To feel increasingly resentful of the growing divide between those who are able to home school and those who can't

[thepeopleversuswork]

To preface this with the observation that I'm very lucky to be able to work from home in safety and I haven't lost sight of that.

But I am working about 10 hours a day in order to be able to hold onto my job. I'm a lone parent and have no support from anyone. My company expects me to be literally always on and takes no account whatsoever of the fact that I am supposed to be home schooling.

I'm constantly bombarded with people who are either on furlough or not working talking about the "pressures" of home schooling and how difficult it is to fit it in when they have whole days free and are agonising over difficult maths problems etc. Or people posting endless pictures on social media of the cool, creative things their kids have done.

I'm really lucky if I get to spend half an hour with my DD setting tasks for her and very rarely get to do any supervision, let alone teaching, as I'm holed up in the next room.

I've mentioned this to various friends and they will raise an eyebrow and say "but surely your work must understand?". No, they don't understand. It makes me feel so shit.

I get that furlough is not ideal and that we're all in various ways struggling so there's no point feeling resentful of other people for their circumstances.

But I'm increasingly concerned about how the government and schools plan to handle this if physical schooling becomes more difficult over a longer period.

A real divide is going to grow between those who are able to support their children in the home and those who aren't. I can accept my daughter's schooling taking a back seat for a few months or weeks. But what happens if she ends up losing half an academic year to this, while the children of SAHMs or those on furlough get lavished with one to one attention at home?

Does anyone else worry about the impact on our children of those who are physically unable to provide this support?

It’s not just about the homeschooling though. It’s kids not getting the attention and experiences they deserve.

The OP’s situation (single parent, only child, unrelenting job expectations) is particularly hard.

I would ask the school/ teacher to coordinate the homeschooling and explain you’re too busy with work. School can email or phone your DD to offer support. Weirdly my DDs primary school couldn’t quite comprehend that I didn’t have a couple of hours spare a day.

I am not a single parent but I see to my younger DDs (reception) studies along with my full time work with busy calls. I find it hard. Especially the 'willingness when I am available' part.

Can you consider doing a fair chunk of work over the weekend to catch her up on the work she could've done on weekdays? This is what I do. It really takes the pressure off me on busy days.

ElephantLover yes I probably could do some, that's a good idea.

As Laurie pointed out, the homeschooling in itself is only one problem. A very major part of it is just not being able to be present or to supervise anything at all, not just homeschooling. The output of that is that often she defaults to going on screens which is not ideal but the reality is I need to be present to keep her off them.

I go to work then come home and do a umber if hours homeschooling

I am absolutely shattered and fed up of those telling me it’s easier to go out to work than home schooling

They really think ds gets all his work done by himself and when at school there is absolutely no support form the teachers as they are often in lessons themselves

Hi OP, sorry if I seemed flip. As I say your situation does sound utterly horrible. I suppose what I was thinking was that something had to give as it doesn't sound sustainable - prob speaking from personal pov as I had a breakdown due to stress and overwork in December and ever since have had to be cast iron with myself about not letting the workload creep up and into my whole life. Lockdown terrified me as I didn't know how I was going to continue to work from home as normal and look after my 3 year old without sacrificing my mental health. I had a real wobble. Then I realised - I couldn't. I just couldn't. Something would have to give. So I put it in writing to my boss what I could and couldn't do until nursery restarted, and had them confirm in writing that they accepted this. In spite of this the workload has crept up and I'm working evenings, weekends to make up the time. And I have a partner in the same position to share the load. I work in HE. You'd be surprised at the pressure to go above and beyond, I'm on an indeterminate hours contract and theoretically work 0.8 FTE but that's pretty meaningless when a full time FTE is "however long it takes to do the job". But no I don't know what it's like in your sector. I just don't understand how you can be sacked without a legitimate reason, and how written evidence you'd done what was agreed to wouldn't be enough to protect you from that. As you say I am probably naive.

I hope you find a solution. Of course when you're in this situation it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If your job (and thus your income and your home) depend on you working this way you just need to forgive yourself and muscle through it, your daughter will be ok and you're doing the best you can. In terms of catching her up I'm assuming you get well paid for meeting these horrible expectations - could you look at tutoring once lockdown is over to bring her up to speed?

Again sorry if I made things worse. I know how lucky I am and still feel pressed, so I don't know how you are managing.

