As we nudge towards the summer holidays, working parents brace themselves. Six weeks of juggling childcare and holidays loom. People I know have created spreadsheets. The last thing we need at this point is to have to take time off work. Yet, our children’s schools have other ideas.
In the coming weeks, my youngest daughter’s class have sports day, an end-of-term assembly and a school trip we’ve been enthusiastically encouraged to volunteer on. At the same time, school admin is also peaking – there are summer fair donations to organise, stalls to volunteer on, collections for the teachers, drama shows to help the children practise for. At times, it feels like I’m doing two jobs, or maybe three.
The Office for National Statistics reports that 74 per cent of families with school-age children have two parents in employment and more than half (50.4 per cent) have both in full-time work. However, it feels like school activities – in the run-up to the summer – are designed around the assumption that parents are twiddling their thumbs.
Shorts
The school system seems to be designed for how things were 200 years ago. Mums staying at home, baking cakes for the sale, ironing uniforms and cleaning leather shoes, making packed lunches and standing ready at the door with cookies and milk for their kids’ arrival back. Instead, we’re struggling to keep our heads above water.
