The Golden Plover Has Arrived — And So Has the Summer Anxiety

Summer is supposed to be a time for family, togetherness and freedom. Or at least it should be, right? For many families with children, however, summer is a time of juggling, guilt, and anxiety.

The undersigned is a fleece-jacket mum working a day job, with a child in nursery school, a child in the youngest level of primary school, and a husband doing shift work in a front-line job. Our family is therefore stuck in the hamster wheel of routine all winter and we look forward to lovely moments together in summer. At the same time, I’ve had a knot of anxiety in my stomach about the summer and I suspect I’m far from the only one.

Can either of us get time off work when the nursery school is closed? If not, where is the nursery school child supposed to be? What is the 8-year-old supposed to do during their long summer holiday while we parents are at work? Will there be more courses available than last year? Can we both get time off at the same time so we can do something together as a family? Am I not terribly greedy towards my colleagues for always begging for July off to cover the nursery school holiday?

Nursery schools in Akureyri all close for 20 working days in the summer, or four weeks. Half from 29 June to 24 July and the other half from 6 July to 31 July. Nursery school children in Akureyri number just over one thousand* and the parents of nursery school children therefore probably close to two thousand. These parents, or at least one parent of each nursery school child, presumably want to be on summer holiday at the same time as their child, in the majority of July.

Naturally, that doesn’t work out because not everyone has the choice to be off in July. My husband, for example, was allocated summer holiday precisely when the nursery school is not closed and the primary school child hasn’t started summer holiday. I’m luckier, however, and can be with the nursery school child for three of the four weeks off and also get time off in June at the same time as him, so we’ve planned a family trip. But this means that for one week in July we need to rely on our support network. In addition, the child will be away from nursery school for two weeks in June, while we pay the full fee, and will therefore be off for a total of six weeks in the summer. I don’t mind that — I love the time together, but I would really like the child to be able to attend nursery school instead during the week in July when we’re both working. That way, our family would take time off from work and nursery school when it suits us and our employers — not when Akureyri municipality decides to close nursery schools, which impacts the family, the togetherness, the grandparents, and the colleagues. Our situation could be worse and it certainly is in many cases, but why does it have to be this way?

We are a community and we all need to work together, with each other, for each other, and everyone’s interests need to be taken into account. That requires flexibility.

Proposals from Akureyrarlistinn

Akureyrarlistinn wants to increase the flexibility of the municipality’s nursery school services by giving parents more choice about when nursery school children take their summer holiday, following the example of other municipalities such as Mosfellsbær or Garðabær. Also by increasing the flexibility of free childcare hours and by enrolling in nursery school twice a year. This way we can improve the quality of life for families with children and hopefully also for frustrated colleagues.

Karen Sigurbjörnsdóttir 2nd on the list Akureyrarlistinn

Additional Thoughts

Additional thought I: Summer activity programme for children at the youngest level of the primary schools. A safe place for the children to be when parents are not on summer holiday. Companionship, outdoor activities, exercise, and good nutrition in an environment they know.

Additional thought II: Speaking of good nutrition. If a summer activity programme is running in the schools over the summer, it would be possible to offer open canteens for anyone in the meantime, as a good friend suggested in our conversation about primary school children during the summer holiday. Children not attending the summer programme could, for example, stop by and buy lunch, getting a good and nutritious meal instead of a grilled sandwich or instant noodles, and perhaps meet playmates along the way. An open canteen would also be a wonderful option for older people who often forget to nourish themselves properly and could reduce their social isolation.

*The number of nursery school children in Akureyri was 1,035 according to Statistics Iceland figures from 2024 (most recent figures).