To think more people WFH with DC than let on

[Thorts]

NC. Will preface this: I’m pregnant, and I’ve worked in the early years sector for lots of years. I cannot imagine working from home with a young child, even one who sleeps a lot, unless it is an absolute emergency and even then I can imagine work suffers or you end up making the hours back up late at night. Despite this I can totally understand why people do and would never judge anyone for it, you do what you have to do. The cost of childcare being the main reason and then the availability of it. Some providers didn’t have space until my DC would be nearly two and I was enquiring less than a week after finding out I was pregnant.

Reading some older threads on here, people seem to share my view or have stronger opinions about why it’s wrong to WFH with a young child.

However, my experience of what people do IRL (might just be among those I know) is vastly different. I know a handful of people in various professions who admit to either them WFH or their partner working from home with the child there, for at least one day a week, to help cut costs down. Even my DM who always worked a hybrid position used to work from home whilst me and my sister were very young and said she just managed it and enjoyed the flexibility!!!

AIBU to think it actually happens a LOT more in real life than people are happy to admit?

100% this but often they just don’t see this.

Yes, we all want to save on childcare, spend more time with our children, CoL crisis is affecting us all but working from home isn’t the answer. My SIL thank god has never wfh or only during lockdowns, and she always sends her children to nursery and if need be works at weekends or night to make up hours if she does need to come home during the day. She’s very conscientious though.

I agree with this. So your DH’s employers are happy that your son is being taken swimming during his working time? Or to the park? The only possible things he could do at the park would be work related, reply to emails on his phone etc. my current boss is in the office 4 days a week, 1 wfh and has a day off every 2 weeks. But during those days he’s fully engaged with his work as are most of the people under him. And that’s how it should be.

In many office based jobs there is an unhealthy obsession with hours worked vs actual output - surely you are paid to do your job description and hit whatever targets are set / attend all meetings and calls you need to. If you are doing that, why do the exact hours you spend at a desk / sat by a screen matter?

Yes, he does it in the morning following the school run. His employer is happy for him to block that time out.

I will take him to the park or walk during my lunch break. I work from 7-3 so am done fairly early anyway.

As I mentioned up thread this set up works for one day when we are both home. Clearly it wouldnt work all week and not once have I suggested it does or would.

The rest of the week I am in the office or work from home alone. DH is the same, office or home alone.

I really am struggling to see how this is impossible to some.

Neither of us are work shy, 'marked' out for being poor at our jobs or failing to progress. I have already mentioned that I recently had a promotion.

Frankly, the more senior you get the more flexible you are able to be.

I manage a team of 10. As long as people get their work done well on time, I don’t care when or how they do it.

There are often posts on here from people saying their boss wants them in the office 3 days a week, having been previously WFH, and they’re wondering what to do about child care. Clearly the implication is that currently they look after their own kids, while WFH. It pisses me off. This is probably why it takes an hour for HMRC etc to answer the phone. The staff are too busy singing Wheels on the Bus and doing the school run!

No you can't and I don't believe it's commonplace unless it's emergency or their child being sick and they temporarily do that or the child is teenager.
Especially if the child is younger than school age, I feel it's wrong because you can't give the attention they want and probably you might put them in front of the TV until you finish your work. You might end up feeling like a bad mum and probably the child would sense that they're not their mum's priority. I think it's just wrong to work with your child. If the main tasks at work are relatively simple or sporadically need attention then it might be possible but you might make a mistake when the child all of sudden started to nag or etc... However if you can manage your tasks then it'd be fine. So there's no absolute no but I personally find it difficult and wouldn't want to do it.

Maybe they should think about this before having children. It’s taking the piss to think you have a right to be paid to work but be looking after your children.

Because you are, presumably, paid for hours worked. Would you be happy to be paid on outcome?

But that’s one day a week, and two of you sharing. Not really comparable to one parent for the whole working week.

I dont believe the original premise was full time working at home with a child.

I know a mum who does this. Her employer knows. She works extra hours in the evening to make up for the distractions during the day. It seems to work well for them.

People definitely do it but I don’t see how they can do their job properly if they do. Of course during lockdown it was different and employers knew this and made allowances (mine did). However, that ended with the pandemic and should not now be the norm. I know where I work if it was discovered you did this you’d be out of a job at worst and disciplinary at best.

I have a nearly 2 year old and there has never once been a time since I went back to work after Mat leave that I thought “oh, I could just have DS here right now, he’d be no bother”. As he most definitely would be a bother (and I say that in the nicest way). He needs my full attention when he’s with me as he’s a toddler and gets up to all sorts. I do wonder how those people who do wfh with children cope. What if it’s a particularly busy day and you can’t just log off for a few hours and make up the time later when DC in bed, as sh*t has hit the fan and you’re needed at work? When you’re getting important phone calls from colleagues/senior managers that you need to answer but DC needs changing or a snack or is in the middle of a tantrum? These people won’t be available for a call back at 8pm when you’re finally doing your work after bedtime. What happens when you’re on a deadline but DC doesn’t want to have their 2 hour nap, or demands attention in the middle of that important meeting? You can’t fully watch your child the whole time if you’re working. Inevitably your work or your child would suffer with this arrangement. If you’re being paid to work your full attention should be on that job and so it’s absolutely not ok to be looking after your child at the same time. It’s very unprofessional.

