Why summers are not built for working parents

Counselors and campers walk to closing campfire, Thursday, June 20, 2024, at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

While most children can’t wait for the school year to end, the summer months can be a logistical and financial challenge for working parents. “It’s really tough for your typical working parent to take two months off in the summer,” Vancouver-based financial planner Kelly Ho told CTVNews.ca. “I’m also in the thick of it myself.”

CTVNews.ca asked readers to share their stories about the challenges working parents face in the summer. They told us about spending thousands of dollars on camps, scrambling to register for affordable options, camp hours that are shorter than their work days, and needing to use vacation days to fill in gaps in their kids’ summer schedules.

“Summer is such a stressful time for working parents,” Oshawa, Ont. mom Abbi Longo told CTVNews.ca. “We have four kids, three in school, and between co-ordinating camps, paying for them, and balancing work – it sometimes seems impossible.”

With the summer holiday only a month away, available options right now could be limited. That’s why Ho says it’s important to talk to friends, family, neighbours and people in your community for help.

“I’m sure that everyone has the same issues and concerns,” Ho said. “Don’t tackle this alone and actually just let people know, here’s what I’m struggling with, and you’d be surprised with the amount of suggestions and help that may arise by just vocalizing one’s problems and one’s issues with respect to the summer.”

‘Camps just don’t align with the realities of working schedules’

To many, it seems summers are simply not built for working parents.

“As a single mom living and working full time in a rural area, planning summer coverage for my two elementary-aged kids is incredibly difficult,” Christine Auchinleck told CTVNews.ca from Ontario’s Oxford County.

Auchinleck has her kids in camps for part of the summer and plans to use vacation days to look after them at other times.

“Large portions of the summer remain uncovered, and even on days with care, I don’t actually have coverage for my actual work hours,” she said. “This situation affects my job performance, my mental health and my kids’ wellbeing.”

Emily O’Riordan in Hamilton, Ont. says one of her biggest challenges is that many camps in her area end at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. and that extended hour options are limited.

“Camps just don’t align with the realities of working schedules,” she told CTVNews.ca. “We’re lucky to be able to afford weekly camps for our older child—and soon for our younger one too—but it’s a major financial strain.”

Daria Kathnelson of Ottawa, Ont. says all of her vacation days and a large portion of her annual bonus go towards looking after her two kids and enrolling them in camps, which are costing her family more than $5,000 this summer.

“These funds would normally be saved for a family trip, which we can no longer afford to take,” Kathnelson told CTVNews.ca. “Affording summer camp each year for two children is extremely stressful. I have no idea how single parents do it. I am able to barely manage, but what about the rest?”

Like many other parents, Alessandra McIntosh from Caledon, Ont. got up early one February morning to get her two kids into a more affordable municipal camp as soon as registration opened at 7 a.m. At about $300 per child per week, McIntosh said it’s still a “huge expense.”

“If you don’t sign up within the first few minutes, the spots are gone and you have no option but to pay for more expensive camps,” McIntosh told CTVNews.ca. “With the cost of living going up, people are really going to struggle putting their kids in camp.”

Perhaps their kids would cringe, but McIntosh and several other parents expressed a desire for schools to operate year-round with a shorter summer holiday. Others suggested that camps and childcare should be exempt from taxes to ease parents’ financial burden.

“Personally I feel that primary school summer vacation is purely an outdated traditional practice to allow school-age children to help with seeding/harvest when we were a more agricultural based society,” Saskatoon dad Mark Petrisor told CTVNews.ca. “Obviously the times have changed so I think it’s well overdue to re-evaluate this practice.”

‘It’s all about being very organized’

The financial challenges summer brings to working parents regularly comes up in Ho’s conversations with her clients. She said she begins planning summer activities for her 10- and eight-year-old at least one season in advance.

“That’s how I’ve functioned and that’s how I’ve been able to stay sane,” Ho said. “A lot of parents think I’m crazy, but you need to know exactly when every registration date is for whatever camps you want to go to so that you don’t miss the deadlines. So it’s all about being very organized, setting calendar reminders, and browsing before so you actually know what’s available.”

In Canada, prices can range from about $200 per week for day camps run by municipalities or community centres to $1,000 or more per week for specialty and overnight camps. In many places, the more affordable options tend to fill up very quickly once registration opens. Some camps also offer scholarships and subsidies.

Although day camps typically operate from about 9 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m., many offer before and after care for an added fee. Ho says it’s also a good idea to talk to other parents about registering your kids for the same camp or activity.

“That way if there are scheduling challenges, then you have the option of approaching them to help with pick-up and drop-off,” Ho said. “And also the benefit for your kid is that they have a friend going into the program.”

Parents who are still in a bind should talk to their employers about tweaking their work schedules.

“Even with my staff… if they need some flexibility for a particular period of time, I have no problem with that as long as the work is done,” Ho said. “I think there’s no issue in asking when the intentions are good.”

Ho says the summer months are also a time to lean on grandparents, family members, neighbours, friends, student babysitters and the community for help.

“What do we do if people don’t have those types of supports? That’s when we have to turn to our social networks,” she said. “It’s really about getting creative if camps present a financial burden.”

For example, Ho said you could also try to find other parents who are in a similar situation and take turns being off work to look after each other’s kids. Ho also cautioned against scheduling too many activities for your kids during the summer months and advised giving them some downtime too.

“They like the ability to have some free unallocated time,” she said. “If we think back to our own childhood, I remember lots of lazy summer days sitting at home, hanging out with my grandparents, and I thought it was the best thing in the world.”