To think the pandemic has raised a real issue around school/childcare

[SomewhereNow]

It's become apparent over the past weeks, and more so now that going back to some kind of normal may be on the cards, that most parents (or in many cases mums) cannot work without their children being in school. I completely agree with the 'school isn't childcare' argument, however in reality it appears it has to be for many people.

Having juggled kids/work myself (albeit a few years ago) I recognise the challenges but now I can also see it from the point of view of employers or employees without kids/with older kids - even without a crisis like the current one there are the inevitable sick days, school holidays etc which require a hefty dose of flexibility that isn't always practical for a business.

With most households needing 2 salaries for even a relatively modest standard of living these days, and with both parents often choosing to work for the sake of their own careers (and sanity!) having kids in school plus some other form of childcare seems to be the only option but it doesn't seem to actually suit anyone very well - parents (again often mums) feel like they're failing at both being a parent and an employee, businesses have to work round the needs of the staff and kids have to fit in with it all.

It feels as though something needs to change but I've no idea what.

If one of the original functions of school was as childcare, then I suspect the hours would be a lot longer than they are currently. Education was for the wealthy for a very, very long time. It wasn't until the late 1800's that education became compulsory for all until the age of 10 and it wasn't until the mid 1940's that secondary education became free for all; it took until 1972 for the leaving age to be raised to 16.

Education only became compulsory in an effort to prevent child labour, and even then, only the worst of it. Various programmes I have watched and historical research has shown young delivery boys doing their job early morning and then going off to school. Of course, education for women has only been prioritised for as long as compulsory schooling has been in place and even then, girls left at the earliest age possible to go into service jobs and the like for a considerable period. I recall my now passed elderly neighbour telling me about going into service as a young girl.

So it't not fair to say education has always been intended just for childcare. I am sure that more and more recently this is the case but until someone is in the education minister's position long enough and cares enough about this, I don't see an awful lot changing.

Noise schooling? That's a lovely typo. Certainly describes it in our house. I was trying to teach year 12 upstairs this morning while DD year 2 had a humungous tantrum with DH downstairs.

@SeasonFinale I'm actually a single parent but tbf to my exDH he was pretty supportive of finding a work/life balance that worked for us all. I just know from both reading on here and real life that it does tend to be the woman who has to do the juggling and make the sacrifices.

It is interesting.

At the start of lockdown we were only given permission to work from home if we could prove with had childcare if there was a child under 11 in the home and we were told children weren’t to be seen of heard while we were on calls etc.

As a result they had to furlough a huge number of people, most parents don’t have a non-working adult in the home. Our industry is very very busy right now, so those still at work were being completely rinsed.

They have finally realised you can’t carry on like that. So now we can all work from home and we can be flexible with our hours. When we work really doesn’t matter, we don’t need to be 9-5. So from Wednesday I have been working again, I’m doing a few hours at 6-9 am, I did an hour over lunch and I’ll do a few more when my son and I have been out, then I’ll do a couple when he’s in bed.

I know i sound like a broken record, but women need to stop taking all this on.
Men will only do their share and treat women as equal if we demand this from our partners.
It's not the responsibility of any outside agency, school, work, etc.
It need to happen at an individual level within your own families. If you have a career that's important to you marry/partner someone who agrees with you. make sure you know them well before commiting, at least 5 years. Have a long engagement, don't settle and then you can command the type of life you want.

There are a few things that I think would help

One is a living wage, and an end to these ridiculoue zero hours contracts for so many. That would in turn take the pressure off and allow people more flexibility in their choices.
The one parent at home model was the norm when people could afford that, but it is important to remember that for many of the poorest families, both parents have always worked.

Although it is not popular to say it, purely from a child's point of view, 5 days a week in 8-6 nursery and then school wrap roudn care is NOT good for our children, but how do you balance the needs of the child against the needs of the parents?
In addition, there is a general view that once kids hit about 12, they no longer need child care and so they can come home from school, and be home alone until parents finish work. I am in the fortunate position of working from home, and my kids as teens often need time as much if not more than when they were younger.

In the Netherlands, people are allowed to choose to go to an 80% contract, with equivalent 80% money, in order to spend one day per week with their kids.

