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 appreciate times have changed, but as someone who spent A FUCKING FORTUNE on private nurseries and then wraparound before and after school care for my two I am very 🙄 at this. And even 15 /20 years ago I had a job where I could do a large proportion of it from home and I still wouldn't have DREAMT of trying to cafe for my child when I was supposed to be at work.

If they are ill, and unable to go to school, nursery, childcare then that is different, but no I don't think it is fair on anyone.

You've missed out the other option of not working/working less. Which always has been and still is one of the ways parents resolve this dilemma.

Holidays clubs round here you can pay an additional fee for a 5:30 finish.
We've got a summer holiday spreadsheet that we start filling in a month or so before the end of term. We've paid £900 for 3 weeks of holiday clubs, we are taking a family holiday for a week, grandma is doing a few days, I'm taking a few days leave and DH is taking a few days leave.
It's very expensive and a lot of faff but it's just part of having children.

Me too, I especially like if a cat worn around the neck goes totally unmentioned.

I wfh 100% of the time. I have my toddler with me occasionally if he's off nursery sick and I feel up to (the challenge of) working while taking care of him. Sometimes I'll call in sick if I'm sick too or just overwhelmed and not able to work at the same time.

I don't know how people can possibly work on a regular basis with their young kids around. I can't concentrate as well so am not as productive. It isn't fair on my employer who's paying me to put in 100%, and it's not fair on my child who would get me ignoring him most of the working day.

Amen!

In my experience the colleague with baby on call was male.

The employment market is different now. It’s hard to get the staff, genuinely, and the government are desperate to have everybody working.

In order to facilitate this, wfh is now a non negotiable for many of us, and being able to wfh with children sometimes is also something employers are expected to swallow. Most understand that an experienced and qualified employee with a toddler on their knee a few weeks a year is worth keeping versus a long and expensive recruitment process which may or may not result in a better staff member.

Meanwhile, their former employee has just walked into a job that offers the flexibility they need.

Society is different now.

@DinoDaddy well done for neglecting your 2 year old child whilst both you and your partner work. Well done (!).

Mine are 12 and 8, they are quite capable of entertaining themselves (yes a bit of screen time but also playing various games, lego, dolls etc, using their imagination).

I wfh but they know not to interrupt me if I'm in a meeting.
I wouldn't do it all summer though, we juggle taking time off between us. They'll have to amuse themselves for about 5 or 6 days in total.
I work for an extremely family friendly employer so it's not an issue. Kids on cameras wouldn't go down well though.
Cats are more likely to appear, lol at the poster suggesting trying to shut the door on a cat if you're in a meeting. Mine would hurl themselves against it at the injustice of being kept out, much more distracting!

Yes, but that’s often at a cost to the taxpayer in terms of UC, especially for single parents.

I would much rather see employers being flexible.

So who’s looking after your 2 year old whilst you and your DH are working for 8 hours a day?

You’re either neglecting them, which makes you awful parents.

Or you’re getting their siblings to care for them for 8 hours a day, which makes you awful parents.

During lockdown I had every sympathy for those juggling work and childcare from home and if phone calls and zoom meetings were interrupted by children or urgent emails went unanswered for hours I sucked it up. But since the return to school and normality I'm not so forgiving. I had to call my insurance broker yesterday and the person who dealt with my call had children at home in the background and had to break off the conversation (which was about important details that, if they are wrong, could cost me dear) twice to go and sort the kids out. It's not professional and I don't think she can possibly have her full focus on her work which is obviously a matter of concern for me.

But what can I say or do? Just quietly look for another broker and ask whether people are home-based or office-based? I'm a feminist and I know how much good childcare costs and how much it impacts on women in particular. I can't help feeling that with so many women trying to combine childcare and wfh that there's a danger of a backlash against employing women with children.

It's crazy for the kids. They end up spending the whole day on screens, unmonitored, and never seeing friends or doing exercise. OK for secondary age but unfair for younger kids.

@Oysterbabe witb respect, I’ve worked my ass off to try and find stuff to do here (start at Easter) but the clubs you speak of just don’t exist here. I still have a handful of instances where I have to have DD with me. Thankfully she’s good as gold, but it doesn’t work for everyone like tht.

I don't wfh so not an issue for me but I do understand having childcare issues. We live somewhere where there isn't loads of holiday clubs and we don't have family to help so I do understand how hard it could be. I feel like as long as the work is getting done.

