To think working from home and looking after//home schooling kids is unsustainable until sept!

[heh1]

Had enough. Dh and I both in pressured busy jobs. Dc in non returning year group

We are surviving by sticking them in front of screens all day when we are on con calls

Don't want to ask for furlough as then my colleagues without dcs or who have much older dcs will get my work ( client focussed sector) and I might be made redundant

Feel pretty rubbish..

House is a shit tip..
Dcs craving attention and largely ignored
Work carrying on like business as usual

Can't manage this until Sept

GPs too far away and in vulnerable category so can't help

Nannies are allowed to work. I sugget you get a temporary/emergency Nanny for at least a couple of days a week to allow you to work. On two full time professional salaries presumably that is affordable to you short term at least?

Re suggestions about asking to be furloughed or go part time.. I fear if I do this I will risk losing my job. We are in a client focussed industry if I'm not available my clients go to my colleagues.. it's very difficult to get clients back when you've been away for a period of time.

What about your DH? Could he ask to be furloughed or go PT?

Regardless, he needs to take on more of the childcare during the day. My husband and I (in totally different industries) have both managed to move the majority of our meetings to one half of the day. Could he keep his morning (or afternoon) reasonably clear of meetings so he can be on childcare duty during that time?

Really, it's him that needs to think up solutions. Half of the childcare is his to manage - he needs to work out how to make that happen.

Surely with 4 you have some memory of this stage?

So many people do seem to forget! I'm totally astonished.

Nannies are allowed to work. I sugget you get a temporary/emergency Nanny for at least a couple of days a week to allow you to work. On two full time professional salaries presumably that is affordable to you short term at least?

I think you might have some misconceptions about the elasticity of ‘professional salaries’. And this isn’t a short term problem. AND nannies are like hens’ teeth at the moment.

My youngest is back at nursery this week (3 days) and it’s amazing what you can get done with only an 8yo at home. Unfortunately today was the day he totally hit the wall, because school have basically ditched the children not in the returning years (only year 1 and year 6 at ours). They’ve cut back the curriculum even more than before, reduced ‘marking’ and comments and any interaction with a teacher to a brief comment once a week, and today they disabled the comments in google classroom (the children usually chat about the weather, never any issues)!without any explanation. I assume it was because they’re not monitoring it any more but it was the final straw for DS. He spent half an hour sobbing that he couldn’t understand why school hated them now.

So yeah. I was able to do more work along with teaching, but no, this isn’t sustainable.

I’m broken by it all

It's not sustainable. Luckily we're both key workers - although that does mean we come into contact with more people.
Rules are slightly different now so you should look for childminder or as someone else said maybe 6th former looking for work.
Can you

• drop to 4 day week each
• start early/finish late
• have staggered lunch break & each take kids out for an hour so the other can focus
• swap with friend & take all kids to park / play in garden

Would it be worth a mumsnet campaign? Or writing to MPs? Or journalists? To keep the issue in sight?

I have emailed the BBC about the physical and emotional dangers of parents having to work from home with no childcare. To be fair Victoria Derbyshire has read out a few comments from parents trying to work from home but haven’t seen a proper story about it. It is terrible that this is not being widely covered.

Should say I am only part time and able to work out of the house so am not in this situation. It’s clear to see it is extremely difficult for those who are though.

Any time I've seen stories in the media it's been in a lighthearted 'oh isn't this crazy, pass the wine' kind of thing as though it's all a bit of a joke and the kids are quite happily running feral on enjoying unlimited screens while indulgent bosses smile at interruptions and chaos in the background. Obviously the reality is very very different and I agree this is a serious issue being played out in thousands of households with an awful lot of parents and kids at breaking point, or beyond it.

We are in the Sussex area and using Sussex tuition centre has been a lifesaver

school have basically ditched the children not in the returning years (only year 1 and year 6 at ours). They’ve cut back the curriculum even more than before, reduced ‘marking’ and comments and any interaction with a teacher to a brief comment once a week, and today they disabled the comments in google classroom (the children usually chat about the weather, never any issues)!without any explanation.