VeniceQueen thanks: you didn't sound flip at all and I'm sorry if I sounded snippy. In theory those of you who are urging the creation of better boundaries with bosses are absolutely correct. The problem is now that employees have no leverage and bosses know this so in practice its impossible to do this.

I also think there's a massive difference between what companies are saying to their staff about their tolerance for an impact on workload and what they will actually tolerate.

At the start of the crisis we were getting tons of stuff from our CEO about "taking it slow", take breaks, encouraging people to think of their mental health etc. I had to take a pay cut, which is fair enough in the current climate, and was told that the quid pro quo would be a slight relaxation of working hours. I discussed with my immediate boss not having to do more than 10 hours work a day. In theory this has been agreed to, but almost every day someone pops up after office hours (well after the 10 hours have elapsed) and says "would you mind just...". Which obviously is not actually a request, its a (politely worded) demand. The knowledge that we have no bargaining power is strong enough for this to be made clear.

It's very tricky. I understand the financial position they are in and I don't really blame them as they have no choice. At the same time it has the effect of massively undermining my motivation and desire to do a good job.

I feel so angry and resentful that: in full knowledge of the fact they know I have a uniquely challenging home situation, they have deliberately given me a job to do which they know any of other people of my level would have been able to accomplish far more easily. It feels like some sort of bullshit public school "fagging" exercise in making sure the most vulnerable person has had the heaviest workload.

That was a world class rant and I'm sorry. I'm just really pissed off with it all.

Well you’re the angry one do you’re the one that’s causing the devide?

People really need to work on their own self esteem and Social media is so so bad for some people.

You’re already in a shit situation so turn off you’re social media and then get on with doing the best you can in the situation you are in.

I absolutely agree a lot of lip service is getting paid to "taking care" of staff at the moment and it's frustrating. I just think we slightly have to call their bluff by taking the guidance literally as they don't really have a leg to stand on given what they are SAYING. How can they put you through disciplinary for doing what they've explicitly told you you can do? It boggles my mind.

And it kind of is their fault - they've built a business model with the minimum possible slack in it with the intention of garnering the maximum profit to themselves (I assume you are salaried rather than paid on results, I could be wrong?) So in a situation like this they have to either make unreasonable demands of their inadequately resourced workforce or lose money. They are choosing the bastard route. It is absolutely appropriate to be angry!!

I'm really sorry for the situation you're in X

Another possible solution might be to try and get your daughter on a more "teenage" sleep schedule (waking up later, staying up later) - then you could really break the back of your work while she's sleeping, then do a bit of work and checking in on her schooling during "official" working hours, then just firefight emails in the evening whilst giving her some intensive attention for schooling and just catching up, watching a film together, going for a dusk walk etc when things are a bit quieter on the work front. I appreciate this plan leaves you very little time for yourself; but it sounds like you're not getting much of that anyway so this might help deal with your immediate problem?

OP, it sounds like you have had some great ideas and advice. I just wanted to say you sound like a very hard working person, I really hope your work remember that and thank you for it! A lot of posters on here clearly don't understand your situation, eg the one who suggested you and your partner go part time to share childcare Ignore a lot of the daft posts, you are clearly doing your absolute best, be proud of that.

I do think more children are going to be 'behind' after all this than you think though, you might find they are all in the same boat. I work out of the house 4 days a week (NHS) and the dc go to school. They don't actually do any work there though sadly, even though I send the homeschool worksheets everytime they go. So my three days off are spent homeschooling from 9-3, only a few hours of that is actual written work. This is the absolute best I can manage but it clearly is nowhere near enough. One of my dc had previously fallen behind and was catching up so I am really trying me best to keep going with it but of course it isn't the same as families who are on furlough or unemployed. All we can do is try our best, having a job at the end of this is very important too.

hfrdgftcsdg sorry I don't understand your logic: you seem to be saying because I'm angry I am causing the problem.

Firstly I don't see anger as a bad thing if its properly directed. Millions of people have been put in an awful position. Questioning why that's happened is not a bad thing. I have gone out of my way to say I don't blame individuals for their circumstances but I think its perfectly legitimate to be angle that people have been put in this position.

I know what you mean about social media and the damaging effect it can have but cutting off all social media doesn't strike me as a very good solution in a situation where I have almost no contact with the outside world. Its more about learning to manage your reactions to it.

