It's already started

[Haruka]

Oh my.

Day two of the official start to the holiday. Already, I have heard two sets of parents utter the exact same thing to their poor kids. "Can't wait until you're back at school". One this morning, another dad on Friday at pick-up, the literal beginning of the holidays, saying he'll celebrate the day they go back in September.

Yes, I'm being a massive judgey-pants, but the holidays are 6 weeks long and some people can't even stand to be around their kids for a day, let alone the weeks yet to come?

I don't know, it makes me so sad. And while everyone gets annoyed by their kids at some point, you don't openly tell them you wish they were somewhere else?

Pretty sure IANBU, but it's every holiday I hear this kind of thing and every time it gets me.

Of course it is. It's spending the time between 3 and 5 with them, it's spending the time you would have been rushing around cleaning and doing the washing with them. Often it's being there in the holidays (as few jobs have as much holiday as schools do).

As long as their needs are being met, time is far more important to children than money. I don't judge people who need to work full time, or even who want to. But I do judge people like you.

I don't want them sat on their bums being fed sugary hot chocolate in the summer. It's pure laziness.

What a peculiar notion! Who's feeding their kids 'sugary hot chocolate' in the summer?! Just makes you sound even more like you haven't a clue what other people's lives are like. Whizzing by too fast on your family bike jaunt to judge in any realistic detail no doubt.

Fine to think it, not to say it to your kids.

I can absolutely see why people find the summer holidays hard. I've been there myself. To the kids I've always said 'yay, summer holidays' even when I've been thinking 'shit, how am I going to get through the next 6 weeks?'.

The 'you chose to have kids' argument is just so stupid. None of us really know what we're going to experience over 18 years of parenthood when we choose to have kids. Circumstances can change in a heartbeat.

This! My primary kid been off since June 30th back September 1st. My secondary kids been off since May 30th back August 28th. Haven't said to any of them yet I can't wait until their back because we all find the summer break so much more relaxing no runny around chasing my tail I can slip off to work without getting 3 kids out the door. Youngest doing camps which she loves. Happy house 😀

My two weeks of annual leave in the summer is the highlight of my year. The other 4 weeks are a stressful juggling act of driving 35 miles to available holiday clubs, complex childcare swap arrangements, and starting work at the crack of dawn to get my hours in, while feeling guilty that the DC have had too much screen time.

Keeping children entertained forv6 weeks can take its toll on families, especially if, like my children,they argue over everything. I know we used to appreciate it when my in-laws took the children for a week or two. I'm now doing that for DD. I'm taking DGS home with us tomorrow (currently with them) and then I'm goin to take him and DD over to see my dad towards the end of August.

@CurlewKate yes this is the point- great if you are in the right circumstances and designed for when one parent was at home and there was no WFH either.

The problem with the first weekend of the holidays is that the kids are knackered but also excited so they are naturally more annoying and give you the fear that they'll be this moody for the whole 6 weeks

Sometimes when I read MN and see FB I feel like I am the only person who works?

I was brought up on an island and my parents left us to do whatever we wanted, in groups or on our own. I suppose people today would describe it metaphorically as 'feral', although there was no law-breaking, just a kind of reckless abandonment of school strictures.

My parents were loaded, strict, but 'lazy' if that's what posters are calling lack of planned activities with their (many) children. My father worked bloody hard at his own business, and my mother worked bloody hard at being thin and accessing fashion. If there was a 'Real Housewives of Kirrin Island', she'd have been in it.

Meanwhile we were out collecting pop bottles for returns and buying ice creams, building camp fires and 'dens', riding horses, cycling to coves, and visiting Casualty once in a while. ('Hello, nurse.' 'Oh it's you again'.)

Same here! June 1 - August 28!

We are doing a three-week family holiday but otherwise it's camps all the way. Thanking our lucky stars we can afford them. It would be a very long three months if we couldn't.

I'm a SAHM, and my little 2 are home all the time anyway. But the summer holidays are difficult. DS thrives on the routine and stimulation of school, something that we don't have the time or money to replicate in the holidays. I love having him around, but he doesn't enjoy 6 weeks off and for his sake, I can't wait for him to go back to school. He'd much rather be there, than hanging out with me and 2 toddlers. The shorter half term breaks are wonderful though.

