To be worn out by the mismatch between annual leave & school provision

[Yellowlegobrick]

25 days. Like most people i get 25 days annual leave.

School holidays plus inset days needs 65 days cover.

There are sod all good options to cover it locally. There'll be a football camp 20 mins away for 3 days 9 - 2.30, a forest school doing an odd week 9-3. The bigger camps are massively oversubscribed, don't run for the whole holiday and you sometimes can't get a place.

Aibu to think there needs to be a formalised, centrally managed system to acknowledge the gap and provide better coverage?

Even if DH take all our annual leave separately, we can't cover it all, especially not when we lose at least a couple of days each per year of annual leave covering days the children are ill.

Its a constant annual stress, i find myself filled with dread when the letter comes from school: end of term, finish after lunch at 1.15.... there goes another half day 🙁

I had a term time job for years to accommodate the holidays with 3dc. We could afford this.
now my youngest is 11 I have left that job and taken on something else. I get 35 days holiday a year plus bank holidays plus the days between Christmas and new year.
during the summer my older 2 will help out (helps that they both drive and now have their own transport) and take him out for trips, I will give them spending money for activities. I am taking Mondays off and a couple but not all Fridays. Dh will take a few days here and there. He is booked into 6 days of football camp (2 days for 3 weeks, that’s all they offered but it works for us). We are going on holiday for the last 2 weeks.
It’s meant a bit of forward planning which I’m not used to as previously I was just off but because of the ages of my dc now it’s manageable. I WFH 4 days a week so the odd day here and there where he might just want to bumble about is fine but I’d feel upset if he was just being left to his own devices for days on end. Some people have no choice and it’s fucking shit. There should be affordable and fun provision for all.
Most people WANT to work and support their families but it’s made very difficult by the lack of annual leave and affordable accessible childcare options.

Exactly, covid has really changed things, as does having DC with additional needs. None of which anyone could know in advance.

had to make the choice to only work part time so that my children were cared for and now my state pension will be less

@user1471505494 why is that? If you claim your child benefit, you get credits towards your state pension until your child turns 12. You also have a working life to age 68 now, and only 35 years of NI is needed for a full state pension. I'm not sure your statement is correct.

But more constructively..send them to Nan and grandad for a week, then the in-laws...or the God parents or siblings..take unpaid leave... contact child care apprentice courses and offer the students 'placements', join boys brigade they often do a weeks camping holiday, swap care with friends and neighbours, build networks for years before you have children, don't move away from family, ask the school learning support staff, check out local church schemes, make Mum freinds,

None of us can meet our children's needs. We rely on others to grow the food they eat, clean the roads they travel on, heal them.if they are ill, make their clothes, teach them maths, design their toys, etc...

Unless you're living off-grid on a small holding, home educating and spinning your own wool from your own sheep. In which case, fair enough.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. No one has a gun to your head, it’s not state-mandated, you can choose not to have children just like you can choose a myriad of other things in life. I don’t know why people get defensive when you highlight this fact. Lifestyle choice doesn’t mean it’s not important or worthwhile.

Next people will be saying “having 3 children is not a lifestyle choice!”

It’s all a choice, it’s completely disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

All the smug ‘I’m terrible clever and I thought this through beforehand and got a little part-time evening job’ posts are hilarious.

There are all the obvious reasons why it’s stupid. But also it works on the assumption that all parents (well, mothers) are expendable from the workforce. What do you think would happen if every mother in the country followed your shining example and left her job/got a little part-time evening job/took the school holidays off? Good luck getting a GP appointment. Hope your kid doesn’t need to go to A&E. And so on.

Yeah it's not like circumstances ever change do they

I only had one DCpartly for this reason. But its not a lifestyle choice to have kids. What ahorrible way to.look at it. They're people, not a new car!

