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?

Note how many men you know who attempt to work from home while looking after babies and toddlers full time. Not many, if any. That's because they realise it can't be done effectively.

Ah, the Big Important Man Job.

I think people are kidding themselves if they think they can work from home properly with a child under 8. I have a 10 year old and have him after school and during holidays for 2 days per week. It's not ideal and I definitely don't get as much done with him around but I can work a bit extra on my days off if I need to.

During the pandemic my friends (both in WFH jobs) were tag teaming work/childcare from 5am-11pm so they could both get a full day of work in (they had a 2 yr old and 6 yr old approx).

I had a baby during that time and was trying to WFH and phone calls were the hardest bit, I was constantly having to get everyone to work around the baby's naps (thank god she did nap well!). One time when something was urgent I had to put her in her cot with lots of toys - she loves it in her cot so was OK but I felt awful about it. It's also the headspace, it's so hard to concentrate on 2 things at once.

@CherylCrows

Whilst I agree that presenteeism and lack of flexibility are issues that need to be tackled, I dont think most employers are going to be ok with paying full time contracts for very part time roles

I’ve stated before, FMCG so hardly niche

I also call bullshit on the ‘working full time from home but also only works 2 hours on a mega senior salary’.

If a toddler/young child isn’t in structured childcare you should be focusing on their development. They should be out at the park most days, going for walks, maybe a library group in the afternoon so they can see other children. Not stuck at home left to their own devices or watching tv.
If you are working full time you cannot do those things anywhere near enough.

I don’t care how much anyone claims to be the best employee while spending so much time and lavishing attention on their child, it’s bullshit and they are deluding themselves.

My dh is self employed and works from home. We would save £70 a day if toddler dd stayed home with him. But there's no way we'd do that as he'd lose way more than £70 a day on lost productivity.

Most people I know do this. It’s because everyone that does this just does the minimum work needed for the day so they can focus more on their child. It can work it just depends what role you do. When I WFH and I was pregnant, I would do as much work as possible in the morning then take a 2hr lunch break so I could sleep. I’d then sleep again for 30 mins just before I finished. All my work was completed so my manager wasn’t bothered too much

No its because they are more focused on themselves and not constantly trying to compromise and worry about juggling work/children/budgets in the way that women as the default parents tend to .

Of course you can't work effectively whilst trying to look after a small child - both work and child miss out, some employers have contracts which prohibit this. You might be able to manage without wraparound care for school age children but even when I was working from home I always kept after school nannies/care in place.

someone at my work WFH with a baby and it's fine
BUT she is very part time - only works 4 hours per week, so I'm assuming (from the timings of the emails I get!) that it's mostly nap time / evenings.

Depends on your job. We both unofficially condense our hours to 4.5 days a week, then spilt that day doing childcare.

if you can do your job over nap time or bedtime, then you might be able to do it. But where is the joy in that? You’ll have no time to yourself, sounds very stressful, which can’t be good for you and your family.

what do you do for a living OP?

I can't see how in any world you can wfh with an under 10 year old let alone an under 2 year old. My husband and I have had 5 bouts of covid between us since Easter and we have had to wfh with our 18 month old because she wasn't allowed at nursery. Only way you can do anything is if the other has her or she's asleep.

The worst idea, we had to wfh with a 9 month old and 4 year old in lockdown, I was drinking more and sleeping less. One of the worst times of my life!

Maybe it’s different women posting, there’s a lot of us afterall. 😅

Also it’s very different looking after your children who live with you and have a routine to save money on childcare than visitors popping in when working.

Also to add its not fair on the children either who do not get the best out of you at all.

Agree with PPs that this is parents with older children who can make their own way to and from school or be in the house unsupervised and requiring minimal interaction for a couple of hours at the end of the school day.

I have a colleague who's trying to do this with a pre schooler and struggling.

It depends on the age of the children. But given you are in an NCT group, not having childcare for days you WFH will not work. My year 7 does not need childcare. She has been taking herself home since year 5 because we now WFH since the pandemic. She walked herself home and did her own thing. If it's to an empty home, we wouldn't have let her stopped going to after school club so early.

She still gets bored in the holidays if let on her own for too many days. What we do is spread annual leave between DH and I so they have days out with us so it's not stuck at home 5 days a week. She also has play dates with her friends and at 11, they don't need any entertaining from adults.

My employer requires proof of childcare from those who WFH.

Call bullshit all you like

I exist as do many others, I see posts on here regularly from women in similar positions too, although some are pitched from a ‘AIBU or are professional roles ridiculous’ angle

The last one from memory was someone working in corporate law and only actually works for a handful of hours a week and had a very silly salary.

Some on here really struggle to comprehend how different roles work

Not where i work! Its made clear you'll have childcare in place. I don't think there'd be an issue if your 10 or 11 year old is upstairs in their room reading/doing homework for an hour or so after school, but it's not acceptable to have younger children around disturbing your work.

However, at my work we all tolerate if you've a poorly child home. Reality is no one wants to have your ill child while you work, and the rest of the team doesn't really benefit from you not working as they end up doing more, so we all accept those days of juggling as its mostly infrequent. There's an expectation those days are shared evenly with the child's other parent though.

Not allowed where I work. Several have been caught out and brought back to the office, WFH revoked.

@CherylCrows ifs funny how many times you have mentioned a specific poster who has a very similar situation to you only working for 2 hours a day.
I’m sure it’s definitely a different person entirely!!

Generally not a good idea.

It would also depend on what you do, age of child., how many hours etc.

Earlier this year a member of my team was put into a disciplinary and dismissed due to failure to fulfil the role. A large part of that was because she thought she could look after a high needs demanding toddler while working full time, but he was only attending kindergarten in the mornings/had school holidays off.

I’m not unsympathetic, during lockdown we all had to juggle and do the best we can (I’m lucky as my youngest is now 12) but this younger lady thought we should all continue to make allowances for her caring for her child instead of working!

I think it does depend largely on the age of the child, the child’s personality, the job you are doing.

I would not be able to do my job with a child under about 7/8 in the house

At my work it seems very common to avoid paying for childcare and have the kids around. I find it massively infuriating and distracting and I think it shouldn't be allowed, but no-one seems to stop it. I pay for childcare when I'm working as I couldn't concentrate properly otherwise (off today!)

It works fine for me in place of wraparound, but that's with a 9 & 11 year old. I don't see that there's any way that you could use it in place of a nursery or similar.