One of the hard truths about working and parenting school-age children is that work takes place year-round – and school doesn’t. 

Put those two things together and you have a mismatch that sidelines mass numbers of employees every summer. It’s a costly issue that’s part of what one study calls $65 billion in annual losses from parents who miss work to care for kids. And it shows why child care isn’t just for the littlest kids. 

“In the summer,” wrote an author on the Atlantic, “they need a plan for all day, every day, for three months.”    

Yet the plight of school-age families often goes under the radar. Call it a false sense of security – the impression among parents and the boss that child care is forever solved the day kids graduate from preschool. While kindergarten might at first seem like a reprieve, the school year doesn’t account for the many days (about 80) school isn’t in session – but work is. Most of those days land in summer. Add that to the fact that a kindergartener is no better able to stay home alone than a toddler. Suddenly summer arrives and parents of the youngest school children find themselves back at square one – newly in desperate need of child care, only now fending for themselves because the larger world says child care is officially solved. 

That kind of conflict has business costs that play out during summer and all year long.

Missed workdays: A parent who has no place for a first grader is parent that’s at best multitasking with a severe case of presenteeism – at worst not working at all. KPMG’s study on child care related disruptions says lack of help “results in millions of lost work hours.” Multiply that time by 60 in July and August. 

End-of-year burnout: Summer (and its inherent vacations) serves as the refresher that readies people for the third- and fourth-quarter push that lies ahead (fun fact: just a little more than a single day of time off can pump up productivity by as much as 8% the rest of the year). But refreshing is tough if you’re regularly using up precious PTO to play camp counselor for the kids. That’s what parents are at risk of doing – and it’s a recipe for burnout that can sandbag the rest of your year. 

Quits: Studies say family care is the leading reason women leave the workforce. A global study on turnover pegs August as the month employees are most likely to quit. Merge those two conditions together and you can imagine how two-and-a-half months of working and parenting simultaneously could bring employees to a crossroads. “School closures during summer and other seasonal breaks,” wrote one author bluntly, “can be a nightmare.”

Lost pipelines: Turnover isn’t the only thing to be concerned about—you also need to think about who’s leaving. Your eldest Gen Zs are no longer fresh-faced newcomers, but rather near 30-year-olds approaching the age more people are starting to have children. They and their Millennial elders have moved from tomorrow’s leaders to today’s. And when they leave because of child care issues (and research says they do), they’re taking their legacy knowledge, their skills, and your talent pipelines with them. 

Detoured RTO: Onsite work remains a priority across industries, with many companies angling to bring people back at least a few days a week. That requires buy-in and modeling – not just from leadership, but from middle managers as well. The question is will they be on board? A summer without school or any kind of assistance may leave you with a group of employees who are less than enthusiastic RTO cheerleaders, and perhaps unable to get to the office at all. 

For parents navigating their kids’ early school years, that first summer break is a shock to the system. Pre-parenthood, child care was the thing they worried about to get from infancy to school age. And it was a recognized essential, the thing both they and their bosses knew parents unequivocally needed to work. The reality is that kids are still kids after preschool. In the here and now, the gap is costing everyone. 

Summer’s right around the corner. Whether you’re communicating the benefits you already offer or exploring new ways to support working parents, a clear plan can make a real difference – for your people and your organization.