should colleagues with kids get preference for holidays?

dontone

Personally speaking, when I was working, I didn't mind taking my holidays at a different time if somebody with kids desperately needed those dates. What I did object to was going to book and somebody saying "You CAN'T have that just in case.......etc, etc."
While you have to make some allowances (the 6 week holiday i.e), I think that there were some who took the wee-wee and used the child card to the best of their advantage.
I worked at a firm for 5 years and never got to book a holiday in the summer months. Due to people saying "Well, it's the school holidays" "husband can only get time off then" "I need to check the prices in those weeks as Corfu might be cheaper then" I was peeved at the "You don't have any ties, no OH, & you never go anywhere" excuses I got (I was young and a bit scared to stand my ground in those days)
The last firm I worked for had a rota and people took turns, with or without kids, which was much fairer, everybody was more flexible and I finally got time off in summer :T.
It works both ways, just because some people don't have kids, those people have just as much right to book holidays when they want to as those with children.

catkins

When we were first married OH had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day every year for 5 years because we didn't have children and others that did could take the time. We both thought it was very unfair that we couldn't spend any of those days together. He left after that and started his own business.

I never really had any problem when I worked in an office, partly because they were all places with a lot of staff so quite a few people can have the same time off and we were all willing to help colleagues out with time off.

When I started in retail it was different. They were all smallish shops with few staff so usually only 1 person could be off at a time. Most of them gave priority to parents. I didn't mind about summer holidays as I prefer to go away in September as I don't like hot weather. The trouble was that OH's birthday falls in the October half term and we like to go away for it. Every year I was told I couldn't take it because a parent wanted/needed it. One year they so generously told me I could take OH's birthday off but just the one day!

JB1971

No. Parents shouldn't be given preferential treatment. Nobody should.
What happens if everyone on the team/company is a parent? Where does it stop? Personally, I've always avoided taking time off during school holidays whenever possible, and worked over Christmas/New Year, but on the odd occasion when I've needed a day off (not weeks!) I've felt that I needed to explain (almost apologetically!!) why I've dared to book time off when I haven't got kids!!
And the biggest bun fights I've ever seen have been between parents who think that their right to holidays is more important than the next persons!
Come to think of it, I booked 27th December off one year (first time in 10 years that I'd wanted a day off between Christmas and New Year) and found myself in the middle of a grievance brought by a colleague who had wanted the whole period off, as she did every year. My one day off meant that she had to miss her extended family's annual holiday. My immediate reaction was to change my plans, until I found out that the holiday destination was less than an hour's drive away (less than a normal commute for most people!)

POPPYOSCAR

F_Bear wrote: »

its time at work to put in our holidays for next year. work in a disciplined service with minimum staffing levels so only so many people can be off at one time.

braoched the subject of how will the line manager decide if 2+ people want the same time off and some one said people with kids should have preference for holidays.

what do people think?

ive no kids but think names should be drawn out a hat, its the only fair way.

I agree.

I do not see why someone should lose out on the dates they want just because others have children.

Having children involves making sacrifices and this is just one of them.

Edwardia

Where OH works he has to work around his boss's flexible working hours because one of them needs to be there during office hours. Boss is married to a school secretary and they have kids. Boss told OH he couldn't book holidays a year in advance but did it himself against company policy. OH complained and got an extra week's holiday.

We don't have kids but we do need to work on the exterior of our old house during the summer if poss. The boss always wants loads of time off in the summer and because he does flexible working too it makes it verry difficult. OH doesn't actually want three weeks off over Christmas so boss can escape his Scottish mother in law.

In his previous jobs people without kids really got discriminated against. We had been married 10 years before we got a whole Christmas together without him being forced to be on call.

Kids are a lifestyle choice for most people or an accident for those with a French roulette attitude to contraception. You've got them, hopefully you love them and they mean the world to you. But to others they are just kids not amazingly special miracles etc.

I think our whole school system needs to be looked at in a different way. In Canada and USA semesters (terms) are far more flexible, gifted kids can graduate school early and there are so many more options for online schooling, daycare, preschool etc.

Forcing everyone with kids to have their holidays over a few weeks or a week at half term just plays into the hands of the travel industry and forces prices up.

If I had kids I would home school because being able to go to France and spend a fortnight whenever with their French cousins for example would be a positive.

Education in school just seems so inflexible and to me that starts the problem. When I was at school my parents took me out to travel and it didn't do me any harm whatsoever I still got the bits of paper.

michelle2008

I will happily volunteer to cover for colleagues If it suits - but I do not think my plans / family commitments are any less important because I don't have children.