YANBU OP. It’s awful and I’m so sorry you’re in the situation. However, I do think you are overestimating the negative impact on your children. You come across like an intelligent, hard working person. Don’t underestimate the influence that has on your kids.

I have a similar kind of job to you, and I absolutely get it. Nowhere is it written that you must respond to this or that or that you must work outside of your contracted hours. But it is the absolute expectation. And the reality is that we’re heading for a crushing recession, and jobs are commodities to cling to right now (as, of course, are clients). People who haven’t worked in that kind of environment just can’t understand.

Sorry pressed send too soon. Realistically, the beginning of the worst recession in history is not the time when any employee (particularly a single mother) can fight to ‘be the change’ in the corporate world. In a weird way employers hold all the cards right now. In a few months’ time, I think even the most vociferous lockdown supporters (you know, the ones shrieking that it’s not saaaafe for schools to return and reporting Doris at number 24 for taking 2 walks a day) will be eating their words when no one in their family has a job.

Monkeynuts agree. I know at a rational level that you and most other posters are correct. All parents, and particularly lone parents, are struggling at the moment and know that those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs are doing our best. I also don't want to come across as being envious or petty towards people on furlough -- I totally get that its not a bed of roses.

I think its about learning to manage the cognitive dissonance. When you get another passive aggressive comment from your boss about shortcomings on a project you worked on when you are perfectly aware that you worked for 10-11 hours straight on it with no support in the most difficult circumstances while largely neglecting your child. I think the trick is to learn to disengage with the criticism and not have it impact your self-esteem, but this is quite difficult in high performance cultures at the best of times. I think we all have to go a little bit easier on ourselves and I find this pretty hard.

You are not alone. My husband is a long distance lorry driver and I am able to work from home but my job is customer related so I’m on the phone making recorded calls all day. I can’t be interrupted so my 8 year old has had to learn to basically eat his breakfast then fend for himself til lunchtime. He does his worksheets but sometimes the harder tasks we are doing —at midnight—later in the evening. He is supposed to read but I learned that he cooperates better if I’ll give him slightly easier books that what he has been doing in school. Pick your battles lol. The things we often don’t get done are the nicer things like measuring outside and art stuff. I catch up on some things but not all.
My year 10 daughter has done very little on her own so now when I finish work at 5 ( or 6pm as my workload is heavy) I forcibly make her sit with me to do at least 2 of her tasks a day with her with her big grouchy face looking at me like I’m destroying her life. Then on weekends I try to do a few more with her as well. So my whole life revolves around my own work and school work

That’s all I can suggest OP is just not to expect the class day to be normal hours of 9 to 3 , use the evenings and weekends and don’t put pressure on yourself to get absolutely all school work done. Give them some bbc bite size things to read while you work or if your teacher sends online maths tasks or YouTube videos. Depending on age. Worst case you can catch up a bit in summer and if they get anything done pat yourself on the back.

It’s not just businesses that are screwing the vulnerable. So are the government.

You don’t tell the country run, hide, lock your doors without putting something enforceable in place to try and curb panic buying.

During all those planning meetings to tell us to run and hide, wouldn’t it have a good idea to involve the food industry? Never mind anyone else.

It’s not like this dropped on someone’s desk and we were told this immediately.

And of course looked what happened to some of those who were trying to help the vulnerable. The local curtain twitchers and gob-a-lot clipboard, all trying to police their neighbours.

It’s a constant ongoing battle. People hear what they want, and suggest working round your partner 🤣

Although I find it baffling how people get confused when they hear people don’t work 9-5. When some call 101 at 7pm because someone knocked on the door, do they really think it’s a robot on the other end?

Or when some have to make calls to the head office in Canada they all happen on U.K. time?

And we all must be hallucinating when we spend at least one night in hospital. Some of the meds do cause them, but haven’t had all staff disappear. Although some times we wish some would along with some equally noisy patients 🤣

I don't do employment law bu I have already had people emailing me sacked whislt on maternity leave, chosen for redundancy due to XYZ - it is a terrible time for all kinds of people at present, particularly those trying to do a full time job whilst they have small children at home particularly when the job requires them to be present such as on constant calls. We are almost telling parents - abuse your child by neglecting it.

What we should do is force nurseries to open on 1 June and if they will not then put in workers from the 2m unemployed to keep them open or open new ones. The risk of CV to anyone under 45 is minimal - let those who are sick or old shelter and the rest of us get on with normal life before a whole generation of children suffer huge damage.

