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?

I'm struggling now too. Work has ramped up even more this week. My daughter isn't doing as much as I would like . I'm a teacher.

Funny how people are saying to op about challenging her work because they are being unreasonable.

Where was that advice when the role of teachers changed overnight?
Many seem to have forgotten it was about support, care, mental health, no pressure on teachers, parents are teachers etc. Work packs to engage - ie help relieve the boredom with all those activities that weren't good enough, even though schools knew about these at the last minute. Not good enough. So some started sending out some work, which would have been easy enough, and paper packs. Not good enough. Some started putting videos online, not good enough.

Now the doors might open June 1st. Not early enough haha.

Op, honestly, don't worry about it. I know it's hard not to. You really aren't alone. Many schools have been following government advice to begin with. They know its impossible considering many of them are teachers themselves. And it doesn't matter how people try to dress it up, the pressure from some schools is telling parents. you are teachers. Cannot be both ways.

You have to find a balance that works for your family. It doesn't matter Ms/Mr Knob at 56 manages to work 15 hours a day each, 6 kids, volunteering in the community, and during the daily thing, each go for a 4 hour jog whilst the other stays home with the kids. Oh and I forgot the dogs, cooked breakfast, and 5 course dinner 8 days a week.

Let them get on with it. We see it all the time, happy happy smile on SM. The oh look we are doing fab with whatever flour art project they are working on. Yet turn off the camera, they don't show you the flour all over the floor because the kids actually helped. The smashed egg. And it's very rare you see the end result if it's not picture perfect. Unless - at least I tried, or blame the kids (even better with the obviously staged mess).

She's learning something new?
She looked after, fed and all the rest?
Nothing wrong with that. That's what we all try and do our best at.

If she enjoys reading, once a week book report.
Could you get her involved with a bit of household budget planning?
Get her more involved in cooking from the very first steps of looking for recipes that she likes the sound off.

Little things like that and can be easily adapted to meet the age and her ability. And fun!!

YANBU op and big hugs to you.

There's huge inequality in terms of the delivery of education currently both in terms of the ability of parents to support and supervise and and the quality of support from the school...plus the individual child.

Re the discussion about legal action I'm beginning to think about this more and more! It's hugely unfair on a lot of children and I refuse to accept that.

@pigoons fun ones this week which take me a minute but have entertained DD are

Buy a small bottle of fizzy pop like 500ml 7up or Fanta., shake like crazy then put in the freezer and leave it for 2 and a half hours.

DD tells the time and keeps track using a timer to make sure she lets me know when 2 and a half hours has passed.

Then take it out, open carefully so you don't shake or knock the bottle and Pour it into a glass or bowl. It stays completely liquid till you start pouring and then it flash freezes and comes out as a stream of frozen slushee like consistency which they can eat. Science and time keeping, with 60 seconds of my time. Plus they are happy with their slushee buying you even more time.

Also freeze ice cubes with red food colouring in some, blue in others and yellow in the last set. Then give them some empty plastic cups and let them do colour mixing by adding combos of different coloured ice cubes.

TorySucks your ideas are great.

It's hugely unfair on a lot of children and I refuse to accept that.

what's your solution?
Should the schools have been left opened as if nothing happened?

YANBU but try not to see it as a divide. We are all shrugging in our own ways and this is not a game of top trumps who has it worse. There are no winners in this situation, only losers.

I'm in a "fortunate" position where I could home school just fine for as long as necessary but I still worry about the affect being off school for so long will have on my children's social skills. Their school and pre school are obviously hoping not everyone will send their children back if they reopen in June as it will be impossible for them to keep everyone safe if they do. So I feel obliged to not send my DC back because I don't have to, but I worry that I'm disadvantaging them socially and academically by keeping them off.

I'm not saying my situation is any worse than anyone else's and I'm lucky in many ways, I'm just showing that it's not easy for anyone at the moment.

I don't think the schools should have been left open. I don't blame the schools for taking a cautious approach and I don't blame teachers or parents for feeling that schools may be an unsafe environment.

Its hard to apportion blame to anyone in the schools system: its a hideous situation to be in and I'm conscious that teachers have been risking their lives to teach children of keyworkers.

I just feel that the time has come now with the immediate phase of the crisis past to start planning to address this point about making sure that the "home schooling" system isn't just dumping vast amounts of unsustainable pressure onto parents who can ill-afford to manage it amid huge pressure to keep their jobs, and damaging kids in the process.

Learning you can also do on your days off, if you go on days out, give your DD a camera, we did wildflower spotting and also same with trees, printed off photos and labelled what they are. Didn't take long at all but my dad was proud of his results and enjoyed the process. Same could be done with seaside, urban areas, how many different bridges can you see, a visual map of landmarks along a walk, they can follow it up with research. Giving children a camera gives them an element of control over their learning and you see things from their perspective.

Oh I can see lots of legal actions for many things taken for some decisions made.

Adult literacy forgotten about. Families don’t have the money to buy the flour or course if there is any. Technology is vastly under invested. And on and on.

But it will be the usual brush off, blame everyone else, lessons to be learnt etc.

Not like schools haven’t been mentioning any of this before. It was already widely known the issues providing education at home when they are away for long periods of time because of health.

My advice to any teachers is sod the quit restrictions, if you want to go do it. The aggro was hard to begin with and no matter how much enjoyment it brings, the next onslaught won’t be worth it. Don’t let them break you. Same advice goes out to all the key workers. The way all of you have been unsupported by government is outrageous

@thepeopleversuswork I realised early on that we do t have the luxury of sitting with our kids and going through worksheets or navigating them through web based learning packs. It just doesn't work so now I spend an hour over the weekend of of an evening googling learning activities and experiments, pick up what I need on the weekly shop. Get stuff prepped on the weekend where possible. That way I can give DD fun and educational things to do without that horrible feeling that I'm neglecting or ignoring her when I'm stuck to my computer on conference calls with the US at stupid o'clock.

