School holidays with 2 working parents??????????

[Tom]

How the hell do you manage school holidays????

My boy, Cole, is eligible for State Nursery this September - between 1 and 3.30 pm. After payin gover £200 a week for nursery, this is a blessed relief, and it's not hard to figure out how things can work in term time...

My wife and I both work from home, with complete flexibility... so she can look after our boy in the morning until he goes to nursery at 1pm, and I'll work early morning until 3.30, then pick him up and take over until bedtime... easy. BUT.

What the hell do you do in the school holidays? I get 5 weeks holiday a year, and she is self employed, so if she stops working, she stops earning. It's about 13/14 weeks in the year when there's no childcare provision whatsoever... or at least none that I know about.

So it seems like we'll have to keep him in day nursery until he goes to school proper in a year's time, which will cost us loads, but he'll get decent educational input and there's no problem with holidays... OR... another solution that I've not heard of yet.

And anways, when he starts school, the same problems remain - what the hell do you do in the school holidays?????

I think the swapping of time and skills is a good idea - I'm a member of our local LETS scheme and use my credits to get occasional cleaning jobs done.

However I would feel very uneasy about swapping lets credits for childminding services if I didn't know the person at all. A few people offering babysitting services do advertise in the scheme but I have never been tempted to call them.

Unless the babysitter person was a friend or very well known to friends of mine, I would want them at the very least to be police checked and have 2 or 3 good references.

I think a childminding circle could work well if set up via a nursery, so mothers and children know each other already.

IMHO I think one could work via mumsnet too, but you'd have to meet up first and take things very slowly - still, what a nice excuse for a few evenings out and meeting a new bunch of parents and children

I agree with what you say Tigermoth - and it was those thoughts that promted me to ask what other mumsnetters thought....
whats the LETS scheme? - sounds interesting

They could always abolish school holidays!

Have you thought about a summer au pair? They live with you and need an afternoon a week (roughly) for language lessons, but they will look after your child and the home. Not completely educational, I guess, but why do you want your son to have education in the summer holidays?? Yes, he needs some stimulating and interesting activities, but they should be fun and recreational not education. Maybe. Anyway, give the au pair agency in Cardiff a ring and see what might be possible.

I hate school holidays, my elsdest is now 14 and my youngest is 6, so I have had this problem for 10 years and it doesn't get any better. I'm a single parent with a mum who is nearly 80, my currnet solution is that I normally work 9 - 3 five days a week, so that I can drop off and pick up, I cram my hours in teh school holidays over 4 full days, and send them to a kids club and this year after trying one out at half term I seem to have found one that they like. Its only my two younger ones as dd looks after herself. My hourly rate at work after deductions is 5.42, they charge £2.00 each, so in summer I work for the grand total of 1.42 per hour!!

I know this is of no use to you Tom, but just so you know that it is a dreadful problem. As an after thought, I work for the NHS and we have a Child Car Co-ordinator who has a list of kids clubs (most of them are in nurseries so are of no interest whatsoever to my 10 year ols ds), but I presume tha tmost NHS trusts have them, Ring your local Trust and ask to speak to the Child Care Co-ordinator and ask her for help, even if you don't work for them she may be able to give you a list of clubs locally.

I think it is very sad that neither you nor your wife seem to want to prioritise spending time with your child in the school holidays.

Motherinferior - hey, are you calling where I live posh? They'd have you for that round here! Seriously, I do think the recent spate of shootings might be having a detrimental effect on house prices....

Seraphina, I gather you don't need to work to pay your mortgage, then?

Aloha - I work part time and my partner works full time.
IMO no family needs 2 full time salaries to live in a reasonable way, and I think it is a shame to have children and not spend time with them. I think we live in an overly materialistic society.

I think Tom has already pointed out that both he and his wife work part time, so they can actively share child care (with all the reduction in earnings that implies). Isn't that the ideal? Well, how on earth are they supposed to also take 13 weeks (unpaid) holiday a year (plus) just to cover school holidays? I certainly couldn't afford to give up work for weeks on end every year, and we live in alittle house in a grotty bit of London, and drive an elderly tiny car. I suspect some people's idea of materialism is different to others.