What we should do is force nurseries to open on 1 June and if they will not then put in workers from the 2m unemployed to keep them open or open new ones.

I'd rather have the trained professionals taking care of my kid rather than conscripts from the Job Centre thank you very much what a peculiar idea.

You really do have to get a thick skin and look out for you.
Although that can lead to - why do I need to live with another adult again. And that brings a whole heap of added negativity.

Something to consider, is there any possibility of going SE? It’s really the only way to get proper work/life balance. I tried the employed route in a lot of industries on and off over the last 3 decades, and then it’s mainly because Im supposed to miss all that environment. I don’t, there’s a lot of toxic attitudes.

Something else to consider you have transferable skills. We all do. It’s how you “sell” them. For some quick promotions, or team leader because of those skills. Obviously of course there are professions where qualifications are needed, even then it might be another 30 credits type of thing.

Sometimes having a good rep also helps if you ever want to go it alone. SE or freelancing isn’t easy, of course not especially in the beginning. But it’s not impossible.

Forget the haters. You are doing all this on your own. You should be proud of yourself. We all have our negative doubts about ourselves, it’s natural.

Someone once told me - you are worthy of respect because you breathe.

Lots of sympathy from me, OP. I'm in a similar boat (lone parent, working from home). I unwisely accepted invitations from a couple of temp homeschooling groups on social media because I didn't want to offend anyone, and then ended up feeling truly miserable and self-hating because I was being bombarded with cutesy little poems about how the lockdown made everyone realise that chilling out doing fun learning and crafts with their kids was more important that dashing around trying to do it all. I felt much better once I'd blocked all that!

Takes weeks for dbs to come back. Not enough time.

Parents are also wondering about the impact of underlying health issues because of Kawasaki.

If op is doing 10 hours a day, wouldn’t it make sense to take some off furlough?

Private nurseries could open if they wanted to. Many companies have reopened.
Nannies are also another option, if finances allow.
Work around the partner, assuming there is one
The childcare bubbles
Not all workers are parents.
Not all children need supervision during the day, if it was the school holiday they’d be at home anyway.

Despite government changing teaching roles to carers, schools weren’t created for this.

With social distancing and cleaning guidelines set by the government, there wouldn’t be much educating going on anyway. And at most classes can fit 10 kids. What about the other 20 or so?

OP we've been around the houses on this before.

You have said that your employers will allow you to stop at eg 16.30. But that clients don't understand.

Your posts are full of assumptions about what might be in your clients' minds, or more to the point, that your clients think the same way you do, en masse, ie that you should be subjected to this impossible burden.

It is as if your clients are all absolute monsters with no humanity or ability to sympathise and that you have no agency to set any boundaries with them.

I feel for you but this is something that you are doing to yourself. I think it's very difficult for you to have any insight into that however.

Instead you allow this to happen and then feel enormously aggrieved about it and furious that someone (who? The Government?) isn't making it all ok for you.

You aren't an A & E consultant or an ambulance driver and your work is not a matter of life and death.

Everyone in professional jobs has demanding clients and everyone is having to manage and reduce expectations. You need to do that too, I am afraid you don't get a free pass out of that difficulty.

I do feel for you and I hope that you can find a way forward but the way forward is within you and your mindset which is skewed away from reality.

@VeniceQueen2004
You do understand that a lot of people who claim worked? Or that thousands have vast amounts of experience to look after your child?

Many nurseries have had to let staff go because some promises made at the beginning about funding was changed. They might want a job in their field.

Ah the class parents groups. I was always “that” parent who didn’t want to join any of the “gangs”

Even better when they try and do the silly guilt trip about what the child will miss out on. Funnily enough, you still get all the School news and party invites 🤣

@canigooutyet

Well then that's what Xenia should have said. Her implication was that nurseries could be staffed by any old body with nothing better to do. If they can fully staff nurseries with qualified, experienced staff according to government regulations from the pool of unemployed then great. I'd take that. But it does seem to me it might be little more complicated than that, not least because I don't think it would be in any way a benefit to children's wellbeing to be pushed back into hastily established 'Nightingale Nurseries' staffed by strangers in a strange location without any real permanence or opportunity to resettle. Children are going to need to be carefully restored to their routines in an environment and with people who make them feel safe.