Who was it who said “parent like you don’t have a job and work like you don’t have a child?” Would anyone own up to it now, in 2023? I wonder. The pandemic, for all its horrors, did some good in re-calibrating the work/life balance expectations of employers and staff. For those with caring responsibilities in particular, I think this was a huge step forward. But it still feels an impossible balance some days, and I only got a few years of parenting in before the pandemic, so I can’t imagine what went before.
This week marked the end of the school year, and as we go into the long school summer holiday for the second time, I’ve been thinking about the challenges of caring while working.
Ready Steady Go
Although nursery may have made our eyeballs bleed at the cost, two huge savings graces were the longer days and the holiday cover. Once you’ve dropped off at school for a 9am start, you might just get back to the desk for 9.15am. But work quickly – because the clock is ticking. You’ve got to down tools by 2.45pm absolute latest to repeat the journey. You might just about eek out 5.5 hours, but only if you strap yourself to the laptop and don’t allow yourself any breaks. Although if you’re lucky enough to have a breakfast or after school club (and you can convince them to go), you might just be able to buy yourself a longer day. Although in the holidays, some of the holiday clubs don’t even start until 9.30am, with a pick-up of 3pm…
The Eternity of Summer
We’ve had the build up to the summer holidays and I’ve started feeling excited for the upcoming break. Until I remembered I don’t get the full 7 weeks off like my son (anyone else still get caught out about summer?!), and instead we’re entering 7 weeks of a crazy jigsaw of family, friends, clubs and a holiday to patch together enough cover. We need a separate calendar just for where the kids are going to be.
PING Central
I absolutely love my son’s school. However, I’m starting to feel like I want a life PA just to cover school admin. In just one week, the requests were to wear colours on Monday for world mental health day, wear green on Friday for world tree day, book a parents evening slot, pay £4 towards an animal experience, consent to a flu jab, bring homework in next Monday, bring cardboard boxes in this week for a junk modelling project and don’t forget to use your child’s terrible drawing to order Christmas cards. My husband and I have started to have evening admin sorts at home to try and work out what the hell we need to do and when. I’ve started to dread the school PING app.
End of Term Madness
These last two weeks of school have been peak. Between two national strike days and sports day one week, and an end of year show, a meet the new teacher event and a school picnic, I’ve lost the plot a little on trying to fit work into the daytime. There’s nothing like seeing your child’s face light up when you turn up to a school event and wherever can I really try and shuffle work around to be there, but the constant daytime events are a nightmare to manage.
The Phonecalls
There’s nothing like the dread of seeing your child’s nursery or school calling – is it a temperature or worse? This week we had the head bump call from nursery – their protocol is to call and let you know, keep monitoring and let you know if anything changes. But from then on, you’re on high alert for the second phonecall to come and get them. Everything in your diary suddenly as a question mark against it for whether you’ll be able to make it.
The Lucky Few
I feel incredibly lucky that for the most part I can fit my job around the kids. I’ve seen the fallout out when people couldn’t get time off – the crying child whose parent couldn’t make the event or the one whose parents never can and they’re just used to it. It breaks your heart. I have a lot of friends in professions like teaching and nursing who just can’t get the time, and it makes you realise how all the daytime events are amazing – for those that can make it.
Embracing Chaos
The real challenge of working and caring is that neither are ever far away. You’re putting your child to bed thinking about tomorrow’s deadline, or you’re in a meeting worried about whether your child really did settle at nursery after this morning’s wobble. I think it’s less about segmenting off your life and pretending like the other section doesn’t exist, and more about trying to embrace the chaos that comes of trying to do both at the same time. One parent working just isn’t enough for most families with the cost of living these days, so most of us are attempting to thread water, balancing work, kids and the rest of life. There are only so many balls you can keep in the air before one of them drops, and I could really do with winning the lottery, wrapping the kids in actual cotton wool and deleting the PING app.
Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash