Free Childcare

[viviswicked]

Mulling over a comment on another thread regarding WFH and thought I would see how forthcoming people would be on an anonymous forum...

Those who are working from home has this been the opportunity to now have 'free childcare' no wraparound, no childminder etc needed as you are now always in the home.

Full disclosure this does not directly affect me due to children being older, I work hybrid and it's entirely up to me when and if I go into the office. My direct team do not have young children but I am part of a large organisation, many of the staff do have children and are not using childcare.

I WFH 3 days a week. Employer is totally flexible so I start work at 6.30 and work until 8. Stop to get kids ready, breakfast and dropped at school. Work straight through - no lunch break - until 2.45 then then pick up/drop at clubs. 1 day a week clubs aren't until later so kids come home and have snack/do homework/watch TV until 5 when I finish. In theory I should finish at 4 so am working a few extra hours each week.

Childcare should totally be in place for under 5s and I wouldn’t sign off any arrangement where that wasn’t the case. I don’t think it is fair to the children or the employer to try and combine both routinely. My 3yo has been in nursery for my wfh days and there was never any question that I would do that. I could try and do the odd day while she’s sick but I generally book 1/2 a day annual leave on the basis I know full well I wouldn’t get a complete day of work done but can manage a few hours while she’s watching tv.

My 6yo goes to wrap around but I only do an hour rather than 3 hours on one of the days. Sometimes I finish early that day but a lot of the time I do an extra hour while she’s watching tv and I’d barely notice she’s there. We also tend to have early finishes on the last day of term so again I’ll work while she watches tv and I’d do the same for the odd inset day/sickness day but wouldn’t make a habit of it. For school holidays, I book camps. I don’t think it would be good for her mooching around for a full day without attention. I’d much rather pay and know she’s getting some playtime with peers, exercise etc. wfh offers much more flexibility about camps. For my office days I have a choice of one or two. Wfh days brings a much bigger range of activities and camps.

I manage people at work. None of them need me to make them food, feed it to them, change their nappy or wipe their bum on the toilet. None of them require me to acknowledge their existence every 5 minutes, or get my attention by saying my name 63 times very quickly refusing to stop until I stop what I'm doing and help them make a Lego tower.

I don't think you can use line managing 5/10/15 adults and caring for a small child as a simile.

i wfh but have childcare. My boss doesn’t mind kids being there if it’s the holidays or after school, but general consensus is to have childcare.

I no longer use before or after school clubs, as working from home allows me to drop off at normal start time (then start work) and pop out to collect at finish time and then carry on working.

HOWEVER. My youngest is 11 now - so 8 when we started doing this. He doesn't heed me for childcare as such - just needs an adult in the house. If he had been much younger, I couldn't have done it without compromising on either work or parenting.

If I have to go into the office at all, I tend to book breakfast club, then leave early enough to do pick up and continue working at home after. My workplace are fully aware and happy with this - many people do similar things. They are really good at flexible working though and it's perfectly acceptable to say "I'll be out Thursday 1-3 as I'm going to the school to partake in xyz" etc. They're also happy for people to go off exercising, have a nap, play a game, etc. They recognise the benefits of happy & engaged employees I guess!

“Mark19735 · Today 18:30
Isn't it funny how a supervisor in a workplace setting can supervise teams of three, five, ten people simultaneously and do their job ... but a parent WFH can't be trusted to supervise their one, two, maybe three children and do theirs?”

This is bonkers…. I can manage my team at work because a) they are adults who don’t need supervising to ensure their safety b) don’t need their bottoms wiping c) are able to be competent humans who can make decisions for themselves d) are unlikely to scream at me e) can feed themselves and f) have autonomy to do work themselves within parameters. It is clearly a ridiculous comparison.

I do accept that there is a world of difference between a 6-month old baby and a 15yr old.

But 'require me to acknowledge their existence every 5 mins' ??? Really? You'll be so disappointed in the level of service actually provided by most nurseries. And perhaps you are exaggerating the needs of a child - even a new born baby - a little? They really do sleep for 16-18hrs per day on average. It may feel like the 8hrs of wakefulness coincide with adult working/waking hours, but it's statistically very unlikely to be the case on every single day. Pretty awful luck for those where it is, granted!

I expect the tension comes from whether or not you can control when your work needs you to be 100% present. More senior people can reschedule appointments, often at very short notice, and no-one bats an eyelid. More junior people feel like they are beholden to others. In some client-facing roles there are additional expectations around serving the customer. So I'd say it's the job, rather than the childcare, that determines whether it can work or not. I never got to WFH when my kids were very young, but now that I can, I cover all their holidays with no issues at all. No one at work notices or cares.

Well, b through f have applied to my children since they were about six. Just sayin'

I normally don't have the kids with me when I'm working.

However, if one is ill I'll still work with them here. It's not ideal but I can cope.
They are 8 and 5. Younger than 5 it was impossible.

Very occasionally if I have a longer day and I have to pick them up from school I'll take my lunch break to do that then give them devices and snacks to keep them occupied for 90 minutes until I finish.

The company policy is no kids while WFH.

I have a huge amount of flexibility, permanently WFH - I do both school runs for my 6 year old and don't use after school clubs, he's very self sufficient. My 1 year old is in nursery when I'm working. I don't take a lunch break and work far more hrs then i would if i was in the office.

Hahaha working from home with a 2 year old. Yeah. That would be really do-able.

No. When I wfh my toddler is at nursery. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to work.

My DDs are in childcare full time as they are very young. I would not be able to work while looking after them.

However my manager does use wfh to help with childcare. But he has a daughter in year 6. One day a week he always works from home, leaves to pick her up (gone maybe 20 mins, this time is blocked in his diary), then works with her at home. He's not secretive about this, and no one minds - I think it's different to having a younger child at home. She's 10/11, and can look after herself for the ~90 mins she's at home while he works. He's not having to constantly supervise her, she just needs an adult in the house. A few years ago I had a different manager who did the same.

Supervising my team is my work. Supervising my children is not.

@Mark19735 have you spent a whole day with a toddler?

Yes newborns have lots of naps, those naps start decreasing in length and frequency by about 4 months old, usually while people are still on maternity leave. So the majority of people Working from home with a child present will have a 1yr old+

The average 1 yr old has around 2 x 1-2hr naps and is able to independently play while awake for about 5 mins before needing input,

From 18months - 2yrs, lots of toddlers will drop 1 of those naps and have 1 slightly longer afternoon nap. They still have very short attention spans, maybe 10 mins. They also climb, walk about, run and generally try to find ways to hurt themselves so you need to be aware of where they are and what they're doing. You've heard of the really common 'terrible twos' phrase I'm sure.

Around 3 yrs old might stop napping regularly, still has a short attention span and a tendency towards getting upset about ridiculous things like cutting their toast into the wrong shape,or the sky being the wrong colour. This period is often known as 'threenagers' it has a name because it's a very common set of behaviours. It's hard to concentrate on work when your 3 yr old is sobbing because they wanted 1 red sock and 1 green sock and you only have blue socks available.

Not allowed at my place. It was encouraged during lockdown (so people with kids could work), but something happened somewhere (don't know what) and they put a stop to it.
I've done it on the quiet for an hour when desperate, but didn't get much done.

I don't know anyone with kids who WFH without childcare. But I do know plenty of people who openly admit that they claim to be WFH while decorating, gardening, watching box sets, running errands, online shopping, doing hobbies etc while they "keep an eye on emails". It's not just parents who are taking the piss.

Having worked through lockdown with a one year old, there is absolutely no fucking way I would do it by choice. He's in nursery all the time we're working, and will go to after-school club when he starts school in September. If he's ill I sometimes do a 'half-day' by working while he's watching TV or napping and in the evening, but that's really just to keep on top of emails and and prevent everything building up as we don't have cover.

Colleagues with older children so have them at home after school, but by 7 or 8 they don't really need looking after, just an adult around which is fine. Our job is very flexible and can be done any time.

There’s a fair bit of it going on where I work (big organisation). It’s obvious as kids either in zoom calls still or people are cameras/mikes off and if asked to contribute they don’t respond. HR are trying to get a handle on it but I’m guessing it’s a costs saving issue for those doing it. Winds me up something rotten though as often can’t get hold of people I need to speak to.

No. I cannot work with my DD here. She goes to after school club and holiday club (and was at nursery full time before she started school in September).

This! Lockdown 1.0 was hideous.

No. I WFH for half the week (and DH WFH on the other days), but we still use after school childcare for DD (who is nearly 8) on the days we both work until 5 (I finish at 2.30 during the rest of the week so no childcare needed then).

If I need to work an extra hour or so on my shorter days, I can log back on once we’re back home and DD will watch TV while I work, but I’m never as productive as I can’t focus properly (and my work requires a lot of focus on spreadsheets and attention to detail), even if DD is happily occupied. It reminds me too much of wfh during lockdown.

We’ve both WFH while DD is ill (alternating days) but with the knowledge of our managers and the understanding that we will make up any time/ work later. It would be impossible to do this if DD was a toddler or preschool age. I really appreciate this flexibility from my manager, but you are expected to have childcare in place otherwise.

My son is 9. I think for 9-12 year olds it’s perfectly fine to be wfh after school. They’re not yet old enough to be alone with n the house but don’t need “looking after” if it’s just 3:30-6pm.

My DS2 was in year 5 during the first lockdown and was going to after school club three days a week. Since then DH has been wfh most days, and I did too for a while, so we haven't needed to use it since (he's 13 now so obviously we wouldn't need it by now anyway). So we did save on quite a bit of childcare costs. But it was completely different from having a toddler at home.

My work is flexible and my team doesn't mind if I have to have my DD (3) at home for unforeseen reason such as sickness. They would not let me work with her at home with me full time and honestly I wouldn't do it either as it's bloody awful trying to juggle it all.

My childminder ended up being off for 6 days in December and while my DH and I could have worked round it, we didn't. Ended up taking 2 days of annual leave each, leaving 2 odd days to work around which was fine.

So to some extent yes we do benefit, but not to the extent of having no childcare at all.

My partner and I both WFH the whole time and we have childcare arranged for each of those days, however, on days when my son (2) cannot be at childcare (either he is ill or someone cancels - which happens very frequently, he has a mix of childminder and grandparents) we try to still work pretty much a full day looking after him between us. This is hard work though and means he watches a lot of tv while we sit on meetings, we definitely couldn’t do it every day and have “free childcare”!