To think I can WFH 9-5 in the holidays with my kids at home

Completely depends on your children. Mine can happily play/ amuse themselves at home. They’re real home birds. My husband works from home and does exactly this, he will sit with them for a lunch break, play a game or chat etc and the few hours before and after they will happily play, get a snack and drink. I am very organised with squash in one of the big dispenser jugs, fruit, yogurts etc in the fridge. They’re absolutely fine. Biggest thing is getting them to be quiet when he’s on a call

9 yo fair enough but the 6'yo will be bored silly and need more input.

You can always give it a go

Very true!!

I only have 1 child, when covid hit he was year 4 and started year 5 in the September so was 9 when we started wfh full time with ds at home and he was fine to be home with little need for parental input, able to occupy himself etc, when he was doing school work did need some help and was on a laptop next to me in the kitchen, but in the hols was fine to entertain himself and now while we limit that where we can by taking our annual leave there are around 2-3 weeks over the year where he will just hang around, do his own thing, get his homework done etc while we work.

So the 9 year old fine, I don't know how your 6 year old is and how they are together, it depends on how they behave and how much input they need from you when you are working?

When ds was younger we had help from my parents around 2-3 weeks a year while we used our annual leave to cover the rest - you need to cover around 13 weeks so we have 11 weeks between us, 1 of which we cross over for our family holiday.

I WFH and I take 4 weeks unpaid parental leave over the summer. Rather than put them in childcare which would cost the same as my wages anyway. Everyone's entitled to request parental leave.

It really is. My work has been flexible way before covid but it's lovely to see the world catching up and more flexible opportunities for women, esp single parents. Also it means if I wanted to change jobs I'm more likely to find a similar set up.

😂 just think of the amazing things you can do with your children with all that money saved. In reality, I wouldn't be able to afford that anyway. It wouldn't be worth working. Better for everyone to have flexible child friendly working arrangements than needing to claim benefits.

100%, best thing to come out of covid.

Definitely. That work flexibility makes a huge difference.

I’d rather save money on childcare, but that’s just me. £2,000 a month - what a joke. Lol.

Very! My parents did the same as immigrants from another country with low salaries, can’t afford childcare.

I still managed to get a First Class degree and Distinction in my MSc. Have a good job!

Didn’t do me any harm :)

People make best of the situation with what they have. Simple.

Can't you split the week and take 1 or 2 days off? DH takes 1 or 2 days, if grandparents can help then they do a few days plus the 2 BH. That's what my DD does with her 7 and 4 year old.

Sounds like fun for your children.

I would never take advantage, I’d actually rather do more than needed because of the flexibility I have. I know I have it good, I appreciate it and I’ll do anything I can to help my colleagues/ the company.

People do drop offs and pickups. In holidays, kids are home with them.

My kids don’t shout, if they did they’d get a straight telling off. They know not to disturb me, I give them activities to stay occupied and I finish work 4pm. It’s more the morning and holidays for me.

I drop off the kids early in morning for breakfast club then pick them up after 4. Otherwise dh does it.

It’s more the holidays for me.

I don’t take advantage, I wake up earlier to get all my work done. I make sure I attend important meetings and go the extra mile. One of my colleagues is leaving and I’ve offered to take up her category, until they hire someone new. I’m a team player.

Oh that’s good :) I keep hearing negativity on here from older parents with older children. Shouldn’t generalise, that’s on me.

At least women are staying in work, earning salary and having pension. Previously they were screwed by becoming a SAHM.

I think that if it's one or at most two (non-consecutive) days a week AND your job doesn't require you to be on calls a lot and can be fairly flexible so you can put a few extra hours in the evening when the kids are in bed to make up for interruptions during the day, it would be ok.
It's not fair on your children to be ignored all day for two weeks whilst you're busy working. If they have 3-4 busy days with lots going on so that your working day(s) is a veg-out in front of the screen kind of day, that would be ok.

What has that got to do with looking after children whilst working though? Bar childcare for an odd day unexpectedly falling through or illness or whatever then surely you should still be doing a decent day's work when wfh which isn't possible when being sole carer that day for young children? I'm all for flexibility but glad I don't work somewhere where peoples children shouting in the background of calls or whatever is considered normal. There's being flexible which is good, then there's people taking advantage of that surely.

The majority of my colleagues aren't particularly young. Mainly women though with children of all ages, and clearly a more flexible outlook. It works well.

It depends on your job and your DC.

At those ages my DC didn't get along so I couldn't have left them to their own devices, although friends' DC would have been ok. By 8 and 11 they would have been fine.

My current job involves phone shifts so I couldn't deal with any issues during that time. Friends who WFH permanently need to get work done but can be fully flexible on when it is done. If your job is the latter I don't see a problem with your DC being at home largely occupying themselves.

The gender pay gap is still significant. Women lose out financially and professionally when they have children. Child care is expensive - and who steps in when it fails?
I think there are serious debates to be had about this. It just saddens me that some on here just want to reduce it to a slanging match.

The problem is people don’t see this. They’re very rigid and that’s why their employees aren’t happy. If my employer was like this, I’d take my education and skills, go elsewhere. I work in IT/Digital sector, so there’s a lot of demand for people. They can’t fill vacancies.

In fairness once younger generation takes over, it’ll be better. Much more flexible working environments in comparison to baby boomers and older generations.

Same here. My work has always been supportive of this. Years before covid.

I do this occasionally. I wouldn't for a whole week. But once or twice a week in the holidays works out fine for us. I start an hour earlier and take a two hour lunch and try to meet up with some friends in the park so they can have a run around and play.

Maybe if you were actually employing people you'd see the value of flexible working and happier employees for your business model. But that's not your job is it. There's probably a reason for that.