I had to completely readjust my expectations of myself, I just cannot sit for an hour solid during the day with her, it's not possible.

But I can give her 5-10 minutes each hour of my time and set her up with fun stuff to do, then nod and smile at her while she does it, I try to set aside 30 - 60 mins at the beginning or end of the day for a walk and then combine that with as many learning bits as possible. 'Look at that bird, I wonder what it is, how would you spell starling, hmmmm I wonder what birds eat and where they sleep'.

Then when we get home. ok mum needs to work, how about you draw a picture of something we saw on our walk, or write me a story about that mummy duck and ducklings we saw.....

Yours is a bit older, does she have any likes or hobbies you can play off of, for example if she likes fashion, could she create a portfolio, design a load of outfits by drawing them or collages from magazines, look up big fashion houses and do a project on the different kind of styles, what they are particularly famous for, write a report on her favourites and why, dig out old clothes from your and her wardrobe and customise them....

If she likes sport, research her team, what are their stats, design them a new kit, built a fantasy team with her favourite players....

Couldn’t agree with you more @thepeopleversuswork
The oh I’m ok attitude so why are you from some is astounding. Like we are all bloody robots

Celebrate that you have got this far. And every day. In years to come you will be both sitting there laughing at the madness (and I am not making lite out of the loss of life) just sometimes the only way to get through is laughter.

I hear you OP. Also a lone parent, working longer hours than ever in my paid job and feeling exceptionally guilty about home ed. I'm lucky that I'm senior and I can carve out 2 hours a day to do school work. But I can only do that if workload allows. And it hasn't done for most of this week so far.

It's so hard. I can't even look at the school what's app group!

The oh I’m ok attitude so why are you from some is astounding.

I think it's more about looking at the big picture. Some people on this forum make it sound like all the decisions about education are made purely to spite parents.

3 kids (2 primary age and disabled toddler)
work 3 days per week from home (very busy)
DP works out of the house

Toddler is shielding so school isn't even an option for us - even if it was open for my kids year groups.

It's tough, I do what I can.

My actual complaint is with the level of work set for my reception age child. The level seems to be based on the assumption that 1) I am a SAHP 2) I only have 1 child and 3) I have access to all the kit (printer / scanner etc)

I feel at a distinct disadvantage, thankfully my Year 2 has set a combination of projects and things that don't need a printer or strict schedule yes the reception age child gets a daily schedule with breaks etc

• my school isn't taking reception back.
• yes my kids are at same school

There are so many unemployed people on this site who have husbands earning massive salaries and savings so they can't/won't understand a single parent who needs their income to support their child. Trying to enforce "boundaries" and "referring back to the same email" over and over like a broken record won't feed your child when you get sacked.

I know how hard it is. Manage a care home and had to come off maternity leave so early, work 6 hours (school hours) in the day then work from home once the children are in bed. The baby is breastfed however and sleeps on me and wakes up so many times a night so it makes it a challenge for me. My school aged child isn't getting taught at school either, they play all day so he will be behind the parents who have been off and home educating their children.

It's so hard when you feel like you're failing as a parent and an employee/employer.

@thepeopleversuswork How does it usually work, when you’re able to work from the office - do you still get clients emailing you after hours demanding that you work for them when you should be relaxing/sleeping?

Not the same topic, but I saw on my FB feed someone questioning the notion of an October Bank Holiday stating "we've been on holiday for long enough already".

Where to even start........

How does it usually work, when you’re able to work from the office - do you still get clients emailing you after hours demanding that you work for them when you should be relaxing/sleeping?

I don't know about the OP, but I tend to do a couple of hours of work in the evening and at least during the weekend, clients being in different time zones and all that.

Why does it seem so shocking?

Why is it suddenly apparent that not everybody works a 9 to 4:30 when we have been pointing that out for years..

I haven’t RTFT OP but I’m sorry for the shit situation you’re in.

People just don’t get what not having another adult in the house means. They think it just doubles the workload but I think it triples or quadruples it. It is going to be hard.

That said, your DD is learning other skills - being bored and having to entertain yourself is an amazing skill and builds loads of resilience. You sound like you will have the financial ability to offer her some other advantages once this crisis ends. So don’t feel too guilty - and the people who are rich and privileged will always be so, but there is some value in seeing a hard working parent juggling things, having respect for hard earned money and learning resilience and self sufficiency.

Well, you can't be in two places at once, so you are doing the best you can in this situation.
If you have a partner maybe one of you can go pt or work separate hours to cover childcare.
I know a few families who have looked at work/life balance and have done this. not so much money, but they are able to manage the kids between them.

Sounds really tough, OP. Can you put out a request to friends to see if anyone has a university student to do an hour a day online with your DD checking up on what she's done?

Also I would contact your GP and ask them what they think about risks v benefits of your DD attending school if you think the school would offer a place.

Its not necessarily the case where the only children not behind in schooling is because they are unemployed and have rich husbands, or work flexible hours. Both me and my DH are keyworkers, DH a clinician, me public facing, we worked all through this lockdown with either no PPE or shoddy inadequate PPE. Its only because we work opposite shifts and weekends that we can spend time with the kids homeschooling. Maybe I should complain to work-from-homers that you get to prioritise health where keyworkers don't, but most keyworkers are tired of that conversation now, just give us our PPE.

A retired person might also do this. I know a few doing this kind of thing.

GinghamStyle yes. They routinely email us at all hours from about 7am until 9/10 o'clock at night. Beyond about 8-9pm you're not necessarily expected to respond but would be expected to early the next day.