So my nephews had Mon with Mum, then Tues, Wed, Thurs at nursery and later at after school club and Fri with Dad.
That was a great solution. Mum and Dad both continued careers. Kids got 4 days per week with parents, and only 3 days with wrap round care.
It works because most can afford to do it financially, because it is the norm, so no-one is penalised and because BOTH parents take the 80% so that one parent is not pressured. For some families the grandparents do the middle 3 days, and again it takes the pressure off grandparents, so they don't have to do 5 days.

To me it seems like a good road forward, but would require a serious change of mind set from many businesses.

Unless one parent is SAH then having kids will screw you over financially unless you’re in a well paid profession and can afford childcare either side of school, otherwise it’s the life equivalent of having a hand tied behind your back.

Curious to know what the childminders will be doing once schools go back, obviously they will be starting again but will they employ social distancing measures?

I wonder how many people have kids or more than one without really thinking through affordability. I'm not suggesting having children should be something only rich people do but I wonder if people will think twice in future

We certainly did think about affordability hence we had to wait until we had some form of financial security before we had DS. We were renting and finally managed to get our own house but by this time we were in our mid 40s and therefore too old to have any more. So DS will be an only. I often wonder whether we should have just thrown caution to the wind and reproduced like rabbits and to hell with the cost!!

See what the "don't have kids if you can't afford it" argument fails to take into account is that means people on lower incomes just don't get to have kids.

If this has taught us anything it's that society needs carers and shop workers and posties and bin men. Do we just tell these people that we absolutely need to be doing those jobs that they can't have kids?

That being said the key is choice!! Which luckily ... we do have

Maybe you have that choice. We couldn't afford for only one parent to work. Perhaps if wages were better we could.

Many people have help from grandparents under normal circumstances. I work in London, so if DD is Ill, the school has my mum’s number. So unless it’s something long term, it doesn’t affect my work. I’m a teacher, so school holidays aren’t an issue for us either. So my having a daughter doesn’t hugely affect my ability to work under normal circumstances. My choice of job was influenced by the fact that I wanted a family and a family-friendly job (my DH has the same views and is also a teacher).

Greater flexibility towards part-time working would obviously be hugely beneficial to family lives and would reduce the need for before/after school care and a crisis during the holidays. I think quite a few businesses are considering this these days? Certainly my school has an increasing number of part time teachers.

Hopefully it might make people realise that you need to be in a good financial position before having children and not view them as an accessory to have 'because I love him and he would make a great dad'.

(I don't think everyone thinks about the last 'dad' bit at all!)

The truth is that we all know the deal when we have children. To moan about it afterwards is stupid. It is, ultimately, your choice and responsibility. Likewise, when it comes to a career choice. I doubt that many people just fall into becoming a neurosurgeon. They will have gone through a conscious decision to do something that requires very specialist skills that very few people have. The point is that while luck does have some small impact, we have to take responsibility for our own choices and then live with the consequences.

Universal Basic Income
Recognition of the unpaid 'work' people (women) do up and down the country and have done for years
A culture shift to shared care
a recognition of family life in company policy

That's my wish list

YANBU I'm sure this situation has highlighted how much working parents rely on school, childcare and grandparents to enable them to keep up their career and keep earning enough money to support their families. This is a situation nobody could have predicted though but hopefully parents will be pulling together to get through this. The best cases will be ones where both parents take it in turns to work and look after their children and I hope once this is over that becomes the norm. The solution in my mind is that employers need to be more flexible.

'Don't have kids if you can't afford it' doesn't allow for life changes. Many couples who could afford children find it gets hard if one loses their job, becomes ill or if they separate.

And yes, of course, people on lower incomes decide to have kids. My parents had three of us. They didn't have high paying jobs BUT they did have flexibility. Back in the 1970s my dad worked a shift in his factory from 6am to 2pm. He'd get home at having picked us kids up on the way. Mum would leave at 3.30pm to go to her part time 'twilight' job in a different factory. She'd get home at 9.30pm. It meant that they didn't have to use annual leave on 'baby sitting' during the holidays, someone was always available to do appointments or if one of the kids were sick and they didn't pay for a child minder.

I have one friend who used to do a twilight shift in a solicitors office, doing audio typing in a typing pool. Again her DH did an early morning start in his office so they covered the kids a lot more easily than both of them working 'traditional' hours.

I think, if social distancing becomes a norm for businesses, companies may well have to offer things like part time 'twilight' jobs or split shifts to people. Just so that they can spread employees out if they can't work from home rather than lose them completely. And, of course, if transport want usage staggered that would help there too.