Shift work was a blessing when my kids were little. 3 x 12 hour shifts to get your working hours in over fewer days. I would work split nights in the week and/or weekend day shifts in the holidays. It was exhausting as I’d be up with the kids all day. When hubby got home, I’d lock myself in the bedroom for an hour Power Nap then head to work for 12 hours. Get home in the morning just as hubby leaving for work. Stay awake - usually arrange soft play with coffee to keep me going. Then bed at the same time as the kids.
the flexibility of shift work meant we could save a week or two of A/L for a family holiday rather than using it all for childcare cover.

we also did childcare share days with friends. I would call in one of those post nights or between nights.

Agree with everything you have written. There needs to be a massive push to increase holiday clubs as the majority of parents both work. I never rely on friends as I know things can change last minute (their own kids ill etc) so always use holiday clubs (plus many friends are in the same situation as us). The cost is also huge for families that dont live near any relatives to help out.

Nothing I can add to help but I really hope there will be a complete overhaul of childcare soon. I do take a positive from holiday clubs that my kids absolutely love going and it adds routine to the Summer holidays (im lucky not to be full time so I can enjoy time with them too).

Childcare is the responsibility of the parents not the schools. If councils set up some provision for holiday care will parents be able to pay for it You can’t expect everyone else to fund your life choices.

I don’t expect anyone to fund my choices, I’m happy to pay well for decent childcare. Many childminders in my area stopped working during Covid and never started back again, 3 after school clubs closed leaving one, that I had to raise significant safeguarding concerns with, and another than runs from 9-3 which is incompatible with a 9-5 job. There is nowhere that will accommodate my DD12, literally nowhere, and she needs childcare due to her additional support needs, I can’t leave her at home.

Show me a safe childcare option that runs from 9-5 even and I’ll happily pay for it.

@Fizbosshoes
I do do it! Or near to at least. Enough to know that you can hire a hall for £15 a hour, and have 15 kids in there paying a £5 each. Do whatever you're talented at. £60 profit an hour, thanks very much. Bit of insurance, bit of admin.

There are millions of jobs you cant work from home ever.

Having children is much more than a lifestyle choice. Having a dog or driving a car is a lifestyle choice.

What whatever people should be able to have children, provide for them and that includes being able to use childcare.

If people aren't careful they could push women's rights back decades. There used to be arguments that it was pointless giving training / apprentice places to young women because they'd do the training then throw it away to have babies, so the company got little return on their investment.

Is there any way you could work shorter + longer days around each other?

Eg I do 0.8FTE (am off on Mondays), but otherwise work two school hour days plus two longer days to make up the time. DH works school hour days on the days I do longer days, then longer hours on his three other days.

As well as the fact we don't need wrap-around care, it also means that usually in the holidays, we split each week, so I take off my own six hour days and DH takes off his. Means only need to each take off 12 hours of leave a week to cover the whole week, making the annual leave go further!

We do also do a week or two of holiday club (only 9-3, but with our shorter days, it works out okay).

My situation changed under devastating circumstances a few years ago. It was not predictable and totally blindsided me. I've gone from being half of a couple paying our own way (though not well off) and juggling things between us to a lone parent on part time wages and tax credits and having to meet all my children's needs myself. It's too simplistic to say people should think ahead because sometimes with the best will in the world you don't see events coming.

It depends on your age. I lost 6 years of my state pension. I also worked a lot but unfortunately not many full years so got no credit for those years

My colleagues don’t pick up work I don’t finish so it doesn’t make any difference to anyone else on my team.

My kids are also 10&12 and don’t need ‘playing’ with, just an adult in the house.

My work place also don’t care in the slightest if the kids are home aslong as our work get done!

It's not really a choice when it's a drive so overpowering life feels unbearable without it, nor is it lifestyle so much as how almost all animals exist at all.

The alternative to the red tape is kids getting killed, injured, or molested.

School is a place that offers educational services not babysitting

JFC so many people on this page making points that were already made and debunked earlier in the thread.

Marry a teacher, problem solved.