Single parents & Holidays

[Deleted User]

This is aimed at single parents, both male and female, I would like to get peoples thoughts on school holidays.

Do you use all your annual leave on childcare for school holidays or do you use some of it for yourself, either during term-time or not? If you do how do you make up the shortfall?

I'm basing this on 13 weeks school holidays and 5 inset days.

Thanks.

WantToBeSE

I am self-employed and my children are older (14 and 10).

I work 8.30-2.30 week days during term time, and in the holidays i only work 9.30-12.30 so that the children can be left at home without concern.

I also have a neighbour who keeps an eye on them for me, calls in when i am at work etc to make sure they arent doing anything silly.

Where i live there is a severe shortage of childcare, which is why i took this option (to work SE). I dont work on Inset days.

Nadstar

I get 23 days a year in leave, if I can manage to claw the time together I have the option of taking up to 13 days flex and I spend £90pcm buying leave back - Still I do not have enough to make up the time... Every single hour of the above is spent on school holidays and/or school assemblies/strikes etc.

My daughter did have a week with her dad over the summer and has gone to stay with my mum for a a couple of weeks over the year as well... The remaining days have been made up of holiday clubs, some sporty, some crafty and some horsey. The bank prefers the staying at Grandma's as although the horsey days are amazing the bill...

jackomdj

Not a single parent but OH is a contractor, so if he doesn't work he doesn't get paid.

All my holiday goes no their holidays, then my parents cover two weeks of 3 days (they come here so I get up early, into work by 6:30 - so 2 1/2h overtime in the morning meaning my 4th day I don't have to go in, don't work Fridys anyway), then they go into kids club for a few weeks. I do similar on these weeks, OH drops them off two days, plus I collect them later one day meaning Thursday I don't have to work.

Not easy trying to fit t all in!

gunsandbanjos

I'm recently single and have a nearly 10 year old daughter.

I'm very, very lucky that I have an amazing after school/holiday club that does all the school holidays except Christmas, it is £20 a day from 8.30am til 6pm.

I use my annual leave for Christmas time, take 2 weeks in summer (compulsory to take 2 weeks at some point). That leaves me about 5 days spare during the year.

JustKeepSwimming_2

I never found an answer to this dilemma & shall be eternally grateful that I now work term time only. Not helpful but thoroughly recommended if you can find such a post & cope with the large drop in salary.

I became a single parent when my children were 6 & 3 & I was already self employed & not working a great deal as my then OH was in the forces (so away a lot & often at short notice). I had no family support whatsoever, so all childcare was left to me. I banged my head against many walls before realising I had no option but to put my career on hold for several years & live a frugal life :rotfl:. I once took a p/time employed post on the understanding that I'd need a week off at Xmas - when I started in the March that was fine but come November when I tried to book leave I was told I couldn't. So I had to resign

When my ex OH is around we tend to split the holidays between us, & his current wife doesn't work (as in employed, I'm sure she works darn hard living with my ex ) so she has covered the odd TD day although now both are at high school this isn't really necessary any longer. But I can't rely on him to stick to every date planned & this would cause me no end of problems if I had to work all year.

Their previous primary school had an excellent breakfast & after school club, but only during term time. I did use some external childcare providers (holiday clubs etc.) but this became a problem when my eldest became too old for the club/activity but too young to be left at home all day. I was also paying out most of my money in childcare - sure there are many others on here who have been in a similar situation.

Unless you have family/friends to support you I don't know how anyone can reconcile working every week with covering all the school holidays/TDDs.

Spendless

I'm not a single parent but I've worked full-time, part-time and not worked during the time I've had children. I'd start by saying how many days per week are you intending working? If it's not 5 days Mon-Fri then use some of that time to put in things for yourself. If it is Mon-Fri then if the kids go to their Dads overnight at weekends use that time for yourself. Don't forget about needing time off for sports days, xmas concerts and so on as well as contingency care for child off sick, snow days, teachers strikes etc.

Even with 2 parents, me working ad-hoc and husband able to sometimes work from home we can't cover everything.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for all your replies.

I am self employed and have factored in 6 weeks holidays spread over the year. I've only been trading since July and had 1 week so far, but pro rata I am taking 2 for xmas.

ExDH is providing 3 weeks for 2014 and taking the rest for himself, naturally!! For 2013 he has provided 2 weeks, the rest for himself too.

So far I have had 2 weeks A/L this year, one week from when I was employed and 1 week from my self employed business.

If Ex doesn't help me provide childcare, then apparently its my problem.

Similary being self employed my A/L isn't paid, so I have to work extra hours in advance to make up the loss. Technically I work 16 hours a week, but actually I work 18 so I can have annual leave.

Its a man's world......

[Deleted User]

Spendless, I am working 3 days out the house and 1 day from home, but that can be juggled over evenings or when I can fit it in.

For 2014 ExDH is offering 2 full weeks and 5 days to fill gaps.

He is keeping the rest for his own personal use.

Its very annoying. It feels to me that he dips in and out when it suits. I have tried explaining that if he was still living with us he wouldn't take 1-2 weeks A/L away from the family, so why should he now? He left me, not the children!

Louise03

To be fair you only work 16 hrs a week. Less than half a working week.
Does your ex work a full week eg 37 hrs plus? So perhaps pro rata he is doing his fair share.

sweaty_betty

Slightly off-topic, but my OH works in a college. Even though he doesn't get the whole of the holidays off, we thought this would be ideal for when our LO goes to school.

Until we realised that as OH teaches in a different area to our school catchment area, all the half terms are different weeks, plus a week each for both Christmas and Easter holidays. This means I'll potentially have to cover 5 weeks of school holidays, which is all of my annual leave, and we still won't get any holiday time altogether!