‘i Lose Money If I Work Over Summer’: The Parents Taking Unpaid Leave For Childcare

As children are rejoicing at the start of the school summer holidays, parents are being pushed to the brink, with a quarter being forced to take unpaid holidays to cover childcare.

Parents have told The i Paper they have been “left without any other choice” but to face the financial and emotional toll of balancing work and childcare during the long summer break, while many say the burden on their budgets leaves them struggling to buy essentials.

It comes as new research from charity Pregnant Then Screwed has uncovered that 26 per cent of parents have been forced to take unpaid leave this summer, while 75 per cent say they have to take off more than five days unpaid, making a big dent in their monthly salary.

More than a third of mothers taking unpaid leave say they are forfeiting more than two weeks’ pay just to cover the childcare gap.

Laura Styles, a hypnotherapist and coach, has two children, eight-year-old Freddie and five-year-old George, with Adam, a head gardener. Ms Styles told The i Paper she is taking the entire summer off work to look after her children as it “doesn’t make financial sense” to pay for them to be in childcare while she works.

“I would actually be losing money if I worked over the summer and paid for childcare for the two of them,” she said.

“So this year, for the first time, I will be taking the whole summer off. I won’t be working, and we won’t be paying for any childcare.

“However, I won’t be getting paid at all. Thankfully, we have some savings, so we are going to use them over the summer.”

Ms Styles, who lives in Wiltshire, spent 15 years working as an executive assistant, supporting executives and CEOs, before transitioning to a remote role at a tech business when she had her second child.

It was while working for this company that she set up her hypnotherapy and coaching business, supporting parents suffering from anxiety, stress and burnout. Ms Styles is now working for her own business full-time, with this being the first summer she is self-employed.

The 40-year-old says that historically, she has always worked full-time, with her children in full-time childcare year-round.

“During the summer holidays, it was always a case of juggling everything and the children being in a local nursery and holiday clubs and a few days with the in-laws.

“But with me now working for myself, we have made the conscious decision to not work during the holidays. When you are self-employed, you don’t know how it is going to go with earnings. So this summer, I won’t work at all and we’re going to be using savings.”

Almost 70 per cent of parents rely on costly holiday clubs to cover childcare.

However, half of those using holiday clubs say they are spending more than £300 this summer, and a third are forking out over £500. As a result, 40 per cent of families say they struggle to afford essentials over the summer.

Deciding not to use those clubs this year, Ms Styles is now faced with a different problem – the knock-on effect of not working on her business.

“I have to be on top of marketing my business so clients know I am still around and operating,” she explained. “As a small business owner, you have to do everything, including social media.

“So there is a worry that in September, when the children go back to school, things might be a bit slow for me to build back up again.”

As part of her job, Ms Styles sees the impact that desperately trying to juggle everything has on parents. “I think the childcare system is absolutely broken,” she said. “Some of the women I work with, if they haven’t hit burnout already and have been signed off work, they are on the brink of burnout because they are constantly juggling everything and have so much to cope with – and that’s without even thinking about the school holidays.

“The system needs to be fixed. There needs to be some sort of Government protocol where we get more holidays as a baseline and parents need to be better supported. Childcare needs to be completely subsidised in the school holidays.”

She added: “I actually wonder if it would be better if the summer holidays were shorter and the time was tagged on elsewhere in the year, such as Christmas.”

Sarah, 39, who only wants to be known by her first name, lives in Surrey and is a mum of two boys aged nine and five. She works in admin for a law firm and will be taking two weeks off, unpaid, this summer for the third year running.

“We have to do this as we are left without any other choice,” she explained. “Me and my partner work full-time in London and childcare is very expensive with two kids. But the main problem is that they don’t do long enough hours for us in the holidays.

“All the childcare facilities over the summer open at 8am in my area – and then it is impossible to get to work for 9am.”

Sarah says she has booked her boys in for a holiday club for one week of the summer holidays, but both she and her partner have had to seek approval from their managers to start late and finish that week.

“We can’t do that for any longer as it is just too inconvenient for employers,” she said. “To cover the rest of the holidays, we have got two weeks off together because that is all we can manage as a family all year – then the rest of the time, we are doing a combination of tag-teaming annual leave and having a grandparent and aunt helping out for a bit.

“Taking two weeks unpaid is the only way I can manage to cover school holidays now. With inset days and schools now closing for parents evening days so teachers can have a work and life balance, there are so many more days that children are off school.

“We are finding the 10 weeks of annual leave between us doesn’t even touch the sides. It is quite tricky to manage colleagues as well as they find it unfair that I get seven weeks off. I am constantly explaining to people that two of those weeks are unpaid.”

Sarah, who is about to get her first reduced salary of the summer, added: “We will use our overdrafts for the next few months and then we normally find we get straight by Christmas. Then it starts all over again.”

Out of the 1,176 respondents who participated in the Pregnant The Screwed research, 73 per cent said stress over the summer was impacting their mental health.

Meanwhile, a government scheme is said to be at risk of collapse, The Independent reported, after soaring demand added an additional £1bn per year to Treasury spending – as Chancellor Rachel Reeves grapples with a public finance black hole. 

Rachel Grocett, CEO of Pregnant Then Screwed, said: “There is no job in the world that offers the amount of paid holidays that a parent would need to cover all school holidays and the summer holidays, which is a big chunk of time that parents need to manage.

“Many parents are racking up debts… while trying to create fun summer memories for their children.

“The penalties that parents face in the workplace are multiplied in the holidays, and many parents find their careers suffer as a result, which means the consequences of bridging the summer holiday gaps can be lasting.

“Kids deserve a break from learning and we all need precious family time. But eyewatering holiday club costs and trying to balance work and childcare are no holiday for parents.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise the school holidays can be a pressurised time for parents, which is why through the Plan for Change this government is putting pounds back in parents’ pockets both during the holidays and in term time.

“We’re rolling out 30 hours of government-funded childcare from this September, helping to give every child the best start in life and saving parents up to £7,500 a year.

“We’re also continuing to fund free holiday clubs through the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides six weeks of activities and meals for children from low-income families during the school holidays.

“To support families feeling the pinch, we’re also expanding free school meals to all children in households on Universal Credit and introducing free breakfast clubs in primary schools.”