Off the Radar Holiday: It's Time to Say Goodbye to Whit Monday! 👋
- Take it from Rolf-Herbert Peters
- 🕒 2 mins
The urgent call for the termination of a celebratory occasion has been made public. - Time has come to eliminate a celebrated day!
Classic Whit Monday: homebodies chilling out, families relaxing, and many of us scratching our heads wondering why we're off work! A YouGov survey says a whopping 55% of West Germans are clueless about this holiday's significance, with East Germans not doing much better at 62%. To put it bluntly, little more than half of us even attend a Whit Monday church service.
Yet, our political system continues to give us this day off. This long weekend regular seems excessive to Peters, a practicing Catholic, who thinks it's high time to cut Whit Monday from our calendar and use the day more productively!
Outdated Buzz: Holidays Gone by the Wayside
You might raise an eyebrow at the idea of cutting a holiday like Whit Monday or Ascension Day. Some may argue that we need them for family time and R&R -, but things have changed since the early days of the Weimar Republic, when people worked 48 hours a week over six days! Fast forward a few decades, and trade unions fought for the five-day week with 40 hours of work, essentially giving us 52 additional family holidays each year. Today, Germans work an average of just 34.8 hours a week, less than the EU average.
That said, leisure time can still cause stress, according to the Leisure Monitor from the Foundation for Future Studies. Indeed, even on Whit Monday, the top five favorite pastimes include:
- Get online
- Watch some TV
- Jam out to some tunes
- Work on a computer, laptop, or tablet
- Engage with a smartphone
So, why not eliminate this stressful burden and do away with Whit Monday? This minor adjustment would increase total working hours by only 0.4%, helping us dig ourselves out of our perpetual economic crisis. Besides, it would mean shops could stay open, generating extra sales taxes to boost the social security system.
A Brighter Future: Education First
But beyond the economic benefits, the most significant advantage would be the improvement in education. Depending on federal state, up to ten percent of lessons are canceled during holidays like Whit Monday. German students are, unfortunately, trailing behind in international comparisons. Why not spend that holiday bathed in the light of learning instead of wasting it in virtual worlds? The average 15-year-old already spends a shocking seven hours a day on their smartphones, according to the OECD!
If students were in school, they might even learn that Whit Monday is an opportunity to celebrate global understanding and combat narrow-minded nationalism.
By the way, my colleague Matthias Urbach has an alternative view on this matter. Check it out here.
- The employment policy in EC countries could be revised to consider the potential benefits of eliminating holidays such as Whit Monday, as it might increase total working hours slightly and improve the economy, especially in terms of generating extra sales taxes.
- In the context of the general news and policy-and-legislation, the debate around the significance of holidays like Whit Monday extends beyond family time and leisure, involving politics and economic considerations, such as education and national productivity, which are critical factors in the employment policy discussions within EC countries.
