Hey, teachers (and Government), don't leave our kids alone

GIVE ME A BREAK:'I'm bored!" say the kids. "What are we going to do today?"

“Well, Mom and Dad are going to work, but we’ll be in touch by phone. Lunch is in the fridge, please don’t use the cooker and if there’s an emergency and you can’t get us, dial 999.”

“But I’m bored!”

“There’s a pile of DVDs there by the computer.”

Easter is over – although there may be a few broken bits of Easter egg waiting to be savoured – yet primary school children are still clocking up 188 days off school per year and secondary pupils have 198 days off left to their own devices — more than half the year in each case.

So, I’m juggling like everyone else this week, reminding myself that at least I have a job.

The silver lining for unemployed parents is that at least they are at home, present to shepherd their children through that yawning carapace that is Easter, even if they can no longer afford to fill the time with short breaks, cinema and the zoo.

For most of us parents, though, whether we’re working or job-seeking, two weeks of Easter holidays are too much. The only people that benefit are teachers and, in the boom times, the travel industry because it could charge more during weeks when families wanted to get away together.

I’m not knocking teachers; my mother was a teacher in a Baltimore ghetto, so I know how stressful it can be out their in your charming little rural school (as for those of you in urban schools in disadvantaged areas, I don’t know how you do it).

But if the job is really so stressful that you need two weeks holidays over Easter, shouldn’t you really be looking at why the job is stressful? Shouldn’t there be an analysis of the education system to make it the sort of environment where more teachers love their jobs and are passionate about nurturing young people – surely the reason they went into teaching in the first place?

What is it, exactly, that is stressing you to the point where your need so much time off? (Before you start writing in, I know that school isn’t a babysitting service and many teachers and administrators do pursue their duties during holidays, not to mention the teachers who get second jobs in the summer because their salaries won’t cover a mortgage.)

The outdated school holiday schedule is based on an outdated lifestyle where Mom was at home all the time – an ethos many have been fighting against for decades.

When that first generation of mothers stormed the barricades and got careers in the 1980s and 1990s, the long-holiday model continued to work, if under strain, because most working women still had their own stay-at-home mothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, aunts and friends to step in to the breach.

In the 1980s, I recall a female politician telling me that people were making an awful fuss about childcare, but wasn’t grandmother there to step in and didn’t a full-time day nanny cost only £30 a week? Then, women saw it as a privilege to work and relied on other women to support them for practically nothing, or for free.

Now, for mothers – and for fathers, I hasten to add – two jobs are a necessity. And due to social changes, over this Easter break granny and grandad, aunt and uncle can no longer be relied upon.

Full-day childcare is unaffordable to all but the wealthy. These days, childminders in the home cost €500 per week (I tried not to gape when a friend told me recently that this was good value – I couldn’t believe anyone could afford this) and there are Easter camps for children that will squeeze parents for every cent, while also keeping to a non family-friendly schedule.

During the boom, the Government paid lip-service to supporting working parents, but basically they were playing us for mugs. They never introduced universal free childcare and they left the long school holidays alone. As more mothers were needed in the workforce, the Government made a song and dance about investing in creches, and gave parents of babies and toddlers a hopelessly inadequate contribution towards creche fees.

But the Government never dealt with the fundamental problem, which was the need for adequate education and care for the children of working parents, 365 days a year. We parents wasted the boom by not insisting on more education and better services for our children. Instead, we thought that lower taxes meant we could “afford” the big mortgages that we can no longer afford for the semi-ds where children will be left alone, bored, this week.

Now that the downturn has come, we have lost our chance. What should be happening over Easter is a short holiday of four days. In the summer, we should have only six weeks of holidays, during which one parent is legally entitled to be at home.

The other school breaks should be kept to a minimum of a week at most. The system should be flexible, so that parents can take time off when the family needs it, rather than when schools decide to close their doors. Teachers would have to be paid more, but they would deserve it.

Now that we’ve blown the boom, the school holidays/child care issue won’t be addressed until the next boom – whenever that is. Maybe we will have learned our lesson by then.