The heartbreaking moments working parents are missing out on right now.

To some, school holidays mean fun in the sun. To working parents, they mean stress and guilt.

A couple of days ago I missed my son’s soccer presentation.

They put it in school holidays assuming the parents can go. Not all of us can.

My six-year-old was gutted when I told him I had to work.

“Can’t you just quit?”

“Umm, no buddy I can’t.”

“Just get someone else to go instead,” he offered.

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Well just ring them and tell them you’re busy and it’s our presentation day. We’re getting a trophy and you’ll miss it.”

In his mind it was so simple.

“I wish I could, but I can’t. Daddy will be there and he’ll take lots of photos to show me,” I told him.

Just a few hours later I had similar conversations with friends.

“Have you checked the weather? We’ll have to take the kids to the beach in the holidays.”

“Can’t. I’m working,” I sighed.

I checked my Facebook, there were three event invites to birthdays over the holidays.  I could go to one.

When school holidays come around I hear my friends discussing coffee dates and catch ups and I avoid putting myself in the conversation because I know I can’t go.

School holidays to some people are two weeks of fun, sleep-ins, craft and bike rides. School holidays to working parents are two weeks of stress and guilt and haphazard baby-sitting arrangements.

Schools get kids to write about their holidays when they return to class.  My son will probably write, “Mum worked and I was bored. She took me to get a treat once after I yelled at her.”

School holidays for working parents aren’t fun. They just aren’t.

I went to bed on the last night before holidays started and I made a mental note of what care my children would be in each day or what relative or friends had offered to have them over the next two weeks. Then I calculated which set of grandparents was due for a sleepover and how often I could utilise them to fit in with our work schedules over the holidays.

It sucks, it really does. But I know I’m not alone. Families with two working parents are more common than ever and the constant juggle is felt by us all. The tag-teaming, the taxi-ing and the feeling that you never actually see your family at all.

We all know the guilt and the stress and the frustration holidays cause us.

I could make this article about the child care system or the government or flexible work hours, but I won’t. I won’t make it about that because we've heard it all before.

Instead I want to make it about you.

About you, the mother who woke up at 5am this morning and dropped her child to vacation care so she could get to work.

About you, the father who had to beg his boss to finish his shift early today so he could go home and relieve his wife of child care duties while she heads off to work herself.

About you, the parents who work shift work and are scrapping by on no sleep while their children are home for the holidays begging to be taken out but struggling to see you are already running on empty.

It’s about you, because I feel your pain. I feel the utter exhaustion. The heart-wrenching guilt. I feel the tears you hold in until the kids go to bed.

I feel it all. Because it is me too.

It is so many of us who can’t put our lives on hold for two weeks when school takes a break. As much as we wish we could, we can’t.

We can’t. And it just kills us.

To those people, the ones in the same position as me. You aren't alone. I feel your pain. I feel your guilt.

And I’ll go to bed tonight wondering if I’m doing the right thing, like so many of us will.

To all of you, this article is for you.

Are you part of a family with two working parents? Are holidays hard for you too?

Like this? Try these:

The school holiday routine every parent should stick to

A big schoool holiday day out. In your own backyard.