to feel irritated about the lack of men taking time off for half term?

[HazelMember]

It always seems to be the women scrabbling around trying to sort childcare for half term. In my office the conversation started months ago about who’s booking leave, who’s juggling grandparents, who’s working from home with kids in the background. It’s nearly always the mums having these discussions.

What gets me is that quite a few of these couples have very similar roles and levels of responsibility. It’s not as though the husbands are all surgeons or airline pilots who physically can’t take time off. They work comparable jobs. Yet you rarely hear the fathers talking about booking annual leave for half term or planning what they’re doing with the kids.

I’m not saying all dads, obviously. I know some who absolutely do their share. But culturally, in my workplace at least, it still seems to default to women managing it. Even when both parents work similar jobs.

I didn’t say you mustn’t get annoyed but I did say YABU to be so annoyed. So if you’re going to try and pick someone out because you don’t agree with what they’ve said then at least make sure you actually quote what they’ve said instead of writing what you think they’ve wrote because it makes all the difference!!

Me and my partner split the holidays equally (he is off with them this week)

However there is definitely a difference in taking leave when one of them is ill or if there’s an event on in school that requires taking half day leave etc. that always seem to fall to me.

My workplace is 80% male and the dads only seem to take time off around school holidays. Some weeks in summer, the office is a ghost town.

Exactly what a waste of energy over something that will be none of your business.

Why are you here then? Such a waste of your energy.

This isn’t the case in my team at all. Both men and women are off for half term. Both also work flexible hours for school pick ups etc.

I always did this juggling when my kids were young and my DH didn't ...
We had similar job commitments but it did fall to me the vast majority of the time.It did annoy me sometimes.
Interestingly, when my husband was dying aged 48 yrs we talked about wether he had any regrets in life ,he said he regretted not doing more of the things he really enjoyed rather than working constantly (he didnt not enjoy his work).I asked for an example of what he would have liked to have done more of and he said he wished he'd spent more time with the kids when they were young eg school holidays rather than always working. I was shocked i never imagined that would be how he felt. Perhaps we were just in our ruts and didn't communicate and i wish we had...

Maybe the mumsnet demographic is more egalitarian in terms of child care division but I also think if you've got a fair split of labour you're more likely to speak up about it. I think it has become slightly shameful for women to admit they're still carrying the majority of the domestic load, especially in middle class, professional circles - like it's somehow a failure on their part rather than the men in their lives.

Pretty equal here.

although we do have one woman who makes it very clear she, as a mum, needs the time off, and is more entitled to the time off, than dads are.

i’ve come across many women as well they simply don’t trust the dad to be in sole care all day.

I think you've expressed that well.

I have seen that. Some of my friends are amazingly competent, holding down senior jobs in medicine, the civil service, councils etc while getting very little assistance from the children's dad in practical terms.

Even DH, who is no saint, has been known to whisper "I know that's not OK!" when we observe this in action.

I don't like it when women are blamed for somehow "not setting ground rules at the start", as though the men don't know at some level that they're being selfish gits.

I work in a v male dominated workplace and loads of men are off at the moment for half term, as is my DH (i am working). In our house we divvy up all he half terms between us so some fall to me, some to him, and we have May together. Any chance your colleagues do similar and it happens that most of the women have ended up with February? Or is this the case every half term?