To ask if your kids are going to grandparents?

[Tedtalk]

May have already been asked, so apologies if repeated

My next door neighbour is in her late 50s. She is now working from home. Her daughter is also working from home (not wearing work clothes) and drops her kids off to my neighbour 2/3 times weekly, sometimes stopping for a cuppa in the garden.

I'd assumed this was all allowed until someone I mentioned it to questioned it.

Can anyone clarify this for me?
Any experiences?

Childminders are allowed to continue to have children of keyworkers. If family are usually your childcare and you are a key worker then it is the same as mixing with a childminder’s household but without other kids there increasing infection risk.

No not allowed.

Sil and Bil both not working at the moment and at home. They are still sending their 3 kids to SILs parents down the road every day so they can have a "break"

Late 50’s isn’t in a risk group. It’s not much older than me, and i’m working frontline.

It’s risk assessment. They’re probably less like to cross infect keeping childcare between the two of them, than they are sending the child to school where between other keyworkers kids and teachers there’s probably far more social interaction...

My DD's nursery has closed, even for key workers. I work the NHS and although I'm in an admin role they won't let me work from home.

My husband also works for the NHS and does 24 hour shifts (stays overnight).

I've had to dramatically reduce my hours this month and if we have to carry on we'll really struggle financially.

My in-laws have said they want to have DD as of next week so I can get some much needed money. It's not ideal but I don't see what other option we have.

It's really interesting to hear everyone's experiences, having hardly left the house myself and having limited friends with children I'd really not paid that much attention to this side of the social distancing part.

They haven't been out of the house themselves in nearly 8 weeks so we know we are all virus-free

This isn’t absolute. If things are coming in and out of the house, you are driving (did you touch the outside of your car?) etc, the chance is much lessened but there is still a chance of infection.

It's technically not allowed but my mum is helping out 2 days a week whilst I work from home. I don't see it being any different to a child who has parents living in different households and the child has to travel between one and the other.
My mum is in her 50s and low risk, neither me or her go anywhere or having mixed with others.

I don't really see the need for the snidey comments

People are reading it different ways. For instance I am due in less than a month and my mum was going or have our son whilst hubby and I go in for the birth. Since the rules I take it they means my mum cannot have my son as mixing households, so husband will look after son and I will be going it alone.

Others in my situation are still doing to leave their other kids with grandparents whilst they go in.

And she certainly wouldn't wear a tracksuit normally.

I wouldn’t normally wear jeans to work but I am at the moment! That way I can wash my clothes as soon as I get back from work. My usual work skirts and trousers are dry clean only.

It's not encouraged no but I've done it as I'm a shift worker and I'd also rather send my dd to a quiet house than into a school right now which could put way more people at risk.

Every bodies circumstances are different. In some areas people are being advised to use other family for childcare to take the pressure off schools and nurseries. It means only possible sharing of covid between those two households, instead of multiple households, and is therefore preferable to using school/nursery some of which isn't available. Everybody has different circumstances, and you don't know whether they have gone their own risk assessment, sought external advice, etc.

Is "I live rurally" the new "cancel the cheque"? I see it in almost every thread.

I can go out 10 times a day because I live rurally.
I take my kids to visit people because I live rurally.
I can ignore all the advice because I live rurally.

Why do people say it's allowed it's mixing households so NOT allowed.
I get the predicament but that is why people have been furloughed unfortunately until the lockdown is over this is the situation.

I don't really see the need for the snidey comments

Funny. I don't see the need for hanging out of your window counting how many times your neighbour's daughter visits, how long she stays for a chat at drop off, or checking what either of them are wearing, either.

We'll have to be confused together.

I suppose we will.

It does seem people's views on whether it's allowed or not and whether we should take any notice of what's going on in our immediate community thoroughly depends on which camp your sitting in .

Technically it’s not allowed no but I’m a key worker and I start at 7am, their school starts at 8:40am so we felt there would be more risks involved if my children go to grandparent for 2 hours in the morning then on to school rather than just sticking to being with grandparent so that’s what we’ve chosen to do.
Too many curtain twitchers about during this crisis that’s for sure.

As for not being my business, isn't this all our business if looking for clarification and to stop the spread

No. It is not your business. You are responsible for your own actions. not other people's. Unless you have definitive proof that this person is disregarding the rules you really cannot make a judgement. Ive seen SO many wrong assumptions made about key workers and people leaving nasty notes on others cars not realising they are volunteers for the NHS and are transporting people to and from hospital etc
Heck, one person was working in the ICU at the hospital and someone reported her for going to work every day.

I work in care and we have been advised not to wear uniform or display our badges when out and about because people have been mugged for them. I'm not risking my safety just because people like you are curtain twitchers. You need to keep your neb out. Its none of your business and you have literally no idea why she is doing what she's doing.

It’s so frustrating to read some of these replies. So many people are having very hard times right now but bending the rules to suit your own circumstance is dangerous and takes the piss out of everyone else who is doing as we are asked.

Just because people are following the rules it doesn’t mean they have it easy or that they couldn’t come up with a handful of good reasons why they too could just make an exception or are really missing family members or need their support.

It's technically not allowed, but IMO there should be some common sense in interpretation. A lot of grandparents are younger than my DH and me are as parents, and are not vulnerable. If people are allowed to use childminders and nannies, then why not grandparents if they're not vulnerable?

By contrast, my DM is 80 years old and therefore in a vulnerable group, so for us to ask her to look after our DDs would be completely wrong and obviously we don't. (Plus my DH has asthma and I've been struggling with COVID-19 symptoms for over 6 weeks now, so we very much have to isolate our household anyway.)

The only issue is the mixing of households, especially if there's a vulnerable or shielded person in one of the households. That would be potentially very much putting the vulnerable person at risk. I think people are capable of doing their own risk assessment, so should be left to make their own decisions.

I think the question is fair enough, though, to help inform our own decisions, so the response of 'none of your business' is a bit much, though. The OP isn't asking whether she should report anyone in this thread.

Yes, thank you for everyone who are
Just sharing knowledge and experiences without feeling the need to turn it into a personal attack!

but bending the rules to suit your own circumstance is dangerous and takes the piss out of everyone else who is doing as we are asked.

I appreciate you see it as bending the rules, but sometimes blindly following the rules is more dangerous than using common sense.

If you have 3 children in 3 different schools / nurseries, would you really send them to the different providers, rather than their grandparents?

No, I don't think they do depend on what camp you're in. My children have only seen their grandparents once since lockdown began (from the other end of a garden). I just understand that what is possible for us is not possible for everyone else, and that preventing viral transmission requires that people make rational risk assessments taking their own individual circumstances into account.

If I did need childcare because of a key worker role I would carefully consider which genuinely posed less risk to the community out of the available options, not just choose to send them to school because it was official.