One key worker, child should stay home

[Areyouactuallyseriousrightnow]

Not sure if there has already been a thread but AIBU to think that if only one parent is key worker and other is WFH, child should be staying home as school provision is for key workers who cannot complete their important role if they have to look after child at home, not so that the other parent can continue with work without interruption?

My partner is a key worker, but I don’t consider us eligible as I am home and therefore technically can be with the children.

YABU- if there’s one key worker take that opportunity to send the child in.
YANBU- if there’s another parent at home, child should stay home.

Last lockdown really brought home how little my employer knows me. I was told that as im divorced from dds father this obviously meant I only had 3.5 days a week to worry about as she would be with him for the other 3.5. They were 'willing to do me a favour' and let me condense my hours into those 3.5 days. They were a little surprised when I said I was the rp and have dd 7 days a week, she doesn't see her father and I have a court order to prove it so I would need to be furloughed

@BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze

You can't expect people to prioritise a lower paid KW job over their partners high earning, bill paying job if it's going to potentially end in them losing it and being unable to house and provider for their family confused no one would in that situation!

If they are working at home, they’ll cope. Seriously, I have loads of family in this situation. It’s not easy, kids appear on zoom calls etc but that’s life at the moment. Plenty of non keyworkers people are having to do it. Our friend had to do his job from home, look after a 2 year old, homeschool 2 primary aged children and deal with a puppy... he was stressed but coped.

No he didn't 'cope'. Either his work is very understanding, or he didn't do his job properly, or actually his job should really be a part time one and he's lucky to be overpaid and have no-one work it out yet.

A typical toddler is awake 13 hours of the day, and will need supervision throughout and active involvement for quite a bit of it, as few toddlers will happily watch TV for hours or sit quietly while daddy/mummy is on a zoom or staring at a screen. Kids requiring homeschooling need support too, and a puppy even more. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to do all this and put in a nearly a full days work, especially if your job requires a lot of meetings in working hours.

I know this because am a single.mum of 3, and like your friend have a 2 year old and 2 primary age children, and despite doing 18 or more hours a day of work/homeschooling/childcare in lockdown,. when redundancies then came, I was cut, along with other parents of small children (unlike sex or race, parenthood not being a protected characteristic). Many of us, including me, had easily been in the top 10% prior to this year, but doesn't matter. It wasn't a great HR decision by the business, but like others right now they are struggling to stay afloat and as this new school ruling shows, parents right now are less reliable employees. Not every employer can afford even the minimal contribution of furlough payments for a non-working employee, and many many others workers aren't eligible anyway. Not every job can have 'kids popping up on Zoom calls', or let people be flexible to work when kids are asleep.

There are many people, mostly women, being made redundant or quitting because of home schooling. I don't begrudge anyone for trying to keep their kids in school, especially when at least one partner is doing a keyworker role which in many cases will involve significant risk, low pay or both. Why are you so invested in making their lives harder?

Will the schools be teaching this time for the kids they do take? Or is it at the schools discretion?, last time it was very clear in our area that it was childcare & not "learning".

I wish all this key worker shite would blow over, it's the main cause of most of our problems right now, "I can't do this because I'm a key worker", "I want this because I'm a key worker"

All workers are important, all children are important, regardless of whether their parents are perceived to be saintly keyworkers or not.

I know this because am a single.mum of 3, and like your friend have a 2 year old and 2 primary age children, and despite doing 18 or more hours a day of work/homeschooling/childcare in lockdown,. when redundancies then came, I was cut

That is really shit.

