Be honest. Who worked from home while also having their DC their over Easter hols?

[Whatsgoingonwithmyhead]

Less of DC’s classmates at camps and a lot of the parents very vague about their plans.

Just wondering how common it is for people to WFH whilst also looking after their kids in the school hols these days ?

Did you do this? How old are your DC and did you get a proper days work done?

I used a mixture of camps & grandparents. Appreciate I’m fortunate to have local, helpful grandparents and I earn enough to pay for camps. I also took some annual leave. My DC is 5 and super active so no way could I work with her there!

Just interested. Not judging anyone. School holidays are long, money is tight and not everyone has family help so appreciate covering school holidays is a huge headache for lots of families

Edited to say I note the typo in the title before someone leaps on me about it!

Do you feel the ones laughing and boasting about being to do their job and childcare properly are just deflecting and being defensive because they're actually know they're not? 🤔

11 and we both WFH and spend our days ferrying her about/having friends over to keep her company/taking her to friends’ houses etc as well as working.

Both have flexible, well paid positions with lots of autonomy and neither of us take the mick. But it’s a mental juggle rather than just having a clear head to work all day, I tend to mentally work in chunks and it’s draining.

Doesn’t impact the standard of my work but hugely impacts my own wellbeing and stress levels!

Not a secret for either of workplaces, all very civilised and my husband especially regularly does work calls while driving her about.

A lot of WFH jobs don't have fixed hours so it's entirely possible for this to be above board. My work is project based, I need to reply to emails within 24 hours and other than that I work on my own project. We did the holidays with one week of leave and one week where I was working with DC at home. I didn't work while looking after DC, I did it by working 7pm -midnight after DC were in bed. I compensated for working less hours during that week by also working 7-11ish in the week before (when technically I was on leave) and the week after the holidays. In reality, I work a lot, I regularly put in hours in the evening and work more hours than my contract states. The compensation for that is no one asks questions when I am less productive over the holidays. Swings and roundabouts.

I assume your husband is quite senior and can take work calls in a car while driving around. I have a managing director that does that. We all know he is not really working, he pay attention to half the call, he forgets half what has been saying and he is a nightmare to work with. People tend to leave his team and he has a very bad reputation. Luckily for him his boss has not realised but they are also friends outside work so probably he covers for him a bit. Your husband really needs to think of taking calls while driving your daughter around is respectful for the people in the meeting and the impact he has on people. You say you have well paid positions just get a nanny!

We juggled days off, days with relatives and holiday clubs. She was at home whilst we my husband and I both worked for one afternoon out of the two weeks. It was fine. I wouldn’t do a full day though unless absolutely necessary as at 5 she still needs (and deserves) a lot of attention.

If she was ill I wouldn’t hesitate to have her at home whilst my husband and I both worked though.

1. You sound very bitter!
2. Your definition of calls is very clearly different to mine! I’m not talking about strategic Zoom or Teams calls! I mean a call from person X to person Y and not to people who report to him. Calls of the type you’re referring, are diarised and taken in his office. But I would call those meetings.

We don’t want or need a nanny. If we did, we would have one.

Sorry your boss sounds awful, but your experiences are clearly not the same as ours.

I have an 8&10 year old, I put mine in camps for a couple of the days in the holiday purely because I felt so guilty they’d just be stuck at home while I was working, the other days they were unfortunately stuck to screens not that they cared but god I felt awful!! It didn’t help that the weather was so bad we couldn’t even go to the park at lunch time. Unfortunately we aren’t allowed to take any time off in April, Easter holidays are always the worst!

This depends on the job requirements, and the age of kids. I'm a researcher and can't get much done with my 5yo around but sometimes I need to do work Zooms while he's watching tv. I wouldn't do whole school hols.
But. You say you're not judging, yet the tone of your post is quite judgmental. Why should anyone explain to you how they arrange the school hols? People probably have all sorts/blends of arrangements. If they can still do their jobs, what's the issue for you? If you're worried your friends don't achieve their work deliverables, is it really your business..?

Completely agree with this.

It’s also not always about money. I give mine the choice of going to camp or not. She doesn’t always want to go, so I let her choose.

Mine are too young. Eldest is 7. I can manage a day if he is off ill and just sleeping/watching tv but not sch hols with a healthy child off the walls.

