What Half Term Costs

A week off school is not a week off for the person who manages it.

This is the paradox of half term: it presents itself as a holiday and functions as an intensification. The structure that school provides — the six hours that allow everything else to get done — disappears for five days. Into the gap goes: childcare, activities, the particular energy of children who are out of their routine, and the management of all of the above.

I am not ungrateful for the holiday. The children need it, and so, in a different way, do the adults. A break from the routine has value. I know this.

What I'm examining, this half term, is the question of whose break it actually is. The answer, historically, has been: his. He goes to work. The structure of his days does not change. He comes home and finds the house has been kept and the children have been managed and dinner is there. He has had a normal week. I have had a week that is harder than a normal week.

This is not a complaint. It is an observation.

This half term, he is taking a day. Not to help — ownership. Tuesday is his day to plan and execute and manage whatever the children need. I have no role in Tuesday.

I'll let you know how Tuesday goes.