As all parents know, having a job + 6 weeks of school holiday=nervous breakdown. With the end of another school year, Liz considers the options.
And so, dear friends, the long summer holidays are upon us. ‘Hooray!’ Scream all the children. ‘Oh God NO!’ howl all their parents.
Not, of course, because we don’t love them, and want to spend every waking hour of our lives with our delightful offspring, wiping their noses, listening to their fascinating talk about the latest computer game or disentangling warring siblings.
No, the problem for most working parents arises because… of that pesky little word, ‘working’. Because, as we all know, Einstein’s Theory Of Relative Insanity states that:
Having a job + 6 weeks of school holiday = nervous breakdown.
The nub of the problem is simply this; while school stops, we don’t. Our work continues. Our bills still need paying. Our bosses, weirdly enough, still want us to turn up every day and keep doing what they pay us to do. I know! Can’t they just…have a six week holiday too??
No, they can’t.
This irritating reality of having to earn money to pay for stuff – sigh – leaves us with the issue of what exactly we do with our children during the summer holidays, while we are writing columns, attending conferences in Geneva or running our own business.
This question has been the subject of a lot of media activity this week, because, according to the NSPCC, it would seem that there are parents out there who seem to think that what to do, is….leave them home alone. Good idea!
According to said report from the NSPCC, last summer its helpline received 453 calls and emails from adults who were concerned about youngsters being left unattended during the holidays. More than 75% of these cases were deemed serious enough for information to be passed to police or social services.
Good work, everyone.
It’s a very fiendishly complicated matter, because the Law doesn’t specify an age at which children can be left unattended. It simply says that children must not be neglected or abandoned “in a manner likely to cause [them] unnecessary suffering or injury to health”.
(This use of ‘unnecessary’ begs the question of why any suffering or injury to health might be necessary, but that’s for another day.)
The point is that the NSPCC says leaving children at home without adult supervision puts them at greater risk of accident or injury. And this is pretty hard to argue with. Of course it does!
Here, we get to the real nitty gritty. The details. Which children can or can’t be left alone, and for how long? A 5-year-old for twenty minutes? A fifteen-year-old for half a day? A toddler for 5 minutes? And what if there are older siblings looking after the younger ones? Is it OK to leave a seven-year-old at home for a day, if their seventeen-year-old sister is there with him?
All of these questions are a nightmare to answer, because every child is different; every circumstance is different.
Can it really be the same to leave children alone for a few hours if you live in a little village, surrounded by friendly, known people who look out for them, as it would be to leave a child in a flat in the centre of a busy city with nobody to check on them? I would argue not.
And, should a competent, mature six-year-old be in the same bracket as a rebellious, troublesome teenager known to take risks? Again, I think not.
A tough job… but somebody has to do it!
But one thing, I hope, IS clear; children are their parents’ responsibility, and as parents we need to make sure they are well cared for, and safe. Always. What that care and safety means, is down to our own judgment in each individual case. Nobody knows their children better than their parents. But sometimes, unfortunately, people judge things wrongly.
The part I never understand is how parents claim to be utterly flummoxed by school holidays, and don’t plan for them. A LONG time in advance. I mean, it’s not as if we wake up one morning in August, look down and see our child standing there, and say, ‘Oh, I say. Hello! What are you doing here, sweetheart? Are you not supposed to be at school?’ We KNOW the holidays are coming. We KNOW we are going to be at work. And we know we need to have some kind of childcare in place. Preferably before 08.55 on the first Monday of the holiday.
There is often talk about Government not helping parents enough, and how there should be ever more and more financial support for parents, to allow them to parent less and work more.
I see the point here, in the societal sense of a Government helping its citizens where help would….errr, help. But… if you choose to have a child, you know what’s involved! It’s not a new kettle that you can use when you need it and then put away in a cupboard when it’s inconvenient or clogs up the sideboard.
You have to think about every aspect of parenting before you have a child, and put plans in place to deal with it – financial, practical, in relationship terms, and so on.
And along the way things will change; jobs might be lost, divorces happen, bereavements, moving abroad and so on. This is all part of the realities of life, and we need to adjust to it all, and carry on parenting the best we can. The BEST we can.
Not by leaving our children alone at home all day, moaning about how hard it is, or asking for Government help. By taking responsibility, biting the bullet and sorting out alternatives like flexible working or working from home, connecting with other families for help, asking the grandparents to pitch in or babysitter sharing.
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but guess what – nobody ever said parenting was easy. It’s not. But it’s the best kind of near impossible there is.
Enjoy the holidays, folks!