Teacher married to non teacher

[allsummereverysummer]

It’s on my mind at the moment that I’m responsible for childcare every holiday until they are of an age they don’t really need it …

I know that’s obvious. I think it’s just I do the lions share of everything as it is. Feels like a long time to have them over the summer tbh.

@MassiveOvaryaction I clearly was then, we all have boundaries!

I would also agree with this. It's really important for your DH to get practice at having the kids by himself.

So he takes 2 weeks in summer, one in Easter, one in December (if that’s necessary? How many Christmas leave days he have regardless?). Take a day away from each holiday as ‘emergency’ ones.

Well yes and you are free to do this of course. But there are boring reasons why this wouldn’t work for us best at this moment in time which I’ve tried to explain but of course it is still Wrong

OP, we don’t have teachers in our family set up, but I completely understand that parenting can be hard work, stressful, overwhelming and sometimes not very enjoyable despite the fact that we love our children dearly. Some of the posts on here are very harsh and try to make you feel guilty that you even suggest such a thing!

When my children were little I used to find the holidays hard as the organised activities stopped and friends were away at different times, and our vacations were exhausting! My advice would be to not think about the next few years as a whole, as that is very daunting. Each year the children will have grown up and be at different stages to the previous year - this means that some years may be easier/more enjoyable than others, but it is not possible to work out which will be which. Look at each year at a time and work out what you can do to make it easier. Remember that you do not have to be Supermum!

The best advice I received was to enjoy the positives of good moments, rather than having the expectations of having good days/weeks. If it is too much, and is affecting your mental health, remember that your GP may be able to help (I had undiagnosed mild post natal depression for 2 years which did not help with the situation ). Good luck.

Yes - I know. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. Jesus lord above

I put my dd into holiday club for a couple of days for a couple of weeks over the summer holidays, just to have a day or 2 to myself. Which is mostly doing jobs around the house.

I get it from a teacher side and similar to my situation - holidays aren't holidays and you have to man the children during school holidays. My dp only has a couple of his holiday weeks with us so his holiday is his own time!
But also understand it from many many other working parents who have to have holidays to work around the kids or have to pay for very expensive in general childcare

I get that.

I had DD at 40.

I would very seriously advise though that you change your mindset as 10 years will fly by and your DH will be on a wine tour or rugby tour or business trip or a business trip involving a suspicious amount of vineyards, while you stress about upcoming GCSEs/whatever.

Take back the power!

The only reason I mentioned weekends because I found particularly when the dc were young that an hour or there to see a friend, go to the gym etc really did help me keep my sanity and made me fell like me again.

My husband uses some of his annual leave during the week for appointments or when we need someone to be at home for repair/delivery etc. He also does a hobby that sometimes involves a day trip. He probably uses 5-7 days a year (out of 25) for this. Totally fine by me, but I also put the kids in holiday club in the school holidays so I get a similar number of days to myself.

Why should I work out of the home and then work all school holidays in the home as the sole childcarer, for 356 days a year? Meanwhile DH gets a week or so of 'me-time' just because he can take those days off in term time.

There is no shame keeping/putting your kids in childcare so you can take time off for yourself ocassionally.

Reading your updates I completely get where you're coming from, OP. I understand your kids have only a 2 year gap... That must be very intense. Mine have a 4 year gap so i think I probably have it easier with them.

But just some advice for next summer when I assume your kids will be aged 2 and 4: if their nursery closes for the summer, could you book them both with a child minder one day a week? That will give you a day to recharge and will make it much easier for you to enjoy the rest of the week. Also please bear in mind that a 2 and a 4 year old might be a lot easier than a 1 and 3 year old. You can get both to watch TV for an hour a day so you have a break. If you have a garden invest in a playhouse and slide. My 1 and 5 year old can spend a whole hour playing out in the garden together while I watch/do the weekly shop on the computer.

