To think more people WFH with DC than let on

So genuinely, if there was an emergency or something urgent came up and you needed all hands on deck from your team, you call them and either can’t get through or they answer but can’t help as they’re doing xyz with children who should be in nursery, would that not annoy you? Or an important meeting is scheduled they all need to be in but someone declines because they have DC and that’s their lunch time/snack time/ or they’re just having a general toddler meltdown, would that not cause problems? I’m asking because my role is wfh and very flexible, and my manager very much has your attitude (and I appreciate it), but even then unforeseen things crop up that need my attention asap and if I had my child with me that would really impact my ability to deliver my role to the required standard and pull my weight, support my team.

One of my team does, she has 3 under 8. She assures me the youngest (just over 3 years old) goes to a CM. I believe he does part time but there are just too many occasions when he’s too unwell to go and they just always happen to fall on her WFH days. I do suspect he’s only booked in for the two days she comes in to the office.

We both have very flexible work, and early on developed our 'switcheroo' system. One of us would work in the morning starting early, the other looks after child/children. Quick lunch as a family and then swap. Afternoon childcare person cooks dinner so person working can if necessary with right until it's served. We could each get about 5hrs done. Both then do a few hours once the kids are in bed.

Dedicated childcare all the time, both parents get time with the kids, and a full day of work done for no cost. We only did it for a day a week (except for covid) though as it was knackering.

I've also done working just during naps and evenings, which was ok when baby was 6m, but much trickier as time went on (hence thr switcheroo was born).

I had to wfh with my DC during Covid and it was fucking awful. I, along with many other colleagues, were trying to entertain toddlers while homeschooling primary age DC while also working full time. It was not fun at all so I don’t get why anyone would think it was a good idea.

My DC are slightly older now at 7 and 10 and I can easily work if they are home from school ill as they will lie on the couch and watch TV, my employer is fine with this as it is obviously preferable to them that I don’t take a day off (plus both DH and I are wfh so can tag team an unwell DC if needed). I will also usually be working for an hour when the come home from school, they just get a snack and do their homework or play in the garden etc, until we are done. I don’t have a job where I am on the phone lots or have clients to answer to so it’s no issue having them around for short periods of time.

With a baby or toddler though? No thanks.

I agree. And if you try to call from 2.30pm onwards it's very likely that you won't get through to anyone at all.

Yeah, oddly enough all the parents I work with who’re working for a third fewer hours than the rest of us haven’t volunteered to formalise that by reducing their hours. Perfectly happy to get paid the same as those doing the full amount.

If I wanted to do that I’d have to go part time and take a pay cut but different rules apply to them obviously.

I did it for a while a few years ago, long before Covid. I WFH. My DS who was say 15 months to 24 months when I did this, finished nursery at 1pm, I’d go and collect him from nursery, give him some warm milk, put him down for a nap for two or three hours and get on with work. I did it for about 18 months. It was only 2 days a week. No one ever knew, once I couldn’t get him to nap and my boss emailed and said ‘how you getting on with that report?’ I said, sorry, WiFi issues, will send it over shortly, that was as close as it ever came to getting found out as such.

I think if you start then on screens pretty
young they can get quite addicted. Or like that other woman, just dump them in a playpen in another room and ignore them I guess. They’ll eventually learn to shut up and get on with it as mum isn’t coming when they cry.

If the employers could get away with doing that, they would be.

I don't ring up many companies for things but the last 2 I've had to call about something there's been children in the background of the call 😄 so I think your probably right

The contract is you sell your valuable time to an employer . If you are dealing with a child at the same time it is akin to stealing. Nothing to do with supporting other women. No one can be surprised if they have to pay for childcare and. Government is paying for younger and younger children

@LordFlashearttt

A two year old doesn't sit still and watch tv for
Long. How can she do this every day

It's a shame for the kids

If you can take hours of the day off to do things with kids like the school run then surely your employer could just pay you for the hours you are actually working? Would that not make more sense? Rather than saying someone works full time where on a Friday they are at the park for 2 hours, just say I can offer 6 hours on Friday. No one does though right?

It obviously very much depends on the job.
You wouldn't be able to have an online consultation with your doctor if she was also looking after her child, but some jobs are obviously less demanding and intense.

I work at a large company (2000 HQ employees) that is fully remote for almost all HQ roles. Lots of us have small kids and log off early/start late, have kids at home occasionally with sickness and that's fine. People get their jobs done, and personally I worry about the work/life balance some of them are doing to achieve it, ie working until 10-11PM after the kids are in bed, but that's more of a personal trade off I am not willing to make.

The attitude of my manager and his and on upwards is that generally, you should not be routinely working overtime and how you get your work done beyond that is pretty much your business as long as you are available for meetings and collaboration with colleagues in a way that doesn't cause issues.