Long summer holidays don’t work for every child/family. I have two children with autism, one gets severe anxiety being anywhere that isn’t home. Over the past 8 years I’ve spent hours arranging trips/holidays, paying for everything, making sure I have money for treats when out. Only for him to have a meltdown and want to leave after an hour. And I do not resent him for his anxiety, it’s me that has been determined to do what all other families do during these times then we all end up feeling miserable.

My children certainly need a break but they also need the routine of school. So it’s likely I will end up looking forward to September sooner rather than later simply because the thought of 6 weeks not doing much doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. I will not be saying this to the children, I hate using school as some sort of threat. In my case it’s important to build up to the next school year anyway, that first week back is overwhelming, so I will be saying ‘in x amount of weeks you’re in Year 1/2/3 etc, isn’t that exciting? I wonder what you’re going to learn this year?’.

I love my kids, I love spending time with them. But these long summer holidays can be hard. I can’t wait until Christmas, those two weeks are much easier with the distractions of the day itself in the middle.

So who looks after your kids in the holidays for 6 weeks while you work? It's not about not enjoying the holidays. I love the 6 weeks off my daughter gets but it's still a struggling and stressful! Planning child care, not having money for fancy holidays, or weekends away, I don't have spare money for even a day away atm, I don't drive. Luckily this year I've been fortunate enough to have a couple days away in a caravan but other than that it's absolutely awful when I can see my daughter is bored but I can't do anything except walks or bake. But that's only fun for a certain amount of time.

🤣 sporty family strikes again with their better than everyone else attitude.

It has been raining here relentlessly for ages, some of it torrential. I have waterproof gear, but I just don't enjoy walking about in the rain. It doesn't help that I wear glasses.

Think it, by all means, but don't say it to your children!

Yes, the holidays can be a struggle at times, but the six weeks holidays are not some new idea that schools have just dropped on us without warning! People are fully aware of them before they have kids. I do appreciate circumstances might have changed financially for many this year, leading to additional stress, but they're seem to be some parents that just resent having to actually parent their children.

Honestly, who hasn't proclaimed that they wish their kids were back in school after the bazzilionth argument from the kids?! The "He's looking at me!", the "Mum! She's got the pen I want!" the "I don't want to tidy up", the "but the park is boring!" etc.
The constant "Can we have a snack, please?" & the responding reaction that you're the most unreasonable person on the planet in saying no because they've literally just had a decent sized lunch & if they keep eating snacks they'll be none left resulting in yet another trip to the supermarket costing yet more money that you've just not got because you're juggling working stupid lates & night shifts to accommodate providing childcare which on the whole you don't mind but are physically exhausted & mentally drained as DP works long hours & whilst he helps & is brilliant, cleaning the house whilst kids are home is like sweeping the yard in a tornado.

Not everyone has the luxury of not finding parenting difficult & stressful whilst still loving the absolute bones of & doing everything they bloody can to provide a decent life for their kids. So yeah, I will probably snap at them that I wish they were back in school because I'm exhausted with trying my fucking hardest & parenting (at times, for me anyway) is fucking hard too!

I absolutely love the summer holidays: it’s brilliant having them around and we get so much time together that we don’t manage in term time.

I did used to smile and nod at the old tropes about getting rid of the kids but my josh were quite hurt so no I always correct people if they say anything like that.

YANBU
I'm sure almost every parent has thought it but don't say it to your kids...!

Same here and just me with them.
I love my kids but the six weeks are hard work and expensive

It is very sad. I don't know why these people bother having kids.
All they do is piss and moan about them.

I would totally watch ‘Real Housewives of Kirrin Island’. 😀Especially if it involved making heather beds in caves and eating potted meat sandwiches and dodging bad guys who want Uncle Quentin’s Secret Blueprints — all while being fashionably thin and ferociously groomed. And if someone murdered Julian before the opening credits…

There’s a lot of unpleasant judgement from some people in this thread. The rest of life does not stop because it is the summer holidays. All the issue people deal with the rest of the year are still there, only now the kids do not have their normal routine. For some that is incredibly stressful. Some people need to get off their high horse and let other people be.

As someone with a ND child who only manages to function with structure and routine - the summer holidays, or any holidays, are hell.
throw in trying to work full time, another child too, and shit weather. It’s not fun.

So yes. I cannot wait until the holidays are over. And my kids have probably heard me say it too.