My sons need a PA
Summer term is coming to an end: brace yourself.
This time last year, I was beyond excited for my son to go to school. It was the milestone I dreamed of: no more childcare bills - no more slogging around town with a bored child who had no where else to go during the day - did I mention no more childcare bills?
Yet, despite having a great first year in Reception with wonderful teachers at a very nurturing school, it’s beginning to feel like him being there is a full time job. Not for him, you must understand, but for me!
As we head into the summer holidays, I am battling my own internal crisis over where to send him in the holidays and how much to work, meanwhile school is sending messages about Forest school in September!
I know it is better to be prepared, but I need a break!
Is the Summer not going to be it?
Of course not.
Even with holiday club, I’m going to be having to prepare lunch boxes and bags of spare clothes depending on what the weather is like that day. I’m going to be adapting my working day to fit with the later drop off and earlier finish. And the irony of course, after a very quiet Winter, is that Summer is turning out to be my busiest work period yet!
The headache is already setting in.
This time of year feels like it should be winding down at school but the emails, newsletters, WhatsApps, seesaw messages, etc. etc… come thick and fast. We have to: book next term’s extra curricular activities, update the uniform, bring in teddy bears, wear PE kit on Tuesday, no Wednesday, actually Thursday as well. We have to bring a bag for them to take home art work - Do schools not have their own recycling facilities?!
Last week, with the two of them, I had two misplaced hats, a misplaced hoodie and a misplaced bottle. My mind worn out from working all day, I somehow had to remember to check we have them the next day at pick up after asking each teacher as to their whereabouts.
Why can’t they keep track of their own things?
And then it’s tracking their time and managing conflicting diaries. Well we can’t meet that weekend because we are attending X’s party, but Son 1 has football and the other has swimming - Ahh!
Now I wonder what it’s going to be like with my youngest starting at the same school next year. Will I remember the different PE days, will I remember where to pick them up from, will I remember one has football and one doesn’t? Or will I be that parent who queues up at collection only to be told their kid is in an after school activity for another hour. I understand how that happens now.
Whilst I look forward to seeing the back of nursery fees - the management of two children in school is too much to contemplate. Every time my phone gets a WhatsApp notification, I come over in a cold sweat.
The question is - is having this line of communication to the school through the PTA representative a good thing? Is it good having so many different ways to communicate or things to check? I remember being sent home with a printed letter maybe two or three times a year. School Trips and Nits. That is all parents need to hear about. None of this other stuff existed. And while I obviously want my children to have a more rounded school experience than the budgets of 1990s Government would allow for myself, I can’t take this level of stress any more.
So my sons need a PA. Is anyone looking for a job?
How do you manage the juggle of two children at school/nursery?
How do you find the WhatsApp Group?
Can you relate to this summertime madness?
Come join me in the comments, I would love to hear your stories. Until next time,
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I'm in the same position you were last year, Kylie. I'm excited for my firstborn to start school, but with a baby starting nursery in a second location I'm already bracing for chaos. I'm going to sit down with my planner and a big pack of pens in the next couple of weeks to try and organise our lives, but I wonder how long my enthusiasm for that challenge will last.🙃
I can relate to everything you’ve said and I could spend hours decrying the madness of the situation. I have 2 at school and the last term is particularly full on with extra things to be remembered every week. I also now experience the joy of one being in key stage 1 and one in key stage 2 meaning 2 sets of sports days to find time to attend, different beach trips days requiring early drop off and late pick-up for one, while hanging around with the other and the impossibility of finding afterschool clubs for both at the same time. The WhatsApp group for my eldest is a godsend however - it’s become a place where we post reminders to each other about what’s going on and then joke about our inability to keep up with it all! And don’t get me started on the summer holidays… my boys HATE holiday clubs so I’m left with a juggle of family help and annual leave, disappointment when I’m working cus I want to be doing fun stuff with them and constant irritation that the world demands this juggle - that the default is shelling out a small fortune to shovel your children into someone else’s care, that annual leave allowances don’t match school holidays or that term time working arrangements aren’t the norm or that both working AND looking after my own actual children is considered some kind of unrealistic ‘have it all’ option….given that most families (with 2 involved parents) require both parties to be working, is it beyond the wit of (wo)man to reinvent how we do things to allow us all to work and be available during holidays to actually spend time with our children?