WFH with children

[Annie232]

On many threads I hear women pop up and mention how they WFH x number of days and so don't need childcare on x number of days. Incidentally, within my NCT group on discussions on return to work a few of the women have said similar and that they plan to WFH 1/2 days a week and therefore save on childcare. Is this a thing now?

Oh and she’s 31 and a global head. Such rubbish

Even with pre teens in the house I am listening out for the bickering escalating, or a tech issue which affects homework etc, issues with homework. Don’t do it OP, & to people who manage it - well done.

personally I feel that with young kids - it’s not worth the stress or the childcare saving!

@Energeticenoch I'd agree with you, but could be a tiny business with big ambitions, I remember coming across a company called something like, the British Door company, sounded big and impressive - reality they operated in one small area with 5 employees.

Your position isn't really relevant to the topic under discussion; which is wondering how people WORK while their children or babies are at home.

I hope you're not patting him on the back for being so capable at juggling work and childcare.

I work in finance. Basically my job is to get information and vet it for businesses. All of it is done via email and there is a lot of waiting around for replies (need audit trail hence emails). A lot of waiting for official documents also. I get one or two new cases a day sometimes more, sometimes less. As I say all over email so no customer contact over the phone.

Of course sometimes it gets super busy and when that happens we work in the evenings.
For context I earn in the 30k mark and DH earns in the 50k mark.
It's a sort of sitting and waiting job waiting for bits to come in so we can be more hands on with DS.

In my old job as a manager I wouldn't have got away with it but my manager used to do it all the time

Excellent point. This man isn’t working really at all. He does a few hours a month / I assume during the time when he is called on he actually has to concentrate on work and can’t also look after small children.

most people have jobs where they are expected to be present, take phone calls, attend meetings, read and reply to frequent emails, concentrate on their work etc.

while some very lucky people seem to be able to pull down six figure salaries while not having to do much work at all - that is incredibly rare.

This is exactly why my employer has a policy in this - employees must make arrangements for their caring responsibilities while they are working. They can’t do both. I think that is reasonable.

My manager does this. 18 mth old child. His wife is at the office. He regularly turns up late/ducks out of meetings etc. It is totally detrimental to the rest of the team and you cant get in contact with him when needed. However he hasnt openly admitted it. So is just getting away with it.

Depends on age nine are 16/9/7, they stay at home in the summer while I work from home

My husband and I both work from home full time. As soon as the hell that was lockdown was over, I drop kicked mine back into school in nursery as fast as I could. It was a total nightmare trying to keep a two year old alive whilst “home educating” (I use that term loosely) a six year old and holding down a job as a solicitor. It nearly broke me and I don’t think I’ve ever recovered.

Now they are both in school and whilst my job is flexible enough that I can walk them to school each day and start at 9.30, they go to after school club every day. I get nothing done with them in the house. My eldest is now 8 and even she’s a pain in the arse. Asking for snacks and moaning about being bored.

occasionally we’ll have a day or so in the school hols where she’s around but I feel it’s an awful dull day for her. She’s far better in holiday club than spending eight hours on screens or hanging about on her own. I’ve also had my five year old at home for a couple of days sick recently and it’s been a total nightmare trying to work. Suffocating.

people who think they can work and look after small children are absolutely at it. I had IT issues the other day and the person that phoned to help me had a baby screaming blue murder in the background. I was absolutely cringing. I couldn’t focus for the noise and they were so distracted.

i wish my work would clamp down on this utter pisstake.

We stipulate you can only have children around temporarily if they are of school age. Inappropriate to work with younger children

I think WFH implies that the person works from home in a job that requires more than few hours a day/week/month. While yes, it is a job even if they are paying for your mind to show up in a meeting once a month. But I doubt anybody is doubting the ability of checking email once a day and be a full time SAHP. Also childcare in op strongly suggests that the kids are at an age where they would need childcare.

We WFH with children during lockdown, it was a nightmare! It's not feasible, you end up doing neither things well!

It’s interesting how similar a new posters comments and wording are to one of the previous main posters 🤔

It’s really common in my part of the public sector - hangover from COVID when everyone with kids got their hours but not pay reduced. The majority of women in my department wfh with kids (most have 3 or 4 kids so at least one young one). COVID seemed to create a feeling that work is lucky to have them in whatever capacity they feel like, given that their family is their priority etc.

They don’t attend meetings when the schools runs are happening and if you ask them to attend a meeting at any other time, you get “can we do X as it’s Bobby’s nap time then?” - and the kids all have different nap times so scheduling is a nightmare.

They don’t even catch up at other times as there’s “nothing to do” (because the work needed doing during the day).

Those without kids / with adult kids are thoroughly fed up picking up the slack but management can’t be arsed to sort it and just keep threatening to remove wfh altogether.

I feel for the general public we’re supposed to be serving.

Young kids yeah, but not when they're old enough to get themselves snacks and drinks and keep themselves entertained

Was that directed at me?