HOWEVER, I have worked with a couple colleagues that absolutely took the piss. One didn't have childcare for 6 months to save money for a 6-12 month old baby and she absolutely was regularly distracted in meetings because baby was crying and her work obviously suffered. Another colleague just has kids around all the time and just does not seem to be carrying anything like a full workload, and there is more work she is needed for (support role). I gave up on asking her to support me like she is supposed to because I got so sick of her never following through.

My actual job averages on taking me MAYBE 20 hours a week, with a 8-10 week period where I do work 40-45 hours. I do pick up my kid early from after school care, I do expect that I will be able to pick up from summer camps at 3:30, that I can cover half days without extra care etc. BUT on the occasions where I am struggling to get my work done, we will have a temp nanny cover any gaps. Maybe other people think I'm taking the piss!

People who say it works will argue with me but I bet if she is doing well at work then they’re ignored or dumped in front of a screen. It just doesn’t work. If work is going really well for you then your parenting is probably questionable. People
don’t want to hear that and will tell me they’re excellent parents whilst smashing their multimillion pound jobs but I will not believe it.

I interviewed someone this week who has 2 kids. Aged 4 and 2

She was planning to work and care for the kids as she's been doing it for a year anyway. Theyre well behaved she said.

A two year old, well behaved?

Don't you mean 'collaborating' by the watercooler?!

I work for myself and when I attempted to work from home with DC it was awful. Sleeping baby on lap was even shit.

I once watched a woman show how she worked from home with her toddler. She had the toddler in a play pen alone whilst she worked in another room watching on a camera. Having had toddlers, I think it’s fucking cruel.

OP it doesn’t work. I say that as someone who’s been there. You’ll either be shit at your job or a shit mum.

I've been c-suite in the past, and I took the long view. Sometimes I was just paying staff to be available for what needed to be done.

In fact, in a well-run organisation you have slack to take unexpected opportunities - to have slack, you need unfulfilled time.

I won a contract worth 15% of the company's revenue because I had the opportunity to bid unexpectedly. I spent about 25% of my time working on a niche area of potential recently in "downtime" from urgent tasks that nobody asked me to do - which meant my company could take an opportunity at short notice.

My speciality means that I need to be super-competent in a niche area for 5-10 days at a time, about 10 times a year. Paying me FT to be available is cheaper than paying a consultant.

People definitely do it but I don’t see how they can do their job properly if they do. Of course during lockdown it was different and employers knew this and made allowances (mine did). However, that ended with the pandemic and should not now be the norm. I know where I work if it was discovered you did this you’d be out of a job at worst and disciplinary at best.

I have a nearly 2 year old and there has never once been a time since I went back to work after Mat leave that I thought “oh, I could just have DS here right now, he’d be no bother”. As he most definitely would be a bother (and I say that in the nicest way). He needs my full attention when he’s with me as he’s a toddler and gets up to all sorts. I do wonder how those people who do wfh with children cope. What if it’s a particularly busy day and you can’t just log off for a few hours and make up the time later when DC in bed, as sh*t has hit the fan and you’re needed at work? When you’re getting important phone calls from colleagues/senior managers that you need to answer but DC needs changing or a snack or is in the middle of a tantrum? These people won’t be available for a call back at 8pm when you’re finally doing your work after bedtime. What happens when you’re on a deadline but DC doesn’t want to have their 2 hour nap, or demands attention in the middle of that important meeting? You can’t fully watch your child the whole time if you’re working. Inevitably your work or your child would suffer with this arrangement. If you’re being paid to work your full attention should be on that job and so it’s absolutely not ok to be looking after your child at the same time. It’s very unprofessional.

Only time I’d say it was maybe ok is with older children during school holidays - they’re sensible enough to be in the house without constant supervision and you’re there in case of an emergency. And on the one off occasions when children are poorly is different - they often lie watching TV or sleep so you can just crack on with work. If you’re running round holding a sick bucket or comforting a poorly clingy child or going off to GP appointments then that’s different and you can’t do your job and so shouldn’t claim to be working. We keep back leave (about 4 days each per year) for DS sick days and carry them over if we don’t use them.

It infuriates me when people see wfh as a way around paying for childcare. Yes, it’s absolutely extortionate and basically unaffordable. I get it, I’m in the thick of it. I also wfh and have never thought to take advantage of my employer in that way.

I know a mum who does this. Her employer knows. She works extra hours in the evening to make up for the distractions during the day. It seems to work well for them.

I dont believe the original premise was full time working at home with a child.

But that’s one day a week, and two of you sharing. Not really comparable to one parent for the whole working week.

Because you are, presumably, paid for hours worked. Would you be happy to be paid on outcome?