@OverTheRubicon exactly
I don't have children but I know my job is impossible to do and look after a toddler
Call centre. So sat at your desk for 8hrs, no you can't take your headset off as calls are constant, and you can't just log out. My company are doing furlough for childcare as they accept it's not a job that can be done while doing childcare. I struggle to answer the door to the postman! Usually am on a call and carrying my laptop while doing it

In the last lockdown I kept my three children at home...aged 2, 8 and 10.
I was a key worker, working part time in the office and part time at home. Although not front line my workload doubled, if not trebled In that time.
My husband, who's not a keyworker, was forced to do all childcare and then work 4-10 every evening while I picked up all childcare. Only the understanding of his boss allowed this because he certainly wasn't as productive and available as he should have been.
My ulcerative colitis flared terribly and I have been on steroids since June and am about to go onto immuno suppressants because a colonoscopy shows a marked deterioration.
It might not have been stress, but my consultant tells me it most likely is.
My husband and I earn almost exactly the same amount of money and we need both our salaries. Unpaid leave of more than a couple of weeks is just not affordable.
I will never ever voluntarily attempt to home school two kids, corral a toddler and juggle two senior jobs where furlough is not an option again.
I will take up the keyworker places we're entitled to and which are offered at all the schools and preschools my children go to...my only regret is that I didn't do it in the last lockdown and had to deal with such appalling stress.
We're back where we started anyway covid wise but my health and my children's education are yet to recover.
I feel for every parent forced to juggle in the same way who is not categorised as a key worker.
The only way schools should be closed again is if children get to down tools completely then entirely repeat the year to relieve untrained, unprepared and busy parents from the impractical horror of homeschooling. And if a parent from all two two parent working households is furloughed so they can adequately parent. And then all teachers can be furloughed too at 80 per cent pay.

I am not so sure the whole thing is so cut and dried. I am not a key worker but work full time. My DH is. If he does not work, pressure on nhs A &e increases. But he works entirely outside the home and when in work, I cannot get hold of him. So not the same as two parents WFH tag teaming together. (However it is the same as single parents assuming no other parent involvement). I stepped up last time and it nearly killed me. So I am choosing not to this time.
Also considering giving notice to the independent school our DC go to due to their interpretation of this - they have very few double key workers but have chosen to interpret in this way only. Not a way to keep a business model in my view.

@taskmasterfan people all seem to know someone who took advantage, but around the country actually only a small proportion of those who could send kids in actually did. Concerningly, vulnerable children seemed, at least in our area, most likely to be kept home.

As for those who seem to be taking the piss, you don't know their circumstances. Maybe the massage therapist has had a relapse of mental health or addiction issues after her business shut down and her social worker has required her to bring her child in every day. Or maybe he has an EHCP but she doesn't like to share that. Telling people about a walk with dogs (incidentally, why did you see that as 'bragging'?) doesn't mean that all is well behind closed doors. Or maybe she has just outright lied, but most schools were checking up, and in my view anyone who was willing to go to some lengths to con the school and risk their kids catching what was at that point a very unknown virus clearly struggles to be a good parent for one reason or another, and their kid needs school anyway.

It's an awful situation and I'm already dreading the next few weeks after last time's homeschooling disaster. Neither of us are key workers but both work full time - husband out of the home and I can wfh. Trying to homeschool 2 primary kids and hold down my job was the most stressful experience. I was working 5am-7am, doing bits where I could during the day then catching up 8pm-10pm. My mental and physical health were shot.
So when I hear of a family with a key worker mother with one child who works 1.5 hours a day (dinner lady) with her husband able to wfh (non key worker) taking a school place for their child as he apparently cannot possibly work effectively with a child at home, it does make me feel rather upset (understatement!!). He can work in peace and she will have lots of free time while others are juggling like crazy.
There isn't a perfect answer but I do think that people really need to think long and hard about what others are going through and a rota system for ALL kids to at least get some schooling would make it slightly fairer.

My DS's school required 2 key worker parents last time, or if a single parent then must not be able to work from home. I am a single parent and although under normal circumstances my job involves heavy interaction with service users, my employer found ways to enable my team to mostly work from home. Therefore I did not qualify for a keyworker spot at school. The result was that in between carrying out difficult destitution assessments, child in need assessments, and adult care assessments with clients who are vulnerable/do not have english as a first language/have mental health/have children in the background of our videos calls, I had to try and ensure my year 1 DS took part in class zooms calls, completed his class work, did his daily cosmic yoga, listen to him babble inanely about the pictures he was drawing or the game he had made up with his cars, make sure he had snack time and healthy dinner and healthy tea and answer the "Muuuummm" call 40 or 50 times a day.

