Summer Holidays Childcare Crisis: ‘Parents Are Run Down, Burnt Out And Relationships Are On The Brink’

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The average employee holiday allowance in the UK is 25 days. The average school holidays are 42 days, and that doesn’t account for Easter, Christmas or half terms. The maths simply doesn’t add up.

Parents are currently staring down the barrel of six weeks of summer holidays, and there is a silent assumption that the process of finding childcare is seamless.

Throw in costly summer camps which are usually extortionate, reduced numbers due to Covid, and extremely limited holiday allowance because you’ve already used it up to paper over the childcare and home-schooling cracks during lockdowns one, two and three. Not to mention employers who simply don’t want to know about your ‘childcare issues’. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a family or support system willing and able to pick up the proverbial slack – what are the realistic options? There simply isn’t the wrap around care that parents used to have. The reality is that parents are about to be plunged back into the impossible scenario of being expected to do their jobs and look after their children at home without support, once again.

Not to paint too dark a picture here, but in many ways, we’re entering an even more dangerous period where people are run down, burnt out and relationships are on the brink.

We need a break, but the break isn’t coming.

The focus needs to be on the structure that we’re currently working in, and actually fixing the pillars which are crumbling. Within weeks of the pandemic kicking off, we stepped back to the 1950s. Women had to step back to step up and though men are very much included in this, we know it’s mothers who took the brunt of it. We know from what happened with SARS and Ebola that the horizon is not bright for working mothers coming out of this – it’s historic. We’ve seen it happen before, so why are we not ready for it?

If we are going to recover from this pandemic and ensure the playing field is level for men and women at some point in the future, we need childcare to be part of our infrastructure – as important as roads, railways and signposts. If it’s tough for a two-parent family, have a moment to consider a single parent family.

I’m once again working with TUC (Trade Union Congress) to challenge the government ahead of summer term ending on 23rd July. More than 36,000 parents responded to the recent survey we put out, calling for evidence on the challenges of managing work and childcare this summer. The results were, as expected, worrying. Two-thirds (63%) of working mums do not have sufficient childcare post-pandemic, and it’s worse for single mums, with more than three in four (76%) without adequate support.

As it stands, parents have no statutory right to paid leave to look after their children. We’re calling for the government to introduce 10 days’ carers leave on full pay (from day one in a job) for all parents, and to properly invest in childcare going forward. There simply needs to be more funding available for good quality childcare, not just in the summer holidays, but throughout the year to support parents recovering from this pandemic.

The current system has parents at breaking point. We want to not only break the cycle but rebuild a whole new way of working for parents which doesn’t leave them logging off from their careers or disconnected from their families. The summer holidays are an impossible jigsaw puzzle. What working parents are being expected to do is a logistically and financially impossible Rubik's Cube. We need support - and at the very least employer understanding.

To sign the petition for stronger legal rights to flexible working, click here.