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.

Our primary school has a holiday club available 8 til 6 every day of the school holidays.
I don't know how you are supposed to manage without that sort of provision to be honest. We're very lucky.

I have had hundreds of meetings with people wfh. None have been with kids around.

I actually stopped going to an excellent hairdresser as he started having his kids in the salon during school holidays/ not at school for whatever reason. They were 3 and 5. After him leaving me waiting for 20 mins as he just needed to "quickly give them their lunch out the back", then he was on the phone at one point to a client and wasn't even looking at the kids and they were taking things out his trolley like scissors etc so i was pretty much left looking after them as the only other person in the room, and then having them play football in the small salon while he was putting bleach on my hair I decided enough was enough. Haven't been back since. Its not professional. Had they been older and sitting around on iPads or whatever I wouldn't have cared. I don't think it's acceptable in any profession to have kids roaming about disrupting work even if the parent thinks they're just "being cute" and it's "only on zoom".

Regarding those who say 9-5 childcare is impossible to get, there are options like shorter camps with an hour of screen time
afterwards, au pairs, local teenagers, grandparents.. Gluing it all together has to be better for a child than 9-5 competing with work for a parent’s attention.
The problem is that some parents aren’t even trying to put arrangements in place and are therefore discrediting WFH entirely.
And yes I agree that it’s largely women left doing this juggling. Men can’t multitask apparently 🙄

That annoys me even more 😂 keep your pets and children out of the camera view. Especially with pets…Surely you can shut your door while you’re on the video

Interesting. In my example, the colleague looking after the newborn was a male by the way.

My employer really doesn't care. We struggle so hard to get the right staff, there's no way it would make business sense to get rid of people who need to look after children sometimes.

One of our senior managers always has her toddler on screen with her, nobody bats an eyelid. This isn't public services - it's a medium size business employing about 2000 people across UK. Everyone can wfh or work in office, up to them.

Obviously it depends on the work you are doing. If you are taking calls from customers all day, that would be difficult. We are problem solving and creating, which fits in with childcare much better.

I do agree you aren't giving your child 100% or your employer 100% but it's a balancing act that works really well for some parents and some employers.

It really doesn't. And in the example the OP gave of people in work meetings with children on their laps or distracted by children wandering around and knocking them on the head they are not "getting the work done".

So unprofessional.

I think it’s more common with dogs and cats than children tbh.

@Oatycookies and @MrsJBaptiste oh god no that’s so soulless I love seeing everyone’s cat getting in on the action!

YABU. My husband and I WFH 100% of the time. We don't put our two year old in nursery as it saves us a fortune. He will go when we get the free hours. We also don't pay for any wrap around care or before and after school clubs. We have 4 kids so the cost saved to us is an insane amount. And we don't have to use holiday clubs or anything either. Our bosses are happy as we deliver our work. My husband just got a big promotion actually so we know his work are happy. Obviously neither of us would have children interrupting calls or meetings. That's just unprofessional.

I think it’s a very different situations for those WFH people who earn 80k+, have offices/garden rooms and have adequate finances to manage childcare than it is for someone WFH earning 25k or a barely liveable wage, working in the corner of their living room.

It really depends on the type of work, whether it's still done to a good standard on time, and how the employees and children feel.
It wouldn't bother me at all as long as children were safe and employee happy and the work done.
I'd say no to children being present in meetings with clients, though.

I wouldn't get away with attending a Teams meeting without my cat!! People ask for him - he's famous!

I work with huge animal lovers, so everyone's pets are very welcome. Babies/toddlers/children also feature heavily, especially during the holidays.

I just can't get worked up about it. It's like bashing benefit claimants - getting everyone to snarl up at each other instead of looking at where the real bloody problem is - our shit government.

I think the point is that even where those 9-3 options exist, and they certainly are not available to all parents, they only go so far. Even for a parent who can utilise them for every day in the school holidays that they aren't working, that's still a chunk of the day that simply isn't covered. Which means the issue is still going to arise.

I’ve worked from home since before covid. As a self-employed freelancer it was up to me as to what approach to take to childcare - and I tended to work school hours during the primary years. During the school holidays I swapped days out with friends and their kids and sent them to holiday clubs. I just wouldn’t have got my work done otherwise.

That said, lots of holiday activities are not very aligned to working hours. Loads of things start at 10am and finish fairly early. Plus it costs money to send them to clubs and places fill up. I could compress my work into fewer days a week but so much harder in a 9-5 job with little or no flexibility.

That's really funny actually. Yes, hairdressers, like chefs and mechanics, electricians, window cleaners, probably shouldn't have children with them on the job, for obvious reasons!

I think your second paragraph is the key one here. Even for employers who really don't like this, they can't necessarily assume they'll be able to recruit suitable staff who don't have this problem. For the sake of a few weeks a year, sucking up kids on Teams meetings might well be the employers best option.

I've done quite a bit of work from home this holiday so far. My children stay in the lounge or their rooms or on their computers while I work. When I have online meetings I make them a snack before the meeting and tell them not to disturb me during the meeting. So far they have been brilliant and I've been able to have all meetings with no interruptions and have managed quite a bit of work, no less than usual.

I feel a bit mean working and not engaging with my children, though they have holiday club and a family holiday coming up soon. Plus we've had a few days where DH or I have had some leave to do fun things.

I guess all families are just trying to manage as best they can amidst a cost of living crisis. That said, I don't like kids in my meetings and I don't think this should be allowed unless there is an emergency and the children are under 4 or 5 (and therefore can't manage an hour or two unattended)?

In my small town there are 0 summer holiday clubs. Only options available are in near by towns (20-30min drive). Those are mostly 9-3 but some 9-5. I’ve also struggle to find anyone to have the children at home because full-time nanny’s don’t want just a few days here and there, they want a permenent year round role and I won’t take the risk of an unknown baby sitter.

What would the people who have no alternatives, don't want a nanny, don't trust babysitters have done if working from home wasn't a thing?

They have had to go into the office, take unpaid leave, or sorted out some sort of childcare sharing with another parent in the same boat. It's not that they "can't" get childcare for the summer holidays. It's that they don't want to pay for it.

Yes and what do parents who can't wfh do - nurses, care workers, surgeons, vets, to name a few occupations.

I’ve been very seriously contemplating asking my team to return to the office 4 days per week.

we currently do 2 days in the office and I can see that standards are slipping and the reality is we are no longer in covid crisis mode.

Ive tried to be flexible but it’s got to the point where it’s affecting my work/family life balance. On Thursday, one call was delayed by 7 minutes because their child needed something; another call was interrupted by a child on several occasions as a result a 30 minute call ended up being 45 minutes; another call was rearranged at very last minute because of a child related issues, creating a knock on effect that wasted another 30mins

All that wasted time adds up and means I work later to catch up on things I could have done if things were less chaotic.

Taking a meeting with a child sitting on your lap is pretty unprofessional. I'd be looking closely at their productivity.

This infuriates me. When my DS was younger I was either with him or working. Until they are much older you cannot do both.

Someone I know always has the DC around, doesn't do any work and when she's called all you can hear is the TV or the DC. It's not fair on everyone else. And there's always something that she has time off for.

I'm going to take a wild guess that the people on teams calls with children were women? It's certainly been my experience on teams calls since covid - the men are all shut in their offices and get to work in peace but the women are meant to do work and childcare.

We have a no childcare rule but it's not strictly enforced since staff retention became a real issue.