Childcare when you're a teacher and your partner is not or vice versa

[TheThinWhiteDutchess]

I'd love to hear experiences of couples where one of you is a teacher and one is not. How do you manage the school holidays? Does one of you end up doing childcare during the holidays when your partner works?

My DH is a teacher, I am not, I work in a 9-5 office job. So this means that he has the school holidays off at the same time as the kids. You'd think this would be wonderful for childcare costs but in reality it seems to cause so much tension in our relationship as his holidays are never 'his own'. This I feel is compounded by the fact that we don't have a lot of childcare help from family. It all feels a bit relentless sometimes.

Part of me feels massively guilty about it, but I genuinely do not have enough holiday to cover even half the school holidays. I just don't know what to do. It's making me so stressed and unhappy. I think I need to bite the bullet and pay for some holiday club so that DH gets some him time.

But then again, I am working and that work contributes to the household. Although I have the occasional day off to do something fun, the vast majority of my days off are with the kids. I try to cover any medical appointments they need as I can obviously take holiday when I want whereas it is more complicated for DH.

We've gone round in circles about it so many times that I have genuinely lost sight of what is reasonable and what is not. I know different things work for different people and families. I almost feel like we need some outside help to resolve all this tension.

Something that doesn't help is that we often don't get a lot of time together as a couple. I think we really need to try and get some more time together otherwise it just feels like we are co-parenting in parallel.

Apologies, that was long.

Kids clubs are great try and factor this cost into your budget.

@DrMadelineMaxwell I'm still on maternity and it hadn't crossed my mind that my OH might try to book holiday during term time ! He better bloody not 🤣

Same. I'm no longer a teacher but when I was I had my children for the full holidays and I loved it. Now I have most holidays off using annual leave and flexi. The rest of the time I use holiday club or my DH takes time off. A friend of mine is a teacher (male) and he keeps their DC in holiday clubs as he needs time to himself 🙄. If your DH wants to out your DC in holiday clubs then he needs to organise and pay for it himself. Just don't step in, leave it to him to sort

Tough shit really. His holidays are going to be about childcare. It's one of the pluses on being a teacher.

On the flip side all illness can be covered by you because it is harder for him to take him in term time.

I'm a teacher and cover all holidays. I also work 4 days a week and we don't use nursery or wrap around care on my day off either. DH saves his leave and flexibility for term time in case kids are ill or have appointments that can't be moved and for nativity plays/insets when I obviously have to go in/sports day etc. I find your DH's attitude weird - surely most people use their annual leave for family time? He needs to suck it up as you can't cover the holidays anyway. Surely this is the main benefit of being a parent and a teacher!!!

Wow so selfish of him. He is a dad and his holidays should be for care.

Presumably you don't get free time when you are on holiday either. That's parenting.

I appreciate that as a teacher he has work to do while he is "on holiday" and thats not easy with children.

Are there any play groups , summer activities things on in your area so at least he and you can get some free time

I do think male teachers, who are parents, have quite a different experience of teaching to female teachers. But I think male teachers (especially in some subjects) are a whole other thread.

Husband is expressing the need for a break I think that is fair and he shouldn’t be demonised for it like pp have said even one day a week would be a start. On the flip side though you should also be accommodated in the same way so you get a break too and he will have to pick up the slack then. He can’t have it both ways 👌

The holidays to spend with the kids are the reason I took the pay cut to work in a school.
DH does inset days etc. He takes the rest of his leave for us all to do stuff together - either going away or just locally. I do the rest so no childcare is required in school holidays.

That said, next year half term doesn't line up, ad I'm looking forward to a week totally alone for a couple of hours each day!

Surely there's a compromise to be had. Absolutely the majority of childcare should fall to your DH but there would be absolutely no harm in the kids being in a kids club once a week for example during the holidays so he can have a little down time. We are not in that position anymore but DH used to be teacher. We've always ensured that we have at least some leave each year for ourselves. Absolutely children are always your priority but I don't think there is anything wrong with self care either. I work in similarly stressful role to teaching and need that little bit of time for myself occasionally. I think you just agree between you how many days a year you can afford/works for your family for each of you to have as leave without children and make it work.
Obviously if what he is saying is he wants the whole or majority of the holidays off then that is totally unreasonable and unrealistic and would be worrying.

This is hilarious. Does your DH think other parents get their annual leave on their own? Our eldest is 8 and in all that time I've never had a day off on my own. Neither has my DH. Holidays are family time. That's why we had children.
We've only had 2 days together without the kids in those 8 years, once to a wedding and the other to London/theatre. No family nearby to help.
I think your DH should manage the kids in the holidays. It's the one advantage of being a teacher!

I agree when they were very little it was a slog. But it was still so much nicer than being at work!

I'm the teacher in this situation. For the most part I love having the holidays off with my daughter. But I get it, there is no break, and as lovely as it is, it can be just as tiring as work. That feeling of no downtime, just moving between one type of busy to the other can wear you down. Normally DH books the majority of his holiday during school holiday time so we can go away or do family things - approximately 1 of the 2 weeks we get at October half term (independent school) 1 week at Easter, 1 week at May half term, and 2 weeks of summer. What is left over gets used for inset days and random other things that come up - all good. However I am currently on half term with DD (and feeling knackered!) and DH has about 7 days of holiday coming up in chunks over March, booked purely for playing Xbox... struggling to not be wondering when I get my week long downtime with that one!