You used to bring your sick kids in to work? Christ on a bike!

Very occasionally in an emergency it is fine, otherwise there should be proper childcare in place during term time and holidays for the full working day.

Once kids are older and do not need to be actively minded (around 8-10 depending on child and job role) then maybe, but even then it will be pretty shit/lonely for the child if their parent has a full calendar of meetings.

My husband and I both WFH 95% of the time (me 100%, he does some site visits but they tend to come in clumps), but we definitely have our two under 5s in childcare! I don't think it would be fair to them not to. I like to be present when I'm spending time with them, and not just present as in physically in the room but engaging with them and doing stuff and spending quality time. We could probably do the odd hour with them home if need be, but it would be TV on or stuffing them with snacks to keep them occupied after a certain point, neither of which is really a good idea for a regular thing.

But when they are school age we probably won't pay for wraparound care. Definitely won't need to in mornings and won't need to after school as with use of breaks/flex hours it's easily covered between us, so that will save us money. We will use holiday clubs on days we both work but again can easily cover the shorter days as both our employers offer flex working and don't micro manage.

I think the job market has changed forever post-Covid and people are increasingly leaving behind inflexible employers for a better work/life balance. Working in the office would add two hours to my day due to the commute, two hours I would rather spend at home with my husband and children. I know most of my friends work from home to various degrees and probably wouldn't go back to a full-time office role or somewhere with no flexibility, and they are mostly managerial-level women who are relatively high earners.

Children should not be disrupting phone calls or meetings; that's a prime example of when childcare is required. But I've never had that happen in any meeting at my work. People have kids around, sometimes you'll see one in background on their tablet or on the sofa, sometimes one will wander past or in the distance you might hear one practising the piano or something, but no one has ever had a child disrupting a meeting or behaving badly during one and I've never experienced that in my dealings with other service providers either. Most people I think are grateful for a job that allows some flexibility and don't take the piss, and piss-takers are piss-takers and will always find a way to take the piss regardless.

So who’s looking after your 2 year old whilst you and your DH are working for 8 hours a day?

You’re either neglecting them, which makes you awful parents.

Or you’re getting their siblings to care for them for 8 hours a day, which makes you awful parents.

You forget the third option, which is that they're only doing the bare minimum of work in order to spend the rest of their time doing childcare. Or they're answering the phone or attending a zoom meeting with a child on their lap.

I'd expect the average 5-8 year old to be able to entertain themselves in their rooms for an hour at least.

I wouldn't have young children in the house when I'm alone trying to work. My husband is a teacher so this isn't an issue for us, they are in the house when I'm working but he's looking after them, youngest is only 2 so I couldn't just leave him to roam anyway.

During lockdown we did 1 day where we had both kids at home and us both trying to work, they were 2 and 4 (I was pregnant with the youngest). We just couldn't work and look after them, even with 2 of us. We ended up using the key workers nonsense thing and sending them in, not ideal at the time. It just doesn't work, you either fail at your job or your children are ignored and if they are only little potentially put in danger because you aren't watching them properly.

People using wfh to look after kids could potentially ruin it for everyone. It makes our life so much easier because it removes a 90 min commute out of my day, I gain 3 hours of my life back. I can do compressed hours (work 4 days) which would be physically impossible otherwise. I effectively gain an entire day working from home, well 2 days in terms of time saved. I feel happier and healthier, don't ruin it people!

@afishcalledbreanda you said exactly what I was thinking. I'm old enough to remember when companies didn't want to employ DM's and I can see it happening again if they think WFH equals working and childcare together. My job has cut WFH back to one day a week now and that was due to a drop in productivity. I expect others will do the same

WFH is not a substitute for having to pay childcare.

And I don't see how you could possibly 'get the job done' while simultaneously taking care of young children.

It is indeed, yes. And that's an important aspect of this discussion.

People often assume that the withdrawal of a particular type of flexibility for parents, usually involving wfh, means the parents will comply and will just have to manage. Which is bollocks. The UK has had an issue with parents being forced out of the workplace due to lack of available/suitable childcare for a long time. It just matters more now because we have a shortage of workers.

In this labour market? The cream of employers might be able to pull it off, but the bog standard ones not so much. We've already had mention in this thread of employers who are having to accept employee led working practices because of recruitment issues.