Grandson’s nursery time

Interesting thread. I always enjoy the jousting of ‘my job’s more stressful than your job’. Unfortunately I do think many teachers adopt a ‘woe is me’ attitude as they often, by definition, have no experience of working life outside education. My DH (self employed engineer) regularly worked virtually through the night to meet deadlines. My DS (in London finance) travels extensively to Far East with meetings scheduled all week. No extra pay of course. He is always available because of time differences and family holidays are no different. My facebook friends who are teachers are frequently posting their holiday adventures so I don’t think their lives are too bad!

Totally agree with OP, I find it inconceivable that a mother who , probably of necessity is apart from her child in term time wouldn’t be itching to spend every moment of her holiday time with them.By the way, I was a teacher and believe me , if you work smart six weeks is more than enough time for prep!

Interesting, demanding employment that involves travel is often much better paid than eg teaching

.My best friend was a teacher always bemoaning the fact she had work stress...teaching 6 year olds! It apparently hadn't occured to her that while she stayed at school ,then college I was already working and paying tax and NI ...for a whole 6 years .Education was free and she got grants so she never worked that whole time ,she used to say she had so much to learn.Years later my sister went back to college to do the same course,she was running a home ,bringing up two kids and working in a bar evenings and weekends and still managed to finish and get a decent job.She only retired last year in her late 60's.Clearly some people idea of hard work is very different from others .

Those are long days for a toddler to be in nursery but each family has to do what suits them. Personally I would want to spend at least some of the holidays with him if I were your DIL but not everyone likes the baby stage and maybe she is just worn out and may reconsider after a week or two. It may also be she does not want to disrupt his routine if he is now used to going there every day and is happy there.

Some teaching jobs are more stressful than others, because of the role of the individual within the school. Some teachers find being a teacher stressful and some do not. Teaching involves having your every move watched and your every word open to judgement by a very critical audience, throughout every hour of every working day. There are teachers who deal with self harm, suicidal thoughts or attempts by pupils, families in crisis or in dispute, incidents involving the police, mental health services, young people in distress, social media, bullying, friendship issues, etc, etc. Incidents and concerns need to be addressed without delay and taken to a satisfactory conclusion before a child (& the teacher) will leave the building. Teachers can be dealing with these incidents and concerns while juggling their teaching. They are always (& rightly) accountable for everything they do and say. They are constantly (& rightly) trying to ensure that every pupil within every class is fulfilling his/her potential and that every lesson is the best that it can be. They live with the awareness that all their work can be inspected/observed with little or in some cases with no notice. It is a stressful job. Many other jobs are stressful too, but I do not have knowledge to judge them.
So I understand that a teacher may need a rest at the end of the school year. However, I do find it odd that a mother would not look forward to spending time with her child. I fully agree with the wisdom of keeping some contact time with the nursery but I would have thought that there might be a balance between time with mum and time at the nursery.

Thank you iam64 your kind words about key workers lift my heart as I've done this job fir 16 years seen many changes mostly red tape! But I live it and will retire when I stop loving it. I have had some lovely flowers cards presents this week all nice but the kind words and the hugs mean the most to me! Where children are happy let them be in part day or whole day they will be looked after.

Jenny Murray is quoted this morning as saying part time work must be made available to both parents. She's right in saying that it's expected mothers will be the parent who works part time when children arrive. This tends to lead to the view that part time workers aren't as dedicated or reliable as those who work full time. It also imo puts a lot of pressure on women who take the pt route. They work over their hours, go into work for meetings on their 'off' days and in addition, find themselves doing all the domestic and emotional care of the family.

Children are the responsibility and joy of both their parents. It amazes me that we're still stuck in the dark ages in the UK with very expensive day care, negative views of mothers who continue to work etc. Look to the Scandi countries where high quality, subsidised child care is the norm. Where both parents are given flexibility - what's not to aspire to.

I think there are lots of stressful jobs....teaching is one of them. I don’t recall anyone saying it’s the most stressful job there is, but there are plenty who seem to be suggesting it’s a walk in the park eg ‘teaching 6 year olds!’ ....what a doddle that must be ?

Funny then that many parents (mainly mums) seem to be tearing their hair out about how to entertain their 2.5 children. Child’s play! ?

..and celebrating when the school holidays end!

