours are arranged, I do a 12 hour shift one day and then shorter shifts the other days plus logging on from home in evenings. It works out to my hours so I could do this around before/after school pick up 4 days/week without disrupting that.
In my shoes would you do it? Any drawbacks you can think of? I guess I'd worry about the option of promotion down the road but that would be years away I think (especially now with the current situation they won't be replacing management that leave) and it would made a huge difference to family life. Honestly the thought of not having to do the slog each summer is already filling me with relief.
The only issue is they would want me to start this summer I think. But if I did they would change my contract to make sure I could do this going forward.