My siblings kids are 9 & 11 and i can 100% believe its possible to do a day here and there with kids that age.

We didn't do loads of camps because we did a hotch potch, i took a day of leave, DH took two, there were bank holidays, MIL visited for three days, childminder for a bit.

Summer is similar, couple of weeks of family holiday plus extra days for both me & dh, my sibling will take them out for a couple of day trips, parents will do some, and we'll do a bit of childcare .

We don't ever take a day off when kids our in school, we use all of them to cover as much school holiday as we can

I do it all the time and have done since youngest was 5. They are easy kids and it’s not difficult to juggle work around them. I probably get a bit less done than normal but I just make up for it when they’re back at school. Don’t feel guilty at all. Where I live it would cost me £1000 a week to put them in clubs. It’s have them
home or take unpaid leave, and there’s nobody to cover for me so it’s in my work’s best interest to let me work from home with the kids during the holidays.

Oooooo ok il ‘admit it’
actually Il just say yes I worked the majority of the holidays with my 5 year old with me and no, my job is absolutely NOT suited to working with your child around.
However, due to circumstances I don’t wish or need to explain I worked while trying my best to accommodate my child.
not really sure what the interest is or who would actually care about who does what in the school holidays or for work or for childcare in general actually 🤷‍♀️

Just another thing to attack other mums for just doing their best. Wish women would stop being against each other and just respect that different things work for different people.

I did on the days I wfh. I have quite a stressful job (doesn’t everyone) so I’d work from 6am-9, spend half an hour then doing breakfast and making sure that they were washed and dressed then I’d leave them to their own devises which sadly usually involved a device. Then break for lunch, then I’d try to insist an hour of atom, piano, spelling, reading etc was done before more TV for the rest of the afternoon.
I also worked in the evening post bedtime if I needed to. So I don’t feel like my employer was short changed in any way. (Mine are 9-11 type range).

I manage a big team some of whom have kids, and I have kids of my own. We all WFH.
As long as my team get their work done I don’t mind kids in the background. Some
people log back on at 7pm to finish things off so I know they’re conscientious.
If people are not doing their tasks and letting others pick up the slack, I won’t stand for it.
i have sacked 2 people recently. One was in his late 20s and arrogant. He had no kids but couldn’t resist the temptation of his Xbox. Despite multiple warnings he kept making mistakes and kept travelling to audits and just not doing them.
the other guy was rubbish at his job and was put in my team to sort out the problem. I thought he just needed training and guidance. He used his kid as an excuse as to why he was behind. He didn’t even turn up to training sessions, claiming he had to spend a week looking after a sick grandfather.
There were lots of stories about why his child needed his attention. I was supportive and tried to help until I discovered that his child didn’t even live with him. Then none of the stories made sense. After a PIP where he couldn’t even do the basics, I had no choice but to sack him.

Well if your company doesn’t mind….

A lot of people are saying 8+ and it’s ok, but I think whilst that’s ok from the employer’s pov - you can get work done with an 8/9 yo there - it’s not really fair in the kid if they’re that young, other than maybe for one or two isolated days in the hols.

I think once they’re an age where they might go out and about alone that’s fine - so from 11/12 ish - and that’s usually the age holiday clubs stop anyway.

I don’t do it because I absolutely hate it. Working from home with my 10 yo in the house is not fun at all - because I know he’ll just be sat looking at a screen most of the time. And idk, I can’t really concentrate knowing there’s children about.

I also have a 15 yo and I’m fine with her being there but I know she’ll go out when she wants, and also would spend some of the time productively in the house. So might well be studying whilst I’m there, or doing music practice etc.

It might be my 10 yo’s personality though. So I don’t do it because I hate it. I think it brings back memories of the pandemic tbh - wfh full time as a single parent with a 6 yo in the house I was supposed to home school 😫

Older kids here 13/16
Usually in the office 4 out of 5 days but in holidays my boss is okay if I WFH a bit more. I have to go in 1 day but my office is only 10 mins away.
They mostly turn into night owls so rarely up before lunch anyway.
When they were primary age I worked my PT hours over 5 days in term time to fit around school hours. Holidays I condensed into 3 days so only needed 3 days a week in holiday clubs.