I am fully supportive of work life balance and I understand colleagues with children have a lot to juggle. As long as I am afforded the same flexibility.

Fire_Fox

verysillyguy06 wrote: »

Yes and no....schools are becoming stricter and stricter regarding taking time off out of the holidays and with the society it is at the moment, holidays in the holidays are just too expensive but that still means that parents have to find holidays day care which again is expensive. Some parents could not afford to work if they could not have holidays at least part of the time in the holidays.

I have always been in situation where I was the only one with children and my colleagues, mostly young and single were the most ignorant lot when it came to understand my situation.

Me going home to care for my children when OH was ill has been compared with as important as someone missing their hair appointment in order to arrange times for meetings

:mad:

I have found non-parent much more militant then the other way around

This country is obsessed with our little darlings, try listening to politicians, newsreaders and the rest of the media. It's all about families and pensioners, the word families is frequently used as a synonym for UK citizens. It's not: plenty of us don't fit into that category and we are ignored or treated like second class citizens. You don't need to be militant because the country already revolves around families.

A foreign holiday is not a right, it's a luxury. If it's too expensive scale down your expectations, get a tent or a caravan, a budget chalet in Pontins for a few weekends off season. People managed in the past with many more children than today because relatives and other parents helped out with childcare, what happened to that?

Plenty of single people don't have anyone to go on holiday with, or they need to pay for an expensive single room, nobody to share the bills with so we can't save up for a holiday, nobody to share the cattery or kennel costs with. I don't expect my colleagues to make allowances for any of that, why would I?

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Before you start trying to post rolling smileys to attempt to ridicule the arguments of others, may I suggest you fully think through what they say and your subsequent response as you look foolish when it turns out you have got it all wrong.

The ability to retire is 100% depedent on others having children - imagine a world where you were the last person to be born and nobody else ever gave birth after that. When you hit 65, and you've inherited your house, saved up £100 mil or attempted to claim your final salary pension - where is the economic activity to generate your pension income going to come from? There will be no workers. Where will you spend your £100 mil savings? There will nobody working to run the shops or supply chain. Who will accept your money in exchange for goods? Without economic activity your money is worthless.

We all depend on others having children to make retirement a viable concept, whether you like it or not. There is no opt-out for supporting the next generation (ok, suicide maybe).

There won't be any last one to be born whilst women in this country keep 'accidentally' falling pregnant or 'Children of Men' turns out to be prophetic. And again .... "How many UK parents honestly breed selflessly in order to pay the pensions and care homes for the older generation, and to ensure the continuity of the species?"

Don't intimate parents are doing the child free by choice a favour and we should therefore be grateful. You breed for your own selfish reasons, just like I choose not to breed for my own selfish reasons, and choose adopt cats for my own selfish reasons. Since I only take on rescues I help stop the UK being overrun with disease ridden stray animals as many countries are, does that mean I should get some kind of preferential treatment? :T

Who said anything about opting out of supporting the next generation? Are you confusing this thread with a completely different one, or my posts with those of someone else with an F in their username? There is nothing you can say that will persuade me that a healthy well adjusted child can only be raised with the aid of a two week summer beach vacation with both parents!

System

where i work its 1st come 1st served, as a parent i would love NOT to have to arrange my holidays around school . i would love to pay the cheaper prices for a holiday .

Tygermoth

As child free by choice I used to get hammered over christmas and for years and years never got it off - they thought i would like NYE because not having kids I would like to be out partying. (Not the case)

Every year (because it suited them) I never was asked just 'assumed' and did the rota up while i was off shift.

The SHTF when last year I pointed it out and advised i was due the time and one of the ladies threw a tantrum (foot stamping included) she felt, as i did not have kids i did not NEED the holiday and as such i ruined her Christmas. She was truly vile to me for weeks.

Cue being shunned but the three other ladies on the team because i was being mean. This year they decided to do the 'out of the hat method' mine was the first out

newcook

I don’t have kids but all of my friends do – occasionally in the summer holidays the moms all like to go away for a week together with the kids (sometimes camping, sometimes to a friends cottage). Thankfully at work we don’t have problems with holidays so if I wanted I could go away with the girls.
However, if we did have to let work colleagues with children have priority over holiday time I think I would kick up a fuss and ask for a fairer system to be in place – just because I don’t have children doesn’t mean that I should miss out on time with my friends and theirs.