Only time I’d say it was maybe ok is with older children during school holidays - they’re sensible enough to be in the house without constant supervision and you’re there in case of an emergency. And on the one off occasions when children are poorly is different - they often lie watching TV or sleep so you can just crack on with work. If you’re running round holding a sick bucket or comforting a poorly clingy child or going off to GP appointments then that’s different and you can’t do your job and so shouldn’t claim to be working. We keep back leave (about 4 days each per year) for DS sick days and carry them over if we don’t use them.

It infuriates me when people see wfh as a way around paying for childcare. Yes, it’s absolutely extortionate and basically unaffordable. I get it, I’m in the thick of it. I also wfh and have never thought to take advantage of my employer in that way.

I've been c-suite in the past, and I took the long view. Sometimes I was just paying staff to be available for what needed to be done.

In fact, in a well-run organisation you have slack to take unexpected opportunities - to have slack, you need unfulfilled time.

I won a contract worth 15% of the company's revenue because I had the opportunity to bid unexpectedly. I spent about 25% of my time working on a niche area of potential recently in "downtime" from urgent tasks that nobody asked me to do - which meant my company could take an opportunity at short notice.

My speciality means that I need to be super-competent in a niche area for 5-10 days at a time, about 10 times a year. Paying me FT to be available is cheaper than paying a consultant.

I work for myself and when I attempted to work from home with DC it was awful. Sleeping baby on lap was even shit.

I once watched a woman show how she worked from home with her toddler. She had the toddler in a play pen alone whilst she worked in another room watching on a camera. Having had toddlers, I think it’s fucking cruel.

OP it doesn’t work. I say that as someone who’s been there. You’ll either be shit at your job or a shit mum.

Don't you mean 'collaborating' by the watercooler?!

I interviewed someone this week who has 2 kids. Aged 4 and 2

She was planning to work and care for the kids as she's been doing it for a year anyway. Theyre well behaved she said.

A two year old, well behaved?

People who say it works will argue with me but I bet if she is doing well at work then they’re ignored or dumped in front of a screen. It just doesn’t work. If work is going really well for you then your parenting is probably questionable. People
don’t want to hear that and will tell me they’re excellent parents whilst smashing their multimillion pound jobs but I will not believe it.

I work at a large company (2000 HQ employees) that is fully remote for almost all HQ roles. Lots of us have small kids and log off early/start late, have kids at home occasionally with sickness and that's fine. People get their jobs done, and personally I worry about the work/life balance some of them are doing to achieve it, ie working until 10-11PM after the kids are in bed, but that's more of a personal trade off I am not willing to make.

The attitude of my manager and his and on upwards is that generally, you should not be routinely working overtime and how you get your work done beyond that is pretty much your business as long as you are available for meetings and collaboration with colleagues in a way that doesn't cause issues.

HOWEVER, I have worked with a couple colleagues that absolutely took the piss. One didn't have childcare for 6 months to save money for a 6-12 month old baby and she absolutely was regularly distracted in meetings because baby was crying and her work obviously suffered. Another colleague just has kids around all the time and just does not seem to be carrying anything like a full workload, and there is more work she is needed for (support role). I gave up on asking her to support me like she is supposed to because I got so sick of her never following through.

My actual job averages on taking me MAYBE 20 hours a week, with a 8-10 week period where I do work 40-45 hours. I do pick up my kid early from after school care, I do expect that I will be able to pick up from summer camps at 3:30, that I can cover half days without extra care etc. BUT on the occasions where I am struggling to get my work done, we will have a temp nanny cover any gaps. Maybe other people think I'm taking the piss!

It obviously very much depends on the job.
You wouldn't be able to have an online consultation with your doctor if she was also looking after her child, but some jobs are obviously less demanding and intense.

If you can take hours of the day off to do things with kids like the school run then surely your employer could just pay you for the hours you are actually working? Would that not make more sense? Rather than saying someone works full time where on a Friday they are at the park for 2 hours, just say I can offer 6 hours on Friday. No one does though right?

@LordFlashearttt

A two year old doesn't sit still and watch tv for
Long. How can she do this every day

It's a shame for the kids

The contract is you sell your valuable time to an employer . If you are dealing with a child at the same time it is akin to stealing. Nothing to do with supporting other women. No one can be surprised if they have to pay for childcare and. Government is paying for younger and younger children

I don't ring up many companies for things but the last 2 I've had to call about something there's been children in the background of the call 😄 so I think your probably right

If the employers could get away with doing that, they would be.