If you have small children and both parents need to work from home, how do you do it?
We are taking turns: in the morning one looks after the kids while the other works, and viceversa in the afternoon. After putting the kids to bed, we both always have work to catch up on.
Surely we are not the only ones in this situation - how are other people managing it?
It is destroying us, but we can see no alternatives.
Taking days off would be worse because we would have more work to catch up on afterwards.
Part-time is not an option. It is not offered explicitly and, judging from the experience of colleagues who did it in the past, you risk getting 50% of the pay for 80% of the work.
We can't resign. We need the jobs. If we were sure everything will go back to normal in 3 months, we could even consider some kind of unpaid leave for a short period of time, but, with so much uncertainty, it seems wiser and more prudent to hold on to the jobs we have.
We have a nanny, that we continue to pay, but she is not coming - we feel making her come would be against government guidelines and common sense, because it would mean sharing the lockdown with her and her family, and I am not sure we can trust her entire family is behaving sensibly.
I don't know how much longer we can go on, to be honest. One more month like this might be manageable, but any longer would be a huge challenge. I strongly hope a softer lockdown will come, where maybe offices remain closed but at least the nanny can come (she can drive to ours).
Of course in a crisis like this everything must be put into context: we do appreciate how incredibly lucky we are that we continue receiving our salaries, and for office jobs which can be done from home - we are not risking our lives with no PPE or anything like that. But I was curious to hear from other people in similar situations.
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How do you juggle childcare and working from home if your partner works, too?
147 replies
SoCloseToLosingIt · 27/04/2020 15:13
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