There is not really enough to go on here. I take it OP that the family is not having a summer holiday this year? Is your DS not taking any annual leave to spend with his son? This seems odd as you write that he has the strongest bond.

I worked as a University lecturer and it used to make me laugh when people talked about "long holidays" as though the summer is a holiday for staff and that staff have nothing to do when students go down! It was often a busy time:
- carrying out research
- writing research papers, books and articles
- planning the next year of teaching - lectures, seminars, exam papers, assignments
- reading books/articles for possible inclusion in future courses
- reviewing articles for journals
- preparing and marking resit exams
- admin

I always took 2-3 weeks with the kids and DH but they would always have to attend nursery or holiday clubs for some weeks

Does anyone really think teaching 30 6 year olds is a doddle? Can't understand why there is a recruitment crisis then.

No more so than being a nurse, a doctor, a carer, and ambulance driver, etc.
Except that those jobs involve shifts into the bargain.

If she was not a teacher DGS would be at Nursery. Not everyone is an earth mother or enjoys their child's babyhood. She may be a super mum when he is older. She may be a better mum for being refreshed and give him better experience for a shorter period of time each day . If this was your son on his annual leave and dil at work would you expect him to have son f/t? I don't know the family so hard to say ..just putting a few thoughts out there.

My dil is a teacher, head of dept. Head of year. She is the Special Needs teacher. And is on board of governors. Her working week takes all of 7 days when considering preparation/marking etc.

He has two little girls one at school and one at day nursery. During the school summer break the younger does not go to nursery and she has both children at home with her. Still managed to mark A level papers.

It can be done. It's all about what mum wants for the school break!! And like all grans we keep it zipped.

It makes me laugh when I see people suddenly very knowledgeable about jobs they have never done. Most jobs have their pros and cons & presume teaching is as stressful as other types of work. But until you have done a job you don't know you can only surmise. I have done care work, cleaning, retail, project management, HR, admin, facilities management, budget manager and progress chasing, waiting, PR, promotion & comns. , training & development, It's been intersti g that's for sure.

MissAdventure you’ve missed the point- no one said that teaching was more stressful. What I’m saying is that some people think teaching is a doddle because of the long holiday. We are simply pointing out that is not the case and that teachers work much longer hours, outside school hours, than most people realise.

I don't think her job makes that much difference really. Like PECS said, not everyone enjoys little children. Some mothers struggle more than others. For those commenting 'why bother to have children if you're going to let someone else look after them?' What if she is really struggling, what if the hypothetical baby was nothing like the reality and she's not coping well? Surely her son being in nursery is better than at home with a stressed out and overwhelmed mother. At least he's not being neglected.

And how is this situation any worse than people who work full time and have children in school all week and then pass the child off to grandparents overnight at the weekend because the parents need a break/to go out/date night. Pretty much all of my cousins do that with their children and people seem to think that's perfectly acceptable when they're spending even less time with their children.

I don't think her job makes that much difference really

You’re probably right newmom

Of course the job makes a difference . Most other jobs only come with 4-5 weeks annual holiday per year . Teachers have 13 weeks.

Twelve weeks holiday; the training days are taken from teachers' holidays, but fitted in to term time.

What I meant was that it doesn't matter whether she's a teacher, a person who works full time and is on annual leave or a SAHM who's putting her child into nursery (I know one that does). If the mom feels like that's best than it's up to her and not really fair of people to judge or suggest that she shouldn't have had children or is doing a bad job because people parent differently. It doesn't mean that one way is right or wrong or one is better than the other. Personally, I wouldn't leave DD in nursery full time when I'm not at work, but I wouldn't judge people that do because it's up to them. As long as the child is safe and cared for then that's all that matters. The OPs DIL and son are doing what works best for their family, just like everyone on here did what they felt was best for theirs.

Erm ....the teacher couple I know ( my ex neighbours) both get 13 weeks holiday . As do the teachers at my DGCs school . The extra inset days are supposed to be training days.

No ones saying teachers don’t work hard . But let’s not pretend they don’t get fantastic holidays though.

I agree that as long as the child is cared for it shouldn’t matter. Just seems a bit unusual to not want to spend time with your little one when you have such a long holiday . Never mind . It’s up to the individual what they choose to do with their holiday time .

I understand the point you are making Newmom