Tbh I agree with you. DH and I both work, I earn slightly more than DH, DS (8) normally in school and goes to wrap around for 3 days.

Ds seems so much more relaxed now, we homeschool 9-2 then he chills/plays. Has tea at 5, no rushing to get to clubs or do homework/reading between wrap around and bed. We feel more relaxed (despite the money concerns we all have at the moment).

This has been a real wake-up call for us reassessing our lifestyle and looking at how much money we need.

But I don’t think this is necessarily a male/female thing. It has made me seriously question whether young kids are really happy with 2 parents working near enough full time esp when some lifestyle adjustments, eg smaller house, car might facilitate both parents going part time. Obviously I fully appreciate this is only an option for some, many others have to work full time to cover basic necessities and this is obviously in the best interests of the child.

No, people don't stop and think before having children. Every single year there are threads of people moaning about summer holidays, every single one. In every class in the country parents have sent kids with D&V because they can't be arsed to keep them home.

People need to be realistic, which they refuse to be.

The pandemic has forced many businesses to implement working from home conditions. That should be left for workers who want it, and who can work from home obviously... Remove the commute, and the need for an exceptional urgent childcare, and most of us will struggle a lot less.

It has made me seriously question whether young kids are really happy with 2 parents working near enough full time

I genuinely don't think it's the best interest of the children at all. Unfortunately, some parents do not WANT their kids around, as they need their me-time. How many leave the kids in nurseries on their days off?

I don’t accept the premise that “school isn’t childcare”. My son legally has to be in school (unless I withdraw him to homeschool). Before he went to school I paid an extortionate amount in nursery fees so I could work. So what, now he’s at school should I not work while he’s out of the house because schools aren’t childcare?

To imply that I relying on my son being in school so that I can work means I shouldn’t have had my son unless I could afford it - well, I could afford childcare before he went to school, and could, if necessary, still pay for full time childcare, if schools didn’t exist, and in fact I do so during holidays. But if schools aren’t open, and holiday clubs aren’t open, should I have, six years ago, factored in the possibility of a global pandemic shutting all childcare and educational establishments when making my decision to conceive? Should I have decided not to go back to work, giving up my independence and the fulfilment employment gives me, just on the off chance that five years down the line schools would be forced to close by a new virus?

Once children are at school, between 9 and 3 schools ARE for all practical purposes childcare for all working parents. Since schooling is pretty much compulsory, why should we not rely on it, at least during the usual terms and assuming our children aren’t too unwell to attend?

No-one who considered the affordability of having children factored in Covid19, ffs.

And we could easily afford to have ds because we were both working. We own our own home. We did not envisage a pandemic which meant one of us having to quit work (which is what it will come to if childcare - not school actual paid childcare) doesn't open again.

now he’s at school should I not work while he’s out of the house because schools aren’t childcare?

that's not what anyone is saying. But confusing school with childcare providers is wrong. It's not what they are for.

Or... We should have a society that supports children and parents regardless of their financial circumstances - at the time of conception or further down the line. None of us can know the future.

This with fucking bells on!! No one could have predicted this pandemic and what it meant for the country/economy. Completely infuriating to suggest one parent should stay at home and the other work just in case the schools close. Ridiculous.
Dh and I have one child I a 2 bed council flat. We both work. DS goes to childcare. This time at home has made us realise that we would like another, so are going for another. When we decided this, I didn't think "shit what if there's another pandemic in 10 years and I have to home school and wfh" because no one fucking does. I thought "we can afford, month to month, a second child and this would significantly add to our family and quality of life.

It's all very well saying men should step up ( I'm sure many do and did years ago too) but what happens when the men decide they don't want to do this anymore and leave the women and children to it?
So many women end up alone after expecting their spouse to be an equal partner : indeed the men are all for it until the reality of full time work and children / childcare issues are real thing. They often can't cope or think the boring bits are the woman's job ? Wrap around care is only ok during school time usually as well.
How people have managed work and childcare during this pandemic I don't know.

I work in community nursing. DH works in agricultural engineering which involves a lot of site work and travelling around the UK and can’t be done from home. I work part time and my job is mainly done Monday to Friday with mainly a call out service at weekends, i already work part time to fit around school drop off/pick up and a childminder in place for holidays. I am happy with this currently as DH makes a very good wage doing his job and I don’t want to lose that so we can have some kind of perceived equality to other people