People looking after children while wfh

[paws732]

My company operates mainly remotely, so we mostly work from home with occasional office days. We have a lot of Teams meetings for connectivity.

With the summer holidays, I have had meeting with a lot of colleagues who have their children sitting on their laps during the meetings. These children range from 5-8, and they are not behaving themselves either. One child kept putting things on their mum's head, and another was having a tantrum about being bored.

AIBU to think they shouldn't be looking after children while wfh, even if it's the school holidays? I feel it will eventually spoil wfh arrangements for everyone, as employers will not tolerate this is many companies.

I think it all comes back to poorly brought up children with a lack of boundaries.

We didn’t have zoom calls when I was a kid but, hypothetically speaking, if we did and my mum was WFH I’d have known at age 5 not to go and sit in her lap while she’s on a video call.

I assume these employees are not constantly on camera so surely their child could find another 5 minutes to interact with them. The fact they couldn’t even tell their kids to hold off for that half hour meeting shows the parents have poor boundaries.

I knew not to interrupt my mum when she was on the phone as a kid. It’s not even these children’s fault - it’s their parents.

It depends on the age of the child. My 8 year old would be fine but definitely not my 3 year old. I would only do it as a 1 off, certainly not every day as I know my 8 year old would get bored if it was all the time.

Surely it just depends on if the continue to perform their role well? If they can manage that alongside WFH and having children then why does it matter. If not then obviously it is an issue!

I kind of think some responsibility is on the employer too. Many places have required people to work from home because they reduced office space over covid (some getting rid of their large offices all together). So some have forced people into working soley at home. Often with little care about if people have suitable space/desk to work from at home. Work has invade the home space completely and the obvious outcome will be blurred lines between home and work.

Im actually not against work from home, but it’s not like employers aAre completely at fault or not reaping some benefit from it too.

Very much depends on the children. I've WFH since March 20, we closed our offices and never went back. Mine were 6 & 8 at the time and it was tricky but manageable. Now they're 10 & 12 and you wouldn't know they were here, absolutely no issue at all.

It's not great for younger DC though and if they're unable to not interrupt a meeting etc then you'd need childcare.

It should not be allowed. There's no way you can get the same level of work done if you're looking after children.

My own POV is that is a terrible idea:

It's another blow to women and the career divide. Not only are they expected to do childcare, but they're also forced to work at the same time.

Worse than this, what about the children? They need love and attention to flourish. We've already seen the psychological and educational effects of the short stint of WFH in covid on children. Imagine this for years on end. They deserve more

No it’s not acceptable in most businesses. Of course there are exceptions I’m sure but in most professional settings, having a child interrupt business is not on. If they’re doing that during meetings, I’d really question how much work is getting done the rest of the time.

We also need to consider the wellness of the child while unsupervised. The answer here seems to be kids watching TV or on iPads with those kid handles.. Wouldn’t those kids be better spending time with grandparents/au pair/a teenager from the street/another parent doing a summer childcare swap or at a summer camp of some sort? I think under 10 supervision is required that isn’t just a screen.

We overlapped @CinnamonJellyBeans but almost wrote the same!

It didn't work when we were forced to do it during covid and it doesn't work now

I agree, things cost so so much.

It's the same in my workplace. Had a TEAMS meeting with a newborn baby yesterday!

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. A lot of our work is about using our "little grey cells" rather than plugging away at a laptop, so can easily be done whilst feeding a baby, taking kids to the park.

Live and let live.

I just do not understand how you can be looking after children well, if you are focusing on work and vice versa.

I'd think at 5-8 some of the day would be easy enough to manage but not a whole one.

I am lucky to have a lovely mother in law who helps out but whole days and an 8am start are a bit much. I keep mine (later primary aged) for the first couple of hours of the day as I can do breakfast etc before starting.

They are big enough to play happily for an hour or so and know not to come in while I have meetings other than an emergency. They come back about 3 and so are with me for about an hour before my husband comes home. They are allowed the Switch then so I don't see them!

However I think a whole day would be too much and I would not want to do it with a toddler as it would be a nightmare. I managed lockdown but really relied heavily on the oldest who had to do more than is fair in normal circumstances.

My work closed my office, told me to work from home and cut my pay. I told them I would no longer justify the cost of childcare. They said they were fine with my working with children at home at the same time. Employers can't have it all ways. Pay needs to either reflect cost of living rises or employers have to show more flexibility. 🤷‍♀️

I had to confirm to my employer that I have childcare in place (we all did). I rarely work from home because it wrecks my head, but many of my colleagues do and they are noticeably less available since the holidays started. Short day camps, grandparents staying to help out, child-swaps that fall through...it only works if the parent is there to pick up the slack when they would otherwise be focused on their paid work.

