To feel that the predictions and hopes that “work from home” is “the new normal” is setting women back in the workplace?

[Justamassivefart]

I work full time in an international company. I also have three children of primary school age. I like many others have struggled during lockdown to do childcare, home educate and continue my full time job from home and try to show that I am “busy” enough so that I do not get made redundant or be seen as surplus to requirements.

Like many other women I am also the default carer for the DC and also cook and cleaner for the household. The regular childminder is not working during the pandemic which has meant that these tasks also fall to me 24/7.

My husband does not want the children leaving the house or any childcarer coming to ours because of the infection risk.

My husband is a complete nob who does not pull his weight, so I married the wrong person and I recognise it will be different when married to an equal and I do plan to get divorced. But even then I would still have all these responsibilities as a single parent as he does not lift a finger, and works intermittently.

I put a huge amount of value in the space and freedom to wear my uniform and go to work in the morning, knowing the DC are happy at school, knowing that I am independent and pick them up at the end of the day.

So every time I am on a call or see an email from (usually a male partner with grown up kids and wives who have been domestic slaves for the sake of their husbands’ career) saying nothing will ever be the same, work from home is “the new normal,” we can “cut the overheads” of an office, my heart sinks.

If the pandemic is going to repeat and there will be repeated outbreaks and schools again will be shut and everyone again has to work from home and women again become the default carers while holding down a full time job, slowly but surely, I feel we will lose the progress we have made.

Is there a bigger picture here I am missing?

YANBU - yes it will set women back
YABU - you are not seeing the whole picture

I can see what you mean for those that have partners like yours that don't help out. For others it shouldn't but for people like yourself it might.

I think you are just very focused on your own situation and how it would effect you. You are in an unhappy situation but obviously that doesn’t mean working from home is a bad option for women generally.

I think for women in your position yes, it will set them back. In our household I am in no way the default carer, it is a responsibility evenly split. At this time of us both working from home, dh has taken on more of the responsibility actually, because I have much busier than him with work.

For household such as ours, we hope home working will become not the norm as in the only way we work, but as in accepted for a day or two a week. That would give us back a few hours of travel time a week, despite living close to work. It would just give us a bit more flexibility.

I can think of a lot of men who spend 12 hours a day in the office and have absolutely no idea what it takes to keep a house and family running smoothly. It might do them some good to work at home and see what's going on and therfore what their female colleagues probably do even if they are not involved?

If my husband could wfh permanently I could work too. So for us it would help. At the mo I can’t as he is away so much.

I hope it means more women divorcing useless twats they married.

Normally you’d have school, tho.

I don't necessarily think that working from home will set women back, but lack of childcare outside the home certainly will.

Having said that, I also really value getting out the house, going to an office and being an adult and think that after this all ends a lot of people will be looking forward to the change of scenery away from home.

I think YABU because in your case your husband is the problem.

It's people like him who will be setting women back in the workplace, if working from home becomes the new normal.

I work in a male dominated industry and where WFH is common, even in heterosexual couples without children male partners have to pull their weight. Those that don't find themselves kicked to the kerb.

I think it could propell some women!
Take my organisation as an example. Already family friendly and welcome flexible arrangements.

A working mum may work 10-2 some days to do drop off pick up and factor in her commute. She can now do say 9.30-2.45 giving her an hour and 15 more productive work time. Taking her from 0.5 fte to 0.75 for example. Opening up more projects and more opportunities- propelling her career!

Good for buisness- whilst these competent smart women are working more hours they are providing more skills and talent. They feel valued and know their worth. They are loyal to an employer who supported them during the childcare years and provide further valuable unput to their organisation and indusrty.

I say this as a mum of a dc age 4. Who works 40hours a week currently at home with a DH also working 40 hours a week but we help each other out.

You have a Dh problem

You’ve raised some very valid points there.

Working from home (if you have to actually deliver) with children at home is a total nightmare and not fair to anyone.

So while I hope this does lead to more working from home for those who want it. Working to a high level while giving children the care they need just isn’t fucking possible and i hope no one emerges from this thinking it is.

