People told me “the juggle” would get easier when my daughter started school. They told me my world would change – that I no longer would find it so hard to balance life and childcare. But, as any parent will tell you, with 13 weeks of school holidays, it is still an absolute minefield.
Of course this is mostly because schools have the same holiday structure as they did in 1873, despite huge changes to how we live, learn and work. And while changing the school calendar to suit modern life would be ideal, I do believe there is a quicker fix that can happen in the workplace to make it easier on families and parents.
Stop child-free staff booking the school holidays off – and give parents priority access when making requests.
My husband’s small team is full of child-free colleagues who often book the school holidays off, despite not even having kids. It means he can’t take the time off and our family can’t go away because unlike them, we aren’t allowed to take time off during term time.
It’s hard enough trying to cover the breaks between us as it is, yet my summer can be defined by whether or not someone I don’t even work with wants to go to a festival.
Before you have children of your own, the plight of your colleagues with families isn’t something that occurs to you. I’ll throw my hands up and admit it, that was me. If I wanted to book a trip in February half term I would (and I did). I wouldn’t have known it was the half term, first of all. And if I’m very honest, I wouldn’t have cared. My friends and young co-workers often talked about booking the summer off as early as possible, to compete with the parents who did it en masse.
What I didn’t understand is that we were being selfish. Maintaining equilibrium within the family structure takes a lot of work and thought and planning, and it’s something which is constantly under threat.
If you ask most parents, they will tell you that they are one bad virus away from everything falling apart. Who is going to take the leave? And what is left to cover the six weeks of summer? The family system is a fragile eco-structure and we need all the help we can get.
It’s why we booked our Easter holiday in December. Too often my husband’s childfree coworkers have snatched those weeks all up when everyone returns in January before we have made any plans.
And it’s not like we parents have the luxury of being able to take off whenever we like, because we’ll get slapped with a financial penalty and an unauthorised absence on record if we go away during the much cheaper term time. Not to mention children missing important parts of the curriculum we’ll have to catch up on.
I don’t think it’s that big a deal for companies to say that only parents should get priority to book off half term or the six week summer holiday.
I get that it would be annoying to staff who saw a cheap last-minute deal, but there’s still plenty of leave they can take if they just left us with the school breaks. There are many months still ripe for the taking. It’s absolutely possible to manage.
Not having a child feels like a perverted act of feminism – but I may regret it
Read MoreEven in summer, it’s do-able. Non-parents can have June, parents can have July and August. September is open for non-parents.
Parents could get priority access to book off school holidays for a set time and then after this window closes, it’s opened up to everyone. So if there is space left in July and August after the parents have chosen their weeks – it’s open to the floor.
It doesn’t mean you can’t have a great summer, it’s just a plea to take off in June instead of July for the sake of your colleagues who can’t.
I don’t know why we’re even competing over it. During the school holidays, the flights are twice the price, the airports are packed with families, and the whirlpool is full of kids ruining the vibe. On my last family holiday, a kid pooed in the pool and they had to close it down. Plus I caught Norovirus and ended up in the hospital. I paid £6,000.
Why do you want to compete with the parents to bag these slots? Let us have that at least.
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