I think it's insulting to say people who work don't want to spend time with their children. It really gets my goat, frankly.

erhhh, just to speak up for Tom, it seems to me he and his wife have organised their working pattern in order to have maximum time with their child(half the day one of them works while the other looks after their child and then they swap). Reading Tom's posts from way back, he can hardly be accused of not being a hands on dad.

oh - see you've already posted a reply, aloha.

Aloha - I think it is true that ideas of what is materialistic vary, but the idea of owning a 4 bedroom house in London and having a nanny share does seem pretty materialistic to me!
Don't you ever think about moving somewhere cheaper and working less?

Tom - as you and your wife are lucky enough to have flexibility over your working hours and work from home, maybe in the holidays you could work from 6am to 2pm and your wife from 2pm to 10pm?

Thanks for defending me folks! We do, indeed, both work flexibly, although probably nearer to full time hours than part time. But we have organised our working lives around our child, not organised our child around our work. So I really don't see holidays as "woohoo - lots of time with my boy!" - it's more of "aww crap - no flexible childcare to make our lives work!!"
Maybe if I worked from 7am to 3pm and my wife worked from 3pm to 9pm, it just might work. Can you imagine how knackered we're gonna be though!!!

If you're interested, here's the weekly split.

If each day is 8am - 8pm (12 hours, so the week is 60 hours)...

My boy spends...
20 hours in nursery...
18 hours with me...
15 hours with my wife...
5 hours with a friend...
and 2 hours with me and my wife together (Friday evening!!)

And we both work pretty much full time!

what do you do in the school holidays, serephina? it would be good if you could contribute something constructive to this discussion rather than just criticising others who are actually doing their best to work less to spend time with their children.

I take holiday, and have my parents to help out too. I have deliberately chosen to live near my parents at the expense of better career opportunites available in London.

What do you do, boosykate?

Seraphina - many people do not have many close relatives to move closer to.

I do sympathise completely with the nightmare of school holiday care. I only have 6 weeks leave and so rely on a childminder for the rest. My daughter is, however, outgrowing this but is reluctant to go a playscheme after a bad experience - for her. I am now seriously considering dropping my pay and working term-time only, not sure if I'm ready to take the plunge yet though

Serephina, my parents moved away when I had DS1!! I could not go back to work as I have no ready made support network to look after my children.

Well, you're lucky to have parents and other family to help out, Serephina. Not all of us can manage that. My very elderly parents live in a far-distant part of the UK where there are no suitable job vacancies for me and my dh's averagely-paid, public-sector professions, and my widowed MIL has such a lavish state pension that she is still grafting as a supply teacher for as much of the week as possible at aged 69 to keep a roof over her head. Each of them help out as much as they can but could not possibly manage six weeks plus over the summer, for example.
It's great that you have been able to make these choices but please don't criticise others who are not similarly placed.

Tinker, how old is your dd? If she is over 8 and a bit sporty, many local sports centres run courses over the school holidays, the problem with them near me is that they are 9 - 3 so I would have no one to collect or pick up. Serafina, if you have parents on whom you can rely for child minding you are incredibly lucky, please think before you critisize people who aren't as fortunate as you.

Hi lilibet - my daughter is 6 and we do have suitable sports schemes here which are 10 til 3. Am trying to suggest the idea to her - work is flexible, I could work round these hours for a few days a week. But actually want to work term time. I think.

Soupdragon, I know that not everyone has a great relationship with their parents, and I also know that I have put in a lot of effort and sacrificed a lot personally to have a good relationship with mine. If my parents could not help me then between me and dp we would provide all childcare ourselves by changing our lifestyle to accommodate our child.
IMO young children suffer emotionally from childcare provided by paid strangers. Obviously parents who pay for childcare (and let's face it, providers of childcare are paid appalling wages) will be up in arms to hear this point of view, so I expect this opinion to go down badly with them.
My child deserves to be looked after by someone who loves her, and not someone paid peanuts to do the job. Looking after a child is a priveledge, not a job IMO.

serephina, my ds is only 2 so we don't have to face this issue yet. however, it is a worry even now. and btw being near family for me would mean staying in london with its high cost of living...