I was starting the day at 6am to get everything he needed ready for the day, get us both washed and dressed and fed ready for our zoom/Teams calls that day, then have a ridiculously disrupted working day trying to juggle all of the above and once I'd put him to bed, get back on the laptop to actually complete all of the stuff I hadn't been able to get to or focus on during the day. I was logging off and crawling straight into bed at 11.30 every night then starting again at 6 the next morning. It felt like the laptop was never off, it felt like I never had a moment to breathe.

I was in panic mode all the time worrying that I wasn't getting my assessments completed, that my service users rents weren't being paid because I hadn't done the forms, that they weren't getting their subsistence money or food parcels because I hadn't emailed the right person or called admin that day to remind them and I worried that DS who was already behind his class was not learning to read or write and couldn't/wouldn't do ANY of the assigned tasks without supervision and was spending his days stuck in front of tv making the gap between him and the other children even worse and that I was a terrible mum for not helping him better or being more patient or understanding how to help him learn. My fear was that a vulnerable client would fall through the cracks, or that my DS would. It would wake me up in cold sweaty panic several times a night, adding lack of sleep to the pile.

The cost to my mental health was massive.

Eventually, 6 weeks into lockdown, I cracked and called the school. They told me that uptake on keyworker places had been about 10% of the total expected figure they had prepared for. They were very happy to take him, said the last thing they wanted was for anyone in our school community to struggle like this. The following week, they arranged for class teachers to do one to ones with all the parents and gathered that loads more keyworker WFH parents were experiencing the same thing or that, as mentioned by other posters, loads of the keyworker parents were the lower earners or had partners whose jobs offered no flexibility so ended up doing the childcare. Then a school-wide letter went out to tell parents there was more space in the keyworker hub for children of keyworker parents, even if one parent is not a key worker.

I see all of the judgemental posts on here, calling out the parents who can work from home, saying they should work from home. That's a really fucking narrow attitude to take. It is up to the school to decide what provision they can offer, and it's up to the parents to decide what's right for their family. It is no one else's business. My DS is better off in school where his mum doesn't end up having a full nervous breakdown. If that's selfish well... I really don't give a fuck. Rant over.

@SecretRedhead yes to everything you said.

What you describe sounds a lot like my.experience, but with a job that is definitely a luxury and not 'key' for the nation, but was pretty key to me, as a lone parent. Can't even imagine how hard it would have been to have people's wellbeing depend on me at that time, and so glad that your school (unlike so.many judgemental, unimaginative and unempathetic posters on here) was able to see your challenge and make space.

If people want schools to remain open they need to accept a lot more things being shut and a lot less mixing elsewhere to enable the level of mix schools gove to not tip it into totally unsafe levels.

People haven't accepted that and have said "yeah but if my kid can see 29 other kids then I'm going to see Paula and Sue...our kids are in the same bubble anyway"

They aren't understanding that the lack of everything else is to allow schools to be open.

@SecretRedhead I’m glad your school changed it’s tune. I’m dreading the next month or so, I don’t think Scotland’s schools will return until at least February. I emailed the school and explained I was a single parent with sole custody working from home full time classed as a Keyworker - but because I work from home I don’t get a space. I was exhausted and run down and now we’re back here again. Single parents just thrown under a bus without any recognition that some of us get no respite or break at all.

I find it quite distasteful that people who have two incomes in a household think that it is reasonable for the key worker lower paid one to threaten to give up/give up work if they are not given a place at school for their children. Single working parents do not get any choices if not given a place. Is your non keyworkers mortgage/job/childs welfare more important than theirs?

@TheNortherner no, but realistically, we are not going to lose our home if we can help it - so if that means the critical worker in our household stays home more to share the responsibility (or maybe resigns in other cases) then that is what we will do. It is a horrible situation for many, but I'm not going to apologise for doing what we need to do to keep our home. Our jobs are both important, both to our finances and to us personally.

No he didn't 'cope'. Either his work is very understanding, or he didn't do his job properly, or actually his job should really be a part time one and he's lucky to be overpaid and have no-one work it out yet.

Sorry but yes, he did cope.