I don't say anything because that could be me next time, but there is a definite impact.

What do your kids do while you're working? Screens from 9 to 5?

The truth is you can't do both well when the children are young (and I mean below 10, and only then if they have friends nearby).

I don't really like it either. It feels like one of those things which should make work more accessible for women but actually means a lot feel even more expectation to work and provide childcare at the same time, meaning both are done poorly.

Also, frankly, when I'm working and ringing you because a project has gone south, or we've had a H&S issue come up we need to resolve, I could do without a 5 min convo with your kids about how much they love tractors followed by a discussion about work in which you are clearly distracted by them playing around somewhere in the room. For what it's worth, I feel the same about people who have calls with their cat on the desk who they are completely distracted by!

I think it can work if the children are old enough to mostly look after themselves, but aside from that, bad news for the parent trying to work, the kids who want attention, and the coworkers too!

This is an important point. The reality is that childcare can't be assumed to be available, whatever anyone's feelings on the matter. There is a mismatch between need and availability in many places, and no amount of research, planning, throwing money at it or any of the other solutions people offer up will solve that problem.

To that end, it actually makes a lot of sense that many employers don't do anything about parents working and doing childcare simultaneously, especially for school aged DC who are less disruptive and harder to get provision for (I know nurseries are incredibly expensive but they're more likely to exist than holiday clubs). Sucking it up for a few weeks a year is often going to be the least worst option available, for both parties.

This is not allowed in my company. Occasionally you'll see a kid with someone but it will be a last minute 'kid was sick' or 'school closed' but it is rare.

Depends on your contract also - ours specifies all homeworkers need childcare in place while WFH.

It isn't OK to have kids on TEAMS meetings unless there has been an absolute emergency.

It is distracting, takes longer, wastes other people's time and the 'oh how sweet' factor wears off really quickly.

I do think it will backfire, yes.

And many employers now are reporting that productivity does go down when everyone works from home most of the time.

I’m on the fence here. I work for a lovely, flexible charity and we mostly WFH as there’s only one office, and people are employed locally to the projects they work on in most cases.

I work 16 hours a week, DD is 6 and I do these hours in school hours in term time.

We’re knee deep in summer holidays here (Scotland, so broke up ages ago). I have found it incredibly hard to find childcare over the holidays that is age appropriate and enjoyable for DD, and also doesn’t cost more than I earn in a week. There is normally a summer club for some weeks at her school, but for many reasons it was delayed in releasing dates, and even with switching some stuff around I’ve only been able to make use of it for 2 weeks.

Even with calling in favours from my mum and others, it has been a huge struggle to get enough hours covered so that I’m not short on annual leave for the rest of the year. Next week I will likely have a day where I need to work with DD at home for a few hours.

Equally, I was on a call with a colleague last week, she had 2 younger children at home and they were super restless and it was really hard to speak to her. Her and her DH were both sat in the same room WFH, and they had no other childcare.

I think it needs to be the exception rather than the rule to be honest, but the summer holidays are HARD.

Also though, how on earth are we trying to align school holidays with work holidays, plus appropriate availability of childcare? I get just under 7 weeks off work as I get my BH allowance added in, but DH gets 4.5 plus set BH, and that doesn’t cover everything. It’s based on someone being at home all the time which these days is not the norm that it once was. It doesn’t match up so I can see why people struggle. I

Our company doesn't have an official policy on this. We are largely remote since Covid (though do have offices available). I occasionally see a child in the background of a call, dogs are actually more distracting.

DD is 6. We have an 8 week summer holiday. She's primarily in Camps (which she loves but are expensive), then DH and I each take approx. 2 weeks off (one week concurrently, another staggered), there are probably about 4 days overall that we balance working and child caring (we call it tag teaming, Dh's company are UK based so he has busy mornings, mine is US based so I have busy afternoons and evenings).

During my working hours DD doesn't interrupt meetings, but when I'm in late meetings after my working day, she'll sometimes pop-by, wave, and go on her merry way.

I work hard, I do my job well, most of my colleagues are the same.

In our case, this is just the shape of working. It's hard to balance. But it doesn't seem overall detrimental to the business. And occasionally we get to see newborns, which is always pleasant.

it seems so unfair on little kids who are too small to understand why their parent can’t give them attention.

our work has a policy that you can’t work and be in charge of children other than in an emergency. But so many people are taking the piss to avoid childcare fees that wfh will probably end up being withdrawn for everyone, which really annoys me.

YANBU @paws732

I've had this with cats this week, every other person had a bloody cat walking over the keyboard getting in the way. I can't stand it, especially when everyone makes the obligatory comments about how cute it is and the meeting goes off on a tangent 🙄 Really pisses me off.