I've been posting on this thread since about 100 posts. Also haven't namechanged so have a long posting history.

Hope that helps

@CherylCrows

DD is 18 months and I’ve been doing it since going back to work when she was 10 months.

She gets up at 07:00 - DH sorts her breakfast out and gets her ready while I check emails from last night and the morning.

DH leaves between 08:00-09:00 depending on where he is that day.

DD and I then do our morning activities (park; cafe, meet with NCT mums, play dates etc.) until mid day

We come home and have lunch, DD then has her afternoon nap while I do the odd call or review docs/pitches/proposals. She sleeps from about 13:00-14:30.

If we have afternoon activities we will do them then (a couple of play date parents have us round after 3 as they have older kids, therefore we go round after they’re back from school) if not will do bits at home, baking (more for me than DD but still ) playing, crafts etc.

DD is quite good with independant play so will sometimes have a couple of 10-15 min periods where she will get on with something while I check teams, have the odd call, emails and reply to any questions.

DH comes home at 18:00 and sorts tea out while I finish up any last bits from work (30 mins tops)

A few times a month I’ll need to do a late call (worst ones are after Australia goes through daylight savings!) but DH is home and DD is usually in bed for those.

When I have to travel DH WFH and has a similar routine, his employers are also fine with DD being home whilst he works but it is less frequent (as I have dropped my travel down as a condition of returning from mat leave)

I also work in a senior global role, also in an FMCG company have huge flexibility in the hours I do, and to quote you I'm measured on output not hours. But your set up is so far off the mark for practically all professions it's really not comparable for OP to consider.

I can manage my diary, pop out for school stuff, appointments if needed etc, BUT I still have to do the work at other times.

I think if you are lucky enough to be in a role that effectively allows you to work fully for max two hours per day, you should also be gracious enough to accept that this is the not norm.

Flexibility is more normal these days, as is being measured on outputs not hours worked, but the majority of people would have higher expectations (than reading a few pitches, and one teams meeting per day)!
Maybe try being a bit more thankful rather than slating others not as lucky as you!

@user1496146479, I have read your post twice now and am failing to see how your "day" can in any way be called "working from home." You check some emails at breakfast time, do a bit of work for an hour and a half whilst your child naps, plus 15 mins here and there if they're playing.

Is this the "real world" that people mean they work in when they take a pop at teachers' working conditions?

@BlueRidge
Apologies but this was a bold fail on my part from @CherylCrows post earlier.

I totally agree with you!
My post starts from mid way down at 'I also have a global role....'

Ah, right, I see. My apologies back then!

My employer allows their staff to WFH and take care of children at the same time, but personally I put my DC into childcare because I just couldn't work with them around, but a colleague takes care of her baby whilst she works. It's a very progressive workplace though and they try to be as accommodating for working parents as they can be. I suppose it depends on the demands of the job as well.

I'm disappointed that so many of the parents juggling WFH and childcare are mums. It's 2022, but it's still women who are expected to sacrifice their own prospects to keep everything afloat, while the men carry on as normal.
As an aside, I grew up with my mum working from home in the 1990s (making slippers on piecework, not corporate banking) and it was incredibly dull. My summer holidays were spent playing in the garden with my sister or reading books - she couldn't be disturbed unless it was a true emergency. We never met up with anyone outside the house and definitely didn't get taken to the park or musuems.

I have 3 children... aged 13, 8 and 2
The 13 and 8 year old stay with me when not at school but the baby always goes to grandparents / paid for daycare.
Occasionally the 13 year old will watch the 2 year old

I find this fascinating. You day seems to involve very little work.

what if a person without children did your job? Would they work longer hours? Take on a second full time job?

this must be creating a tow tier / two speed workforce with people without children being significantly more productive that people with children.

I absolute get flexibility / but I have no children, and I would be bored if my job required so little input; thought, actual work. So I would do a lot more than you.

people seem to be arguing they are paid for output and they can get that output done in a small benumbed of hours. But someone who doesn’t have childcare responsibilities will have a lot more time and will therefore do a lot more.

in the mouth of a recession I would be worried.

Sadly, I think a lot of people who used to do full length days in the office think that wfh does mean they can now just check their emails, go to a couple of meetings and occasionally do some actual work. And because managers are ineffectual and/or the employee is not keen to advertise that they spend a lot of the day doing nothing, there is some acceptance that this is now the norm. If everyone did this companies would soon collapse. It only "works" because more conscientious colleagues are picking up the slack.

I've recently started a new job, where I took over from a considerably more experienced contractor who'd been there for 4 months. My colleagues tell me that in 4 weeks (which included some some time for basic familiarisation/training on the job as it was new to me) I have already done more than the contractor did in 4 months. I don't think this is a reflection on me as being particularly incredible but more that the contractor was taking their time over really quite simple things. Actually the contractor may be one of the posters on this thread ...