Back to School in Czechia: Thousands of Crowns in Costs and Stress — Mostly for Mums

With the start of the new school year, Czech parents are once again grappling with stress, extra expenses and logistical headaches. According to a recent survey, the bulk of the invisible workload tied to school falls squarely on mothers: they handle getting the kids ready in three out of five families, while fathers take charge in only six percent of cases.

"The end of the holidays is definitely stressful — I've spent the last few days just trying to figure out how to pay for after-school care. I'm constantly tracking deadlines, what needs to be paid and when. In September we'll also add extracurricular activities, which we need to arrange so both kids can do what they enjoy while we're still able to pick them up on time," says Petra from Hradištko, who is sending her younger daughter to preparatory class this year and her older son into third grade.

Their school is fairly close by, but if the children's after-school clubs end at the same time, one of them will have to wait half an hour until the parents can collect the other. It's already clear that the kids' afternoon activities will take place in different locations.

Petra and her husband split childcare duties equally — as do a third of the families surveyed. Yet the study found that in most households, it's mothers who shoulder the entire organizational burden connected to school.

An Hour or Two a Day Just on Preparations

"For me it's stressful trying to get everything done at once. My husband doesn't take part in the preparations," admits Karolína from Prague, whose daughter starts first grade in a few days. She spends between one and two hours a day on organizing and getting ready — the same as one in five parents surveyed. Meanwhile, about three-quarters of respondents said school-related matters take up at least 30 minutes of their day.

"School shopping cost us around seven thousand crowns, and the school year hasn't even started yet," Petra says. Most of the new gear had to be bought for her daughter: a school bag, a swimming and activities bag, indoor shoes and school supplies — items she was already hunting for back in early August.

The school handed out its supply list on time, so there was no need to wait until September 1st. Still ahead for the family are lunch and activity fees, which will add up to several thousand crowns for both children.

Taking Time Off — and Working From Home — for School

Karolína's situation is trickier. "The school still hasn't told us what the first days will actually look like or what our daughter will need. We still don't know the schedule or what time after-school care will end, so I'm taking time off work for the last week of August and the first week of September," she says.

Since she'll likely only get the list of required school supplies on September 1st, she'll have to spend the following week running around the shops. On top of that, she expects that in the weeks after, she'll need to pick her daughter up from school shortly after lunch — cutting into work she'll then have to finish later from home.

Karolína isn't alone in this: 15% of parents take time off work specifically because of the start of the school year. Another fifth, according to the survey, adjust their work schedules — starting later or leaving earlier — while 14% take the chance to work remotely.

Altogether, 57% of parents said that in the first weeks of school they only get around to work or household tasks after the children have gone to bed. And 38% of parents, according to the same survey, complain about the difficulty of juggling their children's school routine with their jobs.

Source: novinky.cz