To think you can’t work from home with a 1 year old baby

[HipHopTheHippieToTheHipHipHop]

My company is recruiting for a sales exec and I overheard a call from a recruitment agent pushing a candidate currently on maternity leave somewhere else and about to go back to work but wants a new job.

She wants to work 3 days in the office and 2 days at home. For those 2 days she’d be looking after her 1 year old while she’s “working”.

AIBU to think this is taking the piss? There might be some jobs where you can juggle work and looking after a baby, but not while you’re dealing with clients (who work office hours). Hardly fair on the baby either.

I wfh on a Friday and children are in nursery or school.

No way I could work with that. Even my 7yo is hard sometimes in holidays!

YANBU

Not really without childcare unless maybe the baby takes a long nap 3 hours, then she makes up a lot of hours in the evening??

I can’t manage to work from home with my youngest (2) and haven’t been able since she was born. I’m self employed and have just had to cut down on work a lot as she’s not a child that can be easily juggled, she’s always been very full on. Maybe slightly more doable with a very placid baby?!

Not surprised that men would think this was either possible or ok - they tend to have little idea of what the reality would be. Ie little work/child neglected.

How is it possible in a client role? If the phone rings and the baby is crying what takes priority?

If you’re on a conference call and the baby needs a new nappy???

It's most definitely not possible in a customer facing or sales role.

I hope the recruiter was told that the woman proposing this solution wouldn't be getting an interview?

YABU OP. Perhaps you need to mind your own business and let the manager/new staff member work that out between themselves. Unless you are the manager yourself you don't know her setup, she might have help or granny to babysit, there may be all sorts of solutions for her to work out with the manager. She might be main breadwinner, single mum, who knows? She might be the best salesperson ever, and the child won't be a baby forever.

Being the only mother in my office became an absolute pain in the ass with other staff members giving me sideways looks every time I had to be late or leave early, and daring to take my holidays only in the school holidays. But I worked bloody hard and always made up the time for any absences. Some if those judging me were frequently outside smoking and gossiping while I was just cracking on doing my job.

It's hard enough being a new mum, trying to balance work and baby, without sniping from people who aren't even involved.

It is possible, in the sense that you could not interact with the child, entertain them with something passive like TV all day, and ignore any requests to play with them etc. But clearly that isn't great for the child. Personally I have tried to work whilst at home with an ill child, and it's very difficult. Hard to concentrate, I couldn't have done conference calls or anything like that.

If I were an employer I would not want this to be happening. It's not good for the baby and it's not going to be conducive to effective working. If people could work whilst simultaneously caring for a baby/child, then no one would need nurseries or childminders, and we would all take our children to work with us!

HaroldsSocalledBluetits

Why be sexist and make comments about men? Nobody has made this a gender issue until you piped up

For those 2 days she’d be looking after her 1 year old while she’s “working”.

^Ha she wants your company to pay her to look after her child whilst working? She is taking the piss and I can’t believe any decent company would allow this.

I did this for four years and my DC were primary age - it worked like a dream during school hours but come 3.30pm it all went seriously tits up. It certainly wouldn’t have worked for me if they were at home for most of the day. All due respect given to anyone that can make a go of it with under 5’s.

I did it, interestingly enough it was always the men at work who were more supportive of me working from home than the woman.

Yeah because they've never tried it so don't realise it's actually impossible to do.

Really depends on so many factors; what the role entails, how much client interaction there is, what the child is like etc........
With my own boys I could have easily worked from home if it was computer based for 2 days a week

@bruffin what did you do with your children whilst you were working?

She might be the best salesperson ever, and the child won't be a baby forever.

But the child is a baby right now, and babies need looking after. It just isn't fair on a child to try and do both at the same time. You can't be the best parent, if you're putting work before the baby. Nor can you be the best worker, if you're putting the needs of the baby before work.

Also yes children grow up. But a 2 year old is going to be trickier than a 1 year old who might still be napping, a 3 year old more inquisitive and chatty than a 2 year old and so on.

I wfh for myself and my youngest is in childcare (older two are at school and old enough not to need school runs etc any more). I can't work when she's around unless she's asleep or on screens; she doesn't do enough of the former and I really can't let her spend all day doing the latter.

It’s just about possible occasionally in emergencies when DC are ill - eg. 2h during nap time, 1h watching CBeebies, 2h when they are asleep in the eve but it’s completly unsustainable to do everyday, you’d not manage a full days work and if you did the DC would probably have to spend way too much time watching tv/iPad and it wouldn’t be fair.

Yanbu. I think it's actually pretty cruel. The baby is too young to understand why mummy is suddenly ignoring them for large chunks of the day, which I imagine would be confusing and upsetting for them.

Nah. She's taking the piss. And I say that as someone who has had parents bring their children into the office if they have an emergency childcare issue, or even look after them myself, or pump my dad out as surrogate grandad if necessary!

Pimp my dad

Part time whilst child sleeping but otherwise no.

She might be main breadwinner, single mum, who knows?

So what? Still doesn’t mean she can work from home effectively while caring for her child.

I did it from dd being a few weeks old. But the hours have to be flexible, ie during nap time and evenings mostly.

I worked from home with DS1, but largely caught up with everything in the evening and worked many hours until 2am pretty much most nights.

The work was mainly computer based, email answering, web maintenance, and shipping parcels.

Worked from home with DD, would breastfeed her and computer work with free arm. Worked many/most evenings.

DS2 is a different child altogether. DH and I take it in turns to work/do childcare.

So it is work dependent, and child dependent.

Some of us don't have a choice. We have no family/friends, and cannot afford childcare.

I worked freelance from home in a computer based job when my first baby was very small. It worked until he was mobile and switched the computer off at the wall mid work and I had nothing saved (this was 20 years ago).

I would not want to be paying someone wages to do a job for me while they were minding a small child too. That is two jobs. So would you ask someone to mind your one year old while they were working another job? No, you wouldn't. Madness!

I was offered working from home when I was going on maternity leave with dd. She was born the day I went on maternity leave. I was off for 6 weeks, ds was 2 and he went to nursery 3 days a week. Dd went to nursery when she was 2. I worked 20 hours a week as an assistant accountant. I worked at night when the slept of during the day when dd napped.
My boss really wasn't interested as long as the work got done.
I did fully for 8 years, then did 12 hours in the office and 8 from home.