In other words the school is still doing more than the vast majority of schools were already doing... Well certainly ours!

We get some worksheets uploaded onto a website once a week.

Whilst I hear other mums say ‘lockdown has been great, a really chance to slow down and reflect’ bloody hell really

Agree. DH working FT, I am PT but more or less working FT (some days I am quiet). I am very lucky I don't have small children but I'm not sure where all this supposed free time is meant to come from?

And then you get the sanctimonious idiots saying "well you just have to take care of your own children for a bit, what's so awful about that". Answer: we need to work to keep a roof over our heads and teachers are trained to teach and we are trained to do other types of work, not try to home-school our kids when we have no training or ability to do it.

Things really do have to change in September.

Some of my work colleagues are effectively working shifts - one does 7-1 and the other does 1-7 and they share the childcare that way. We were all reduced to 80% hours anyway so they don't have to worry about trying to be completely full time. Of course a reduction in hours means a reduction in pay, too.

It has already been flagged as a Mumsnet campaign ...

Whilst I hear other mums say ‘lockdown has been great, a really chance to slow down and reflect’ bloody hell really

They've probably been furloughed, lost their jobs, worked from home without childcare anyway or are SAHM...

In other words the school is still doing more than the vast majority of schools were already doing... Well certainly ours!

That your school is more shit than mine in terms of provision for children not at school doesn’t make mine good - most schools I’m aware of are doing a hell of a lot more.

The first issue is an individual school cutting provision for the children already at a disadvantage by not being able to return.

The second is the lack of a standard for what ‘good’ looks like.

I’m interested in your datapoint for ‘the vast majority’ - is it just personal experience?

@JassyRadlett

Don't fancy showing me a bit of empathy and kindness given how shit our "schooling" provision is, and how much harder that might make it, then?

Don't fancy showing me a bit of empathy and kindness given how shit our "schooling" provision is, and how much harder that might make it, then?

It is shit. It is hard. As I set out above, I acknowledge that yours is more shit than mine. Interestingly, you’ve chosen to attack me for lack of empathy despite showing none for me - quite the opposite.

It doesn’t make the decisions my son’s school has made good.

You’ll forgive my bluntness, I’ve just been printing off and dropping round worksheets for my son’s classmate as the school has decided they can’t do this for children who don’t have IT access any more and that they should ask other parents to do it for them instead. I’m not signing up to the idea that this is excellent educational provision just because other schools are doing an equally or even more crap job.

@JassyRadlett I had based my previous statement on my own and friends' experiences, but data from an IFS survey of more than 4000 parents shows that between approx 33% and 43% of state primary school families - were given online classes. The 33% representing the poorest third, and 43% representing the richest.

So on balance, I'd say my experience may be closer to the overall picture than yours is.

I'm sorry not to show you much empathy, but honestly I thought your experience and level of schooling until now was quite rare and I would have classed what it is going to as averagely shit. Perhaps I should have demanded higher standards on reflection!

That should read "average rather than shit".

The trouble here is that there has been no standard set so we all have to accept what we’ve been given. I was ok with our provision before - as you say, it seemed on the more balanced side of the spectrum.

But I do have a real issue with taking even more away from kids who have already lost so much. And their attitude to the children without access to tech is shameful.

It's fucking ridiculous, YANBU. The school's fubared thread is full of vitriol towards older/teen pupils who are just 'lazy' and need to learn how to self-instruct blah blah blah. Load of comments about 'selfishness', it's apparently selfish to expect full-time education in school for children, fucking hell.

But I am very aware that a lot of kids are getting an even more raw deal. I’m furious with how children are the absolute lowest priority in all of this.

Can you find a Year 11 who was working towards the childcare GCSE and is happy to babysit? Even if you paid for 4 hours a day of babysitting, you might be able to get some peace and some work done while they're hopefully doing fun things with the babysitter?

A lot of 16 year olds won't be able to find jobs this year, and many make excellent babysitters.