I'm a sahm - one home full time, one in school and one in Montessori, I'll still put my bigger two in a summer camp for two weeks more for them than childcare. So I'm even though I'm here available but they still will be in camp

I'm not a teacher, I'm a lecturer, so I don't work only term time, but I do have significant paid time off during school holidays simply because of how the university holidays work (we have closure days over Christmas and Easter, which means I am paid but not working). I use all my days off over those periods to do childcare.

But I wouldn't expect to do all the holiday childcare, just because I have more time off than dh. I end up with about 7 weeks off a year (paid, I could take more unpaid if I wanted). Dh is self-employed, so no annual leave anyway, but he can take time off when he needs to. For the school holidays, like half term, when I don't automatically have days off, we do a mix of holiday club and each of us taking a day off here and there. This means I still have time to have a day to myself or a solo holiday.

If your dh can do half of the holidays, can you use a mix of holiday club, playdates with friends, your annual leave to make up the rest? Or he does the weekdays and then gets the weekends 'off' to get a break, go see a friend, do a hobby, etc? Personally, I don't find weekends with kids as draining as a whole week with them, so I'd gladly be the one to work 5 days and then do 2 days solo, if I knew dh could do the weekdays, so I think that would still be a good deal for you. Then you both can use your AL time to still do things as a family and on your own.

I am a teacher and my
Exh was not . I had the kids at all times until he came home at eight at night and said goodnight to them. He spent his weekends avoiding family life.
The straw that broke the
Camels back for me , was when he refused to divulge his annual leave.... as it was his business. When I estimated his annual leave for that year because I was booking holidays , he went mad saying it wasn't my business and he wasn't going to be told when he was going to be taking leave. He had no problem booking annual leave for stags, weekends away or his hobby.m
What a fucking idiot I was.

He's gone now, hardly sees them, has multiple holidays per year yet never brought them on one or did anything remotely interesting with them bar eat pizza and watch films.

He is an absolute disgrace of a man who doesn't deserve the term father or husband.

Teachers, please choose your spouses very carefully!

I am not a teacher but all of my annual leave has been taken in school holidays with my children for the last 11 years, in order to minimise time in clubs for them (and also cost). Dh is the same, we tag team and try to have some time all together as well. Isn't this normal? Surely all parents are spending the vast majority of their holiday with their kids?

The majority yes but we do take a few days a year off without the kids.

We can afford clubs and our kids actually enjoy them so I don't feel the need to minimise them

Thanks for all the replies, it's going to take me a while to go through all of them. So interesting to hear different experiences and points of view.

It's an emotional issue and I probably don't always represent DH all that well but it does feel like there's resentment on his side. I think we need a better solution and a way to find some more time just for us as a couple. Maybe it will get better as the kids get older.

It's definitely a tough gig being a teacher and my job feels much easier. So I'm trying to be sensitive to the fact that he has a tough job and then two young-ish kids to deal with at home so he sometimes feels like he never gets a break from being in charge of some kids.

I'm a teacher and get your DH's view completely. My DH works away so holidays are all on me. I do book days at holiday club if I need to work or if there's something I really want/need to do. If you can afford it, I'd say do it a couple of days in the summer hols and see how you go. It really helps me with the length of some of the holidays!

However, my DH doesn't take leave unless it's the school holidays or we have something going on at home (building work etc). I'd be massively pissed off if he took time off that wasn't family time. We have also used holiday club for me and him to have a day where we've needed to do something (e.g. paint a room!)

I think if he wants a break in his holidays, he should arrange it. My A/L is spent with my DC. I sometimes take a day in lieu when they are at school (2 or 3 days a year).

My friend who is a teacher looks after he DC in the holidays. Never thought anything of it tbh.

Presumably, you take your AL with the DC too. Can't he do something alone when you are with the DC sometimes?

I am a teacher. Our DC do some holiday clubs which we pay for from childcare vouchers. They don't 'need' to go as I am at home.

I'm not a teacher, but all my annual leave is spent looking after my children.

Your leave isn't really your own once you have children.

What would he rather be doing with his leave? Going on holiday by himself?

I’m a teacher, my DH is not. 2 young DC. Yes I’m responsible for childcare during school holidays.

For shorter holidays like half-term, I just take care of the kids all day. We make a plan for the week and everyday will have a different focus like: a new playground, indoor play centre, cinema trip, play date, a city trip if I’m feeling brave etc. We watch a movie every afternoon. It’s not ‘relaxing’ but I love it and I catch up on some good time with my kids. I budget about 100€ per week of holidays for this, which goes pretty quickly!

For longer holidays let’s say 2 weeks, I’ll enrol them for one of those weeks in a day-long sports camp. That way I get an actually break. It’s about 250€ for the two of them for the week, so I will only do this once or twice a year.

For the endless summer of 6-7 weeks, this is where I’m spoilt. My father is Italian and my parents own a property in Italy on the coast. My DH has to spend 3-4 weeks in the USA every year for his job. So, while he’s in the USA, I take the kids to Italy for about a month to be with grandma and grandpa (and the whole extended family) who dote on them, while I sunbathe on the Italian beach. However, they spoil them, feed them way too much sugar and salt, and so nighttimes (my job of course) are horrendous. And I desperately miss my DH and constantly wish I could be lying on the beach next to him. But I realise what an amazing arrangement this is, so I’m not complaining.

But in my experience, all my teacher colleagues are responsible for childcare during holidays. I can’t think of a single situation where that isn’t the case. This goes for both male and female colleagues, so sex doesn’t seem to be a factor.