His workplace is no more or less understanding than mine or my partners of any of our friends and families. He did do his job properly, admittedly sometimes he worked later on for an hour or two to catch up on things. He works way more than his 37 hour per week salary but then he often did anyway, like most people do. I’d live to tell you what he does and you’d eat your words but it would be potentially outing along with my other posts on Mumsnet. But of it makes you feel better to say what you do then please yourself. He didn’t find it easy just as many others don’t. We haven’t found it particularly easy trying to help one child with A levels, another starting a new school as well as supporting our wider family with their childcare needs and homeschooling. But I would rather do that than have more kids attending school than necessary as I know how stressed and worried the teachers in our family and friendship group are. In many cases when there is one parent working at home then they can manage.

Also, as was mentioned on another thread, there are a lot of men who claim their job is ‘oh so important’ and has zero flexibility. With many jobs as you get in higher positions there is a lot of flexibility. These men are just shite partners and fathers so maybe complain at them before you moan at the government and teachers and whoever else’s problem this is. When you’re in a couple its often a bit closer to home.

I find it quite distasteful that people who have two incomes in a household think that it is reasonable for the key worker lower paid one to threaten to give up/give up work if they are not given a place at school for their children.

Its not a threat though, the reality is my husband has minimal flexibility at work and earns more than I do. I’m also part time so if someone is looking after the kids is most likely going to be me. There’s a limit to how flexible my workplace can be and a limit to how far I can stretch myself so the reality is, if my kids are going to be out of school for a prolonged period it’s my job that will go.

Not a threat here either, someone has to care for our DC and we threw him under the bus last time, he can’t be the one to bear the brunt again.

@SecretRedhead I would have been in exactly the same boat as you but our school let me put my kids in part time from the start. I had to ignore all the questions from judgemental twats about how "key" was my job really? And if I'm working from home I should have the kids there. And aren't I worried about my children catching covid? I ignored it all and it went swimmingly. School were so understanding and my children were not ignored for huge parts of the day. I'm a probation officer in a high risk team and my work is not exactly child-friendly to put it mildly. I will do exactly the same again if needed.

@TheNortherner I suppose it all boils down to two things - is the key workers job important enough to society to make a difference if they choose to give up work or reduce hours to share the burden with their partner. And secondly is it right to say that despite it not working for their family they ‘should’ step up and do it for the greater good of society.

People in non key worker jobs get to decide what’s right for their family. And surely the whole point of jobs being categorised as key workers is that society as a whole does need them done.

I have seen a societal view that says x key worker service ‘should’ be fully open - because I need it/there will be bad consequences for the working of society or knock on effects on other key worker services if they are not. But if the solution to keep those aspects running is to say to non key worker spouses that they need to do more, that is not a workable solution.

I really feel for single parents in non key worker jobs who have huge pressures on them. But if society want services to carry on, the solution is not to say well another section of society have it tough so you will do too. Many of key workers families will just say, fascinating but I’ll arrange my life to be best for me - and that may have a knock on effect on services you want to use and think ‘should’ be available.

And when it is a service people use such as teachers, gps, dentists, bin men etc etc - the consumers of those services which will be reduced will not be happy. But it is a natural consequence of the policy decision to say that both parents need to be a key worker.

So I suppose the balance is - how much do you want as full a service in those areas as possible? Because if you do, this needs to be helped to be provided, not made harder.

For instance if there is no nurse or doctor in a hospital due to this rule ......I suspect many needing their services would rather wish that society had tried to help those individuals be there - and not just by saying their spouses should do more.

@TheNortherner. People will make their decisions based on what is best for their own family. To expect anything else is unfair and unrealistic.

@TheNortherner

I find it quite distasteful that people who have two incomes in a household think that it is reasonable for the key worker lower paid one to threaten to give up/give up work if they are not given a place at school for their children. Single working parents do not get any choices if not given a place. Is your non keyworkers mortgage/job/childs welfare more important than theirs?

You can think it's distasteful all you like. I will be making the choices that work for our family. Last time I nearly had a breakdown for the good of society. Luckily we have arranged our lives so my husbands salary is enough (just), so that's what will happen.

Also it's not a threat, I'm perfectly prepared to do it 🤷‍♀️