How far away from your children are you when you are at work?

[Clearasmuddypuddles]

I’m looking at a bee job but it is 20 miles and 35 minutes away from my children’s school and nursery. My husband is 40 minutes away in the other direction.

I think i’m probably being silly but I feel uneasy at being this far away and not being able to get to them quickly in an emergency. Would this worry anyone else? I do have form for ove thinking things!

About 8 metres 😬

@Dollywilde I think we tend to overcompensate these days. Lots of us work out of the home now and I think there's an element of guilt involved.

We were both an hour away and no local family. I could have called on other school parents if desperate though. I don't think I've ever had to collect my children or meet them at a hospital abs they are 14 and 12

The one day the school closed with a sewage leak DH was wfh and had about 5 children for a few hours

Extremely fortunate. About a 3 minute walk from Primary school and 10 or so to High School.

If we hadn’t moved, it would be 30 minutes or so. I don’t think that is unusual. I think my current circumstances are more unusual.

Depends on the school tho. My kids primary school are capeable of dealing with minor things and if dc needs to go home will keep them supervised as long as a parent is actually coming

However my sisters boy is at a special school and the parents have 45 min get there - it’s very strict apparently ( I’ve been on a day out with her when she’s had to literally drop everything and run, before now)

Dh is 10 minute walk away, I'm 2 hour train/bus/walk journey away.

Pressed send to quick. I’m 10 mins away from school

Oh that’s definitely fair (dd is still tiny and I’m on mat leave so definitely not an expert!) I just meant that back in the day even living next door to school wasn’t a guarantee that you would be able to get there really quickly (unless you never left the house!) and it was just seen as normal.

Sorry that was to @min

Ah should say @minnie465! Bloody feeding and MNing 😂

Under usual circumstances when I'm working in the office, I'm an hour away on public transport (London to home counties). My mum or dad could be there sooner in an emergency though.

At the moment with WFH I’m a 5 min drive or 20 min walk.
Normally about 40 minute journey away, door to door. Would possibly be 25 mins if I jumped in a taxi

DH is now and normally 40 miles away, about an hour’s drive if he is in the office but he could be anywhere else in the country once a week.

I work 15 miles away from my children's school on country roads, so it doesn't take long to get there.

I actually had the emergency phone call in September when they thought dd had broken her arm. When i got to her school, because you actually cant instantly be in your car, you have to make arrangements to leave etc, she was grey, sick and crying. We rushed straight to the hospital.

12 miles but an hour in primary. Now 14 miles but still an hour in secondary. If really urgent, taxi might do it in 40 minutes during the day (I can do 20 at 4:30am going to airport but not once traffic starts).

It's not bad around here - a few are very local but most are city centre like me or further. School has always been understanding if necessary and I had a few neighbours who could collect from school in an emergency, within about 20 minutes.

10 minute drive and I work at the hospital. I wouldn't want to be too far away.

I agree, Dollywilde.

My mother made a big thing out of needing to be a SAHM until DB and I left home (lots of smugness about working mothers being bad mothers who won’t be there if their kids have a problem at school, which, it goes without saying, isn’t a SAHM thing, just a “my mother is a bit of a jerk” thing).

The only time one of us had a bad accident at school, she was out walking the dog and wasn’t contactable for an hour anyway. Which was just how it was before people routinely had mobile phones on them. The school staff managed fine by themselves, of course.

I'm 20 min away but can't just drop everything and walk out of work (nurse). DH is 30 min away. The way I see it is if poorly they can stay at school office/sick room for 30 mins. If an emergency then I'm already on site if taken to ED.

OP, I mean this kindly, you sound over anxious. 35 minutes away twice a week should be fine. If it's a job you want, then considering not taking it because of the possibility of your child having such a medical emergency that its imperative you are there within 30 minutes seems to me to be an indication of something else going on.

My DC are now adults but in all their school career I can think of only a handful of times when they've been poorly at school and I've had to collect them early. And none of those were emergencies.

Dh did once have to pick DS1 up from hospital after he broke his finger. He was on a school trip at the time and it was miles away. But there was a teacher with him and he was fine (teenager at the time).

If you want the job, go for it.

No longer work but when I did it was 15 minutes by car. It's also about that far from home and tbh I never go more than around 15-20 minutes away. But then I have a child with medical conditions, who occasionally need an ambulance. DH worked a 2 hr train commute away, I guess now he is likely to be wfh on a permanent basis I will be able to go further afield!

I agree Dollywilde, my mum was a SAHM/worked very locally, but when I broke my arm in Y5 nobody could track her down (no mobile phones!), & my dad was the first one to the hospital - school took me there - probably at least 1.5 if not 2 hrs later as he worked an hour away & was on a ward round at the time. Just one of those things! It is not a traumatic memory from my childhood.

When my DC were younger I was variously a 15-minute drive/45 min v brisk walk (I know cos I once had to walk for school pick-up!) and then later a good 25-min drive (about 14 miles but slow roads).

It's fine OP. No one expects you to be round the corner.

Secondary school once rang me to say DS2 had left his cooking stuff on the kitchen table and could I bring it in? I said, I would have an hour's round trip to do so and couldn't he just go and get it (literally less than a minute away). They said OK, as long as I was happy!

Our distances are about the same as your but my sister and mum are within 10 minutes so in an emergency there's usually someone who can get there quicker.

I'm a teacher anyway so would be hard to contact during school hours.

Secondary is 10 minutes and primary is 2 minutes further along, hospital is about another 5 from school. So all fairly close. I also work in my youngest DD school so am in same building so quite close, failing that my OH is 10 minute car journey from school less than 15 to our hospital.

When I'm in the office I'm at least an hour away, as is my husband. That's normal for where we are (commuter area serving London). It's never bothered me.

I've only had to do the mercy dash from the office once to get her for medical reasons and she was well looked after during the wait.

5 min walk away luckily