the hidden childcare issue
Wed, 04/07/2007 - 1:02pm — arleeshar
An excellent post from Helen over at Hoyden about Town, discussing one of the less-thought-about aspects of having a lady-fied workforce - the scramble to coordinate four weeks of annual leave with eleven weeks of school holiday childcare arrangements.
In my family, my mother was a teacher, so she usefully had the same holidays as my brothers and I. I used to be very jealous of the other kids who got to go to day-camps and learn karate, while I was stuck at home riding my bike in disconsolate circles around our cul-de-sac and intermittently setting things on fire.
Mark wrote:
I recently had an argument with the missus about this issue. I argued that the school vacationing structure is a hangover from the days when women were at home, and that Something Must Be Done. She, herself the daughter of a teacher, claimed that teachers and kids both need the rest. After a day or so of the silent treatment we tacitly agreed not to talk about it any more. Still, it seems to me that year-round schooling is the obvious alternative, especially if someone has to pay for childcare anyway. Of course, the state is not going to gladly take up that slack, since they don’t even seem that happy about having to school kids for the 9 months of the year they do now.
arleeshar wrote:
I have to admit that without lengthy holidays, my mother may well have had a nervous breakdown at an early stage of her career. She tells this great story about the child who shot a blank bullet into a colleague’s skull at point blank range, thinking that because the bullet was a ‘blank’, that meant it was like a pop gun.
I think the answer is state-sponsored day labour camps for school holidays.
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