UK 
United States
Many working parents are at the precipice of drowning in the childcare juggle. It’s the close of a long summer holiday and working mums and dads have been treading water for the six-week stint. A new study by International Workplace Group corroborates this and has found that almost two thirds (61%) of parents find the school holidays stressful. What can be done?
HR Grapevine spoke to some leading women’s experts to find out why it’s not getting any easier and with hindsight what tips can be gleaned on how to manage the next school holidays in a more equitable way and hold down a job.
We’re tipping our nose into September which can only mean one thing, we survived the summer and school is about to start. Those endless weeks of (in my case – not me, my children!) late starts, fridge foraging, TikTok dancing, party shoes and tanning goals is becoming a memory. I have two teens and one pre-teen – yes, I have swapped nappies and spoon feeding for more of a perpetual whirl of anxiety about the, ‘at a festival – no reception’ communication or lack of, a ‘computer says no’ on French vocab revision and the infiltration of social media into my teens’ minds all day, every day. I wrongly assumed that once they were half-grown and able to boil a saucepan of pasta, the parenting dissipated into an easier dolloping of ‘woes and head scratching,’ but the truth is it’s, ‘little people - little issues, big people – big issues.' If I could slap in an emoji here, it would be the one of the face with a head exploding. It nicely sums up how many parents, whatever age their children are on the sliding scale of notched up birthdays, feels at this point.
Yes, we have all had fun, but my husband and I are also frazzled. We have been ‘turbo juggling.’ Slipping in a drop off there, with a Teams chat here, a trip to the beach here, with a conference there and a ‘floordrobe pick up’ with an email reply there. It has been non-stop, and my house is evidence of that. Yet, the KPIs and the requirement to keep performing continues unabated for both of us – we both have family friendly employers and amazing bosses, but you know, businesses are there for the purpose of turning a profit and that doesn’t happen with a massive summer slack-off. Yet, it does leave me ‘a wondering’ and ‘a pondering.’ Something has to give and why in all the years since parenting began hasn’t it eased for those that also need to earn a crust and feed those hungry mouths?
