Covid and childcare - How are you managing?

[R2221]

I have two kids in primary (twins - Y1 in Sept) and one in secondary. I work in finance and its a 9-5 job with little flexibility around those times. I had to leave my job in January (due to bad work environment). Covid happened while I was looking for work. I gave up as dh and I felt we couldnt cope with 2 jobs and kids at home. Now that schools are planning to re-open in September, I started looking for work and I have a couple of interviews lined up.

Now, coming to the main bit. Childcare. The kids are all in their respective year-group bubbles at school. Both schools have large year groups (120+). If anyone form the school staff shows symptoms, or if a pupil (or someone in their family) has symptoms, our kids will be sent home. We all have to quarantine for 14 days.
That also means I cant send the kids to our childminder and having a nanny won't help in these circumstances ? tbh, the older one is ok. The twins make it impossible to focus on work. Luckily, we can manage without my income, but the gap on my CV will keep widening. I had a tough time getting back to work after I took 2 years off when I had my twins. DH earns more than me and he is rubbish at housework + managing kids. If he gave up work, we'll have less money, messy house, depressed husband, hungry kids, stressed and overworked wife. So it's my job that's up for debate.

Those with 2 jobs and young kids, no family around to help - HOW ARE YOU MANAGING?

I changed jobs. I now work nights and dh works from home on the week nights I work to enable me to sleep. Plus i catch up on weekends if dh has meetings he needs to zoom for and i need to look after the dc.

I doubt it will happen that much.
You'd have to split a week off each with your partner. Same as if one was ill.

@newphoneswhodis
I doubt it will happen that much.

Why ? DS1 is at a popular grammar school. A lot of children use public transport to get to school (tubes coming from London)

The twins are in a large primary. The staff use public transport (tube and bus).

If second wave happens, aren't we at a higher risk due to where we are ? (just outside north london)

That’s an odd policy.

Here, if a child shows symptoms they are sent home and must get tested. The rest of the children remain in school unless the child with symptoms tests positive.

If anyone form the school staff shows symptoms, or if a pupil (or someone in their family) has symptoms, our kids will be sent home. We all have to quarantine for 14 days

Are you sure?

That isn’t what the guidance says.

I have the same problem. I know kids will get coughs and fever - they always do. Will we need to be swabbed and isolated each time? I had a nanny to look after my kids when ill - but she understandably has stopped this.

As Appuskidu says, that is not what the guidance says, and a school would not currently have the power to enforce such a rule, it would be an illegal exclusion.

If anyone form the school staff shows symptoms, or if a pupil (or someone in their family) has symptoms, our kids will be sent home. We all have to quarantine for 14 days.

Quite a few schools currently seem to think they'll have rules that are - like this - far, far stricter than the official guidance. I suspect that they'll come under a lot of pressure to drop these and most will, and we'll get the odd headteacher doing a sad face in the press.

The guidance says that if two people within a ‘bubble’ test positive, that may be an outbreak and the group may need to close on advice from local public health guidance. Otherwise, people will only be sent home to test or self isolate if they have been in close proximity with someone who’s tested positive.

If the whole year group is going to be sent home every time someone coughs three times or feels hot, I would imagine your school policy will be changed pretty quickly come September.

In normal times, flexible working. We each take turns working long days. And on our non-long days, we do the school runs and are home with dc in afternoon.

At the moment, similar flexible working, but little one is in nursery and older one now in holiday club for the summer.

But really we just arrange our days so we can do it all. It's fine. The days we work - I'm usually gone 6am-7/8pm and then dh works 9:30-2:30 those days. We get a bit of sorting out the house and homework done in the afternoon. Our house isn't spotless but it's liveable. Not every job is supportive of flexible working (I'm fortunate it's very much the norm in my field, no one works 9-5 and no one is in the office every day, and dh is self-employed so he only makes money when he works, but it means he has control over his schedule).

But if we need to stay home with dc because of illness, we'll just do what we've always done. A mix of working from home and taking time off, and sharing it between us as needed.

If anyone form the school staff shows symptoms, or if a pupil (or someone in their family) has symptoms, our kids will be sent home. We all have to quarantine for 14 days

Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, its within the year group bubble That's with a group of 120+ kids and staff linked to them.

We have 2 ds my eldest is almost 10 and and before lockdown he was in school and then after school childcare and my 2 year old was In full time nursery me and dh work full time and have done throughout lockdown. He doesn’t have a choice and can’t work at home, I am working from home in a financial role but instead of my normal hours I start at 4pm when dh gets home and work till late. It’s awful we don’t spend any time as a family and I am at breaking point. I appreciate the concern about your cv but if you are going to look for work I would speak to your employer most are letting staff work from home when they need to and I know my employer are recruiting and training new starters remotely-and if they are flexible now hopefully that will mean they will be in the long run too x x

Just from experience I doubt it will happen. I'm not sure what % if children get it but it will be low.
Also from an anecdotal point my kids nursery was open for key workers all through lockdown. They had no cases. Both sites have no been open for over a month and neither have had any cases whatsoever. Just feel unlikely to me.
The guidance should be to get tested if negative you can return to school.

Plus if there were a lot of confirmed cases there'd be a local lockdown

Women will definitely be the victims in this. They will come out of the work place because DH earns more and never get back in. It’s shit!! There will be DH’s who won’t even consider it their problem and women who are breaking with the stress of dealing with it all.

Has your DH been working from home? Is he able to?

Would your job be possible working from home?

If what you fear about the kids getting sent home did happen, your DH will need to be isolating too, so it's not as if your job would be the only one affected. Having 2 incomes in this scenario would be better, in fact.

Many employers are going to have to adjust to this as thousands of working parents are in the same position. You won't be unique.

I think you just have to get on with applying, put in the place the usual childcare you would need to have if times were 'normal', and then just roll with the punches. What else can anyone do?

DH earns more than me and he is rubbish at housework + managing kids. If he gave up work, we'll have less money, messy house, depressed husband, hungry kids, stressed and overworked wife. So it's my job that's up for debate.

He doesn't need to give up work - he just needs to get better at multitasking. He can't leave the kids hungry - what sort of man is he?

Your job should not be up for debate - your partnership in all things, parenting, home, work-life etc should be up for debate.