Kara Jung: Three-year-olds in kindy just adds to the school hours challenge

School hours are archaic and out of step with the way we live. Will adding three-year-olds to the mix help SA families with the struggle, asks Kara Jung.

Mum has spent all day cleaning the house, she’s got dinner prepped including the latest attempt at hidden vegetables to ensure the children enjoy a balanced diet.

She’s washed and folded the laundry and made it to the shops to buy a card and present for that birthday party her six-year-old has been invited to on the weekend and she’s sewn together an outfit for dress-up day at school later in the week.

She’s picked up suits from the dry cleaner, organised for the electrician to come and booked the kids in to have their dental check-up. She’s already admonishing herself for not looking into where to buy those new shoes for little Tommy because it’s time for school pick up!

This is the life of a 1950s housewife.

The reality today is that all these jobs still need to be done in 2022, but so very often they fit around a family dynamic that includes two working parents.

And here’s the zinger.

School starts at 8.50am and ends at 3.10pm.

So on top of that glorious conundrum of how the hell do you fit it all in, double-income full-time families then have to work out how to pick the kids up from school or child care when your work day starts before 8.30am and doesn’t finish until after 5pm?

I first wrote this column last year when Labor announced a $1 million royal commission to revamp the school day.

On Monday, Commissioner Julia Gillard, former prime minister and federal education minister, included 33 recommendations in her interim Early Childhood Education and Care Royal Commission.

One of those recommendations is for all South Australian three-year-olds to be entitled to 600 hours of preschool – the same amount as four-year-olds.

Preschool, or Kindy as we call it in SA, would welcome three-year-olds under the new recommendations.

Financial incentives and changes to SA’s teaching degree structure could be considered to find new educators for a $212 million universal preschool rollout by 2032, the state government says.

Premier Peter Malinauskas admitted there would be difficulties finding educators for the program, which will begin to be rolled out from 2026 and is expected to hit “full uptake” by 2032.

About 660 early childhood teachers and more than 1000 other staff would be needed.

The three-year-old preschool program would be covered under the federal child care subsidy, which the education minister believed would further incentivise parents to take up early education.

But will these recommendations do anything to help with one of the greatest challenges of family life in the 21st century – the school/child care pick up juggle?

If the stats are right, the job of running the household and the huge mental load that goes with it, still falls largely on mum for many.

It’s just mum happens to also hold down a full-time career as well as the role of full-time primary carer.

For many families the answer is OSHC or grandparents and babysitters. For most it is a nightmare juggle.

I can personally recommend a stay-at-home dad, as is the case in our household.

If my kids are sick, it’s my husband who picks them up. He does most school drop offs and pick ups and makes their school lunches. He gets them to swimming lessons at 5.30pm if I get stuck at work on Wednesdays.

It is a situation I know is rare. If I get caught up at work, that’s OK – it doesn’t require a flurry of phone calls and crossing fingers that OSHC isn’t booked out.

I see friends try to negotiate after school care, OSHC booking and the guilt of feeling like it’s a completely reasonable thing to be in two places at once, when actually that’s not a superpower even us mums have.

The reality is that the traditional school day, like the nine-to-five workday, is an archaic Mad Men-era concept that is out of step with the way we live.

And not just out of step in ‘a tad inconvenient’ kind of way, but more in a ‘no wonder we are the most medicated and stressed families in human history’ kind of way.

The juggle between parenting and working will always be a test, but parents deserve a test where you’re not guaranteed to feel like a failure every school day of the week.