I agree its damn near impossible with the kids there....but the "new normal" would include schools and childcare

So while I hope this does lead to more working from home for those who want it. Working to a high level while giving children the care they need just isn’t fucking possible and i hope no one emerges from this thinking it is.

But if you work from home, you'll need to have childcare in place. Just as you would if you had to work outside the home.

I think if you are in relationship we’re the work is divided equally, it probably opens both parents up to more opportunities. When there isn’t a pandemic happening, the parent working from home can be the one to do the school run, can be the one to collect the kids if they’re sick at school. Women would be able to take that higher paid job that is a slightly longer commute, knowing they can work from home a few days a week to get some work-life balance and if their partner works from they can collect the children. I think it’s also a good thing that kids are interrupting men’s video calls, not just women’s.

I've found the opposite, I'm still wfh full time, my boyfriend who moved in when lockdown started has been furloughed from his job (more senior and better paid than me) and has taken over all cooking and cleaning and some of entertaining dd. The rest of the time dd has been with her dad who is also furloughed. They've both stepped up the housework and parenting to enable me to work long hours in peace.

@peppermintcapsules
YES !

This is utterly absurd and very tunnel visioned to your situation. For many, it will open up so many doors of opportunity.

YABU for marrying a lazy man child too.

I think there will be better flexibility. I have children at school and home, and as things are now, I will have to fork out a fortune on wrap around care when I return to work. With greater flexibility, I can start earlier while my husband takes them to school, and I can pick them up from school while my husband is at work or whatever. It will reduce the commuting, which will allow us both to spend more time with the kids, and allow my husband to pull his weight with the housework once I'm working. I see it as a positive.

The problem is you cannot arrange alternative care due to covid and your husband. If you worked from home in normal circumstances you would still need school/ childcare so It would be fine.

Women have massively different circumstances. For you, I see the issue. For others, more wfh would be actively beneficial because the two fewer hours childcare needed each day is the thing that makes going back to work affordable. Or the reduction in avoidable meetings and travel means the job is doable in a way it previously wasn't: those things disproportionately affect women.

More WFH would be fine
BUT
WFH requires childcare, just like going out to work does

• you only save the commuting time

In this crisis, some firms are temporarily accepting that children will be home too, because childcare is simply not available

However, as soon as schools, CMs and nurseries open, then employers may accept more WFH, BUT only when proper childcare is in place.

So, some women married to useless nobs will be temporarily set back until schools reopen
If they can, they may choose to boot out the nobs who remain incorrigible.

I do see why you would feel like that, and I think that there are lots of women doing more than their fair share of childcare and domestic work, which will certainly be exacerbated by this current situation; however I think that any greater flexibility from employers in the future (in terms of hours, locations, etc) will benefit women because we are more likely to need that flexibility to balance work and childcare.
The current ‘normal’ 9-5 office jobs simply don’t work for many women after having children and many employers just don’t want to consider alternatives, this situation forces them to acknowledge that there are other ways of working.

I think when people talk about working from home being the new normal they mean a more normal version of working from home - in other words working from home while children are in school/childcare. In my case (single mum) this would be hugely beneficial- I could get most of my work done while my son is in school with the possibility to then pick him up direct from school (therefore not shelling out on childcare) because I wouldn’t have the commuting time, . I wouldn’t want to do it everyday but a couple of days a week would be ideal if it became more accepted. Plus would also mean that if my child wasn’t sick I would feel less guilty and wouldn’t necessarily need to take annual leave because o could work with him tucked up in bed. That would be a completely different scenario to the current reality where everyone’s kids are with them too, but that really wouldn’t be sustainable long term and I can’t see it lasting forever for all sorts of reasons

Not at all. I need flexibility to WFH so I can cover things like hospital appointments, or for other reasons to do with DD. It’s been really difficult to find an employer who sees it as an acceptable way to work. Even though I have the ability to do it with my employer, there was very much an attitude that I was “working from home” rather than actually doing work, despite my output being demonstrably more than on my office days. Now they are actually seeing it can be done, I hope that attitude changes.