Summer Childcare in the UAE: A Mother’s Week Between Work and Three Sons
At 7:04am on a Monday, before the UAE summer heat had fully settled in, the first of three boys was already awake. The school holidays had begun.
Additional reference context is available at https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/2026/07/28/diary-looking-after-three-kids-during-uae-summer-holidays/.
For families across the Emirates, the extended summer break carries a familiar tension. Traffic thins, malls quiet down, and the pace of daily life eases. For parents managing childcare without camps, without help, and without pausing their careers, the season tells a different story entirely.
One mother of three sons, aged 13, 11, and seven, chose this year to skip the expense of summer camps and handle childcare while working from home. The decision seemed straightforward. It was not.
What struck her first was how completely the holidays reorganize time. During term, the morning hours after school drop-off belong to her: walking, gym, meditation, then work. Once the boys were home all day, that same stretch became unrecognizable. By 8:18am on day one, despite breakfast having been eaten just sixty minutes earlier, all three children announced they were hungry.
By midday she had retreated to the dining table, a setup carrying uncomfortable echoes of pandemic-era remote work. She asked the children not to interrupt unless absolutely necessary. They tested the definition of “important” with observations like “I’m thirsty” and “he said I’m not sigma.” Between 12:32pm and 8pm, hunger returned repeatedly.
Tuesday followed a similar rhythm. By 9:18am, hunger had returned. By 10:09am, boredom arrived. The pool offered relief lasting until 10:23am, when the children decided swimming was no longer interesting. She delivered an impromptu lecture about her own childhood summers, when access to a pool meant staying submerged for eight hours while parents remained blissfully absent until dinner. The children returned to the water at 11:04am and abandoned it again thirteen minutes later.
Wednesday raised a practical question that had been building quietly: why does virtually every entertainment option in the UAE cost at least 300 dirhams per child? She took the boys to Ikea, hoping the display rooms would occupy them. Three hours passed in miniature bedrooms, dining rooms, and kitchens. She left with considerably more than the tea light candles she had planned to buy (Ikea’s particular genius at work). The afternoon prompted deeper reflection on families who leave the UAE entirely for summer. How do they manage two months away from work? Are they working remotely? If they have household help in the Emirates, why voluntarily spend two months cooking, washing, and ironing elsewhere? Are they staying with family, which raises its own questions about sanity and resilience?
By Thursday, the children had cycled through Monopoly Knockout, Lego, and a jigsaw puzzle, each escalating into arguments. At 1:25pm she surrendered and allowed PlayStation access for several hours. That night, certain words haunted her sleep: “buns,” “cooking,” “sigma,” “skibidi,” “nonchalant,” “cooked,” and “bov.”
Friday began with hunger lasting from 7am through 10:44am. At 10:45am, the children announced plans to build a pillow fort using every pillow, cushion, sheet, blanket, and duvet cover in the house. She stayed quiet, because they were cooperating. Arguments erupted over entrance fees. The child who declared “no charge because I love mummy so much” became her temporary favorite. Her suspicions about his motives were confirmed when he requested McDonald’s for lunch. A play date that afternoon introduced three additional children, creating a paradoxical situation: the house felt simultaneously more hectic and less demanding.
Meanwhile, Saturday began at 6am, weekends inexplicably prompting earlier waking than school days ever did. By 10:30am, hunger was acute. She made the children eat a cucumber before goldfish crackers, briefly channeling the aesthetic of homesteading Instagram mothers. A trip to Spinneys for “ten minutes” stretched to forty. The afternoon disappeared into YouTube videos featuring Alan Chikin Chow, a discovery she had lived happily without until that day. At 9pm, reflecting on the common parental habit of loosening bedtime schedules over summer, she disagreed entirely. If her children stayed awake past 10pm, when would she watch Landman?
Sunday brought hide-and-seek, which ended in tears by 9:19am. Hunger returned at 9:21am. A mall walk intended to be economical resulted in 2,200 dirhams spent by 12:12pm. An argument over Minecraft consumed the evening. By 6:59pm, hunger had returned once more, completing the cycle that defines school holidays for working parents managing childcare at home.
The question she never quite answered: whether the cost of summer camps, in dirhams and in logistics, is actually the harder calculation, or whether it is simply the more honest one.