I’m a teacher; does this mean school holidays are solely my responsibility?

[teacakeandsandwiches]

Or is it reasonable to ask DH to take some annual leave then so I can actually have a life of my own a bit?

You can probably tell which way I’m leaning. This holiday I’ve arranged to see friends tomorrow and Thursday. DH quite put out he has to take time off but honestly is this really so unfair?

Just find a way to get through these years so you both feel like you have some time to yourselves. It won’t be forever, your kids will get more independent.

Assuming the kids are young and need looking after, 2 days out of 5 sounds like quite a lot on the face of it.

I think generally, people with school holidays forget how limiting it is for the rest of us with our 25-30 days annual leave.

I’m also pretty sure anyone working in schools deserves/needs those holidays.

I think if he takes odd days off to have time to himself then he should do the same for you. Seems fair to me. I’d want majority of time dh took off to be family time but a couple of days each seems reasonable.

I would sit down and plan it out over the year so you each have the same number of days off without children, accounting for any days he takes off to solve house/family issues that you can't get off because you're a teacher. Or alternatively you could get more weekend days to yourself.

You need to work out whether it is better for him to take annual leave or to arrange clubs (and the cost) involved. It’s not unreasonable for you to want a bit of free time otherwise you never get a day to yourself but his annual leave isn’t necessarily the way to manage it depending on how tight his feels.

You need to work out whether it is better for him to take annual leave or to arrange clubs (and the cost) involved. It’s not unreasonable for you to want a bit of free time otherwise you never get a day to yourself but his annual leave isn’t necessarily the way to manage it depending on how tight his feels.

He may well only be able to take a limited amount of annual leave in school holidays - certainly the case where I work as everyone wants school holidays

Isn’t that a perk of working in a school you don’t need childcare. However if the children are sick during school time he should be using his annual leave for that plus family holiday/s.

So use some for family time and bank some for emergencies.

I wouldn’t ask dh to book this Wednesday off so I could go out with a friend. Surely if say your friend is a teacher you still arrange for a Saturday when dh is off normally

Who minds the kids term time if they are sick?

I’d expect two competent adults to have done a reasonable amount of planning how to use their holiday and manage parenting.

If chikdren free time is an important feature to either / bith then That get factored into the planning.

It probably is for this holiday @ElfAndSafetyBored but then I did the whole of October half term and the whole of Christmas and so I guess I do kind of feel like I’ve earned a couple of days! It wasn’t done intentionally, just that friends from sort of abroad (Northern Ireland - we’re in England) are over here and we are meeting up on one of the days.

I’m not difficult for the sake of it but it does annoy me a bit that DH has three weeks to do what he wants with while two days for me are ‘given’ begrudgingly and got me thinking hang on … this doesn’t wholly fall on me, surely? But others definitely seem to think it does.

I think the vast majority of it is on the person who works term time.

Surely his annual leave is spent on family time not loads of time on his own?
I think it’s fair enough to expect him to take the day here and there across mid terms, it will obviously need to be booked rather than last minute though.

But do you not use his leave for days at home? That's what my husband does. He only gets 3 weeks plus bank holidays but this is either taken up with family holiday or we do things at home/where we live.

5 weeks is quite generous though and I guess if he just takes days off for himself then this should be reciprocated. However how much notice did you give him and is there any reason why you don't meet your friends at the weekend?

It’s a mix but it hasn’t actually happened yet. One day closed for snow but my school was closed too so that was fine. And one INSET which DH took off.

When did you start talking about having these 2 days? YANU to need and want the time, but how much notice did you give your DH to book his annual leave?

DH and I are not teachers. We plan our entire year of annual leave together to account for time off together, child illness, and a tiny bit of time to ourselves. DC is not at school yet. When we're at that stage we'll plan every single holiday.

I told him a while ago but he forgot about one of the days so is now grumbling, and it looks like I’ll have to take ds with me. Or not go which is a shame.

I'm really shocked at the early replies.

Your DH is incredibly fortunate to have a partner who can cover every school holiday. Doesn't he realise that most dads whose partners work use most of their holiday to alternate childcare? If two working parents have normal year-round jobs they have very little time off together and probably zero left for themselves during term time.

This is a scenario most couples would dream of...enabling a potential balance of time off together and separately. Why on earth should he be able to have time off to himself when you don't get any?

So your child(ren) are new to school? Don't underestimate the benefit of having someone who can take leave when you can't for inset days, illness or other school closures. Does he also do drop offs/pick ups?

Also if he doesn't work weekends surely you can take some time for yourself then?

If he's taken a day of annual leave just because he fancied it then I really don't see the difference.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. I don't work and my DH also gets 5 weeks annual leave. For a while we ended up with him realising towards the end of the year that he'd barely taken any leave other than a summer holiday. Meanwhile I had done every single holiday solo. Now we make sure he books some time off so he can spend time with the kids. Sometimes we will do family stuff, sometimes it's a holiday for me because I deserve a day off too!

If you're the kind of family who do a lot of holidays away you might not need to plan this out. But we don't for a number of reasons so have to make sure he doesn't slip into just working constantly because there's no reason not to.

Team DH. My dm (when I was young) plus all my friends who are teachers look after their dc in school holidays

You should have put the info about him using his own annual leave to book days off during term time for himself in your OP as I think the responses would be different.

Of course you should both have equal amounts of child free time to yourself and he should therefore book the odd day off in school holidays to allow you do this as you don’t have the option of booking leave in term time. It also sounds like he’s never responsible for parenting his children for a whole day on his own so that would do him good and remind him why you need some time off.

But there is a difference (surely) between ‘I do the majority of the care during the school holidays’ and ‘I do all the childcare in the school holidays?’

@RainReignRein that is what happened here, and he took a week off in October and one in November as he had to use up his annual leave before the end of the year!

You need time out too. It’s as simple as that. You’re not going to get resounding concensus of support as there’s some bitterness about the amount of holidays teachers get (but a convenient deafness to the amount of work that goes on around working hours, weekends and during holidays…) but no, you have holiday for a reason as you’ll burn out without it: you need some time for yourself.

I’m finding this interesting. My OH is a teacher and is off most school holidays so does most of the childcare. However my leave is also taken in the school holidays so we can all spend time together (even if we don’t go away), or on random inset days.