There have been so many threads started by people struggling to work while schools are closed, and invariably there are posters who bang on about how “school is not childcare” etc and people just need to suck it up... there was another one today - about holiday clubs - with someone saying that “holiday clubs are a privilege”!
That makes me so mad. The reality is that children (and actually teenagers too) need care and structure and can’t just be left for days and weeks on end to fend for themselves. In historical times, before we had schools, before most people worked outside the home, young children were looked after at home by extended families and later often worked alongside their parents. Current social structure - where most mend and women work outside the home (and need to do so to support themselves) - relies on schools playing a part.