Yes I agree (+ childcare is expensive and sometimes difficult to get).
I brought my DD up on my own and worked for nearly all that time (often part time).
It was really challenging at times with school holidays. I was lucky that my mum could help sometimes but I had to rely on holiday clubs/ swapping with friends a lot of the time too.

A lot of parents don't get huge amounts of time to themselves. My DD & SIL have 2 children now and I help out when I can but I know they struggle with arranging school holidays.
DD and her DH take different weeks as annual leave to cover some of it. I think that's what a lot of families have to do.

I did have PND with ds @Tallpoplartree and I do remember often feeling a sense of panic at the days with him (lockdown did not help.) it’s certainly a horrible feeling, when you should be jubilant you just aren’t.

I think the reason people are up in arms is that this is the same for everyone in that if you work and your children are at school, you have to use all your annual leave to cover school holidays.

No one gets a child free day.

But non teachers' annual leave isn't enough to cover all the school holidays, so not only do they have to use all their annual leave, they also have to organise and pay for holiday schemes (which often don't cover the full working day and are a PITA to get to etc). You don't have to worry about any of that.

I am genuinely not sure what’s wrong with my mindset @Phineyj and I can see that you’re trying to be really helpful but we’re obviously at cross purposes a bit! I really, really don’t want a life where I have Saturday ‘off’ and DH has Sunday ‘off’ or whatever substitution. I’m sure if I wanted to meet friends that wouldn’t be a problem but at the moment I save that for school holidays.

I do like this concise yet accurate response.

Ouch! 😆😆😆

I know @Oldermum84 - and I’m actually the first to be sympathetic to parents in that position. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a bit of extra help for the school holidays, though!

But that is a false equivalence because he is hardly doing any childcare in the week.

I do feel like that a little but we have a fair split in the week and I believe DH is rather lucky to have me planning everything ahead and filling in all the sodding booking forms.

I understand your frustration but there's a very simple solution of putting them into holiday club a couple of days a week once they're school age. If you don't want to do that, for whatever reason that's fine but it's not like you don't have a choice.
If you weren't a teacher you'd probably have to use holiday club to some extent. Won't you have some work to do over the summer anyway as preparation for next year?

it isn’t this summer troubling me so much as the one after - and after that.

So now you‘ve clearly articulated to yourself what the issue is, and the great thing is there’s time to solve it. If you tell your DH that future summer holidays mostly spent with no downtime where he can tag team you more, and give you more time off alone in a few chunks, is a worrying prospect, then when planning next year’s annual leave (and after that!) you can get a better balance.

YABU.

It is relentless to look after small children, especially a 1 and 3 yo. You are lucky to have them in nursery, 2 days. It is good that you can have some time to yourself.

When my DC were small, we had no help. Childcare just didn't exist to fill the gap of school and it wouldn't have been fair for them. There are 190(ish) school days and 276(ish). With 25 - 30 days leave, there are some big gaps to fill if both parents work.

I was self employed for a few years, working 7 days, it was exhausting. OH retrained as a teacher. It is way easier now DC are older.

It won't always be this hard. 💐

Wouldn't we all! 🤣👍

What is it that you actually want?

You say that you want help in the holidays?

Everyone has said that the obvious answer is for your husband to take more leave. Not possible.

Or take some time at the weekend for yourself. Not possible.

Or use more paid childcare. Not possible.

It's really important that everyone takes ownership of their own lives. If you want something different then something will have to change

Your mindset is that you are primary parent and that you must have responsibility for all the things and it is bad not to want to and even worse not to enjoy it.

Structural sexism is hard to escape especially if you can't see it.

You matter as much as DH.

Decide what will make your life better and plan for it.

You could have a week away doing something of interest in summer 2025 if weekend things don't work for you.

Exactly this. I’m sorry you feel nagged at OP and believe me I’ve been in a very similar situation so do understand frustrations. But either something changes or you carry on as you are. You have to accept that your husband has to step up/in if you want the alone time back again, not dividing time with the kids or just doing everything together. He gets days of no work/no kids time, start recognising that it’s not about his job and yours but the division of actual alone time which is completely unequal.