“Most employers won’t let you WFH and look after children”

[choochoowah]

Is this actually the case? I know some must have this policy but my husbands certainly doesn’t: they don’t know or care what he does in the day as long as the work gets done (he works from home twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.)

WFH isn’t an option in my job so I don’t know. I’m just wondering how common this is as an actual policy.

I'm curious though. How has your work never suffered? what did your kids do all day whilst you're working? My DH wfh and I barely see him all day. he pops down for a cuppa and that's about it. He's on meetings a lot or just very busy. I was a sahm & couldn't imagine doing my childcare job plus doing an actual paid job too. I was out all day at toddler groups/parks/museums/zoos. It's different when they start school but there's a hell of a lot of holidays or sick days to power through!

Where I work it depends on the team you’re in. Huge corporate company that on paper would not permit it but then you have teams with line managers on 121’s with you with their kids playing in the background (pre school age). I wouldn’t say it’s the norm but in my team it definitely is. We’re all very lucky to be able to work from home, for the most part I absolutely love it but I think it’s extremely unprofessional to be working with toddlers present or any child that cannot independently care for themselves. It’s also not fair on the employees. I have been in calls where halfway through my sentence (regarding a work problem) I have been cut off to hear “no, don’t eat that. Get off the floor”. I didn’t work until my children were at school because of the cost of childcare and now my children are older I am finally working and paying into a pension but my working hours are disrupted by other people’s children and nothing is said or done about it. I’ve just had to try and accept that there’s nothing I can do about it. I got flamed on here once for saying this though! HR might be the solution if I didn’t work so closely with my team but honestly going to HR from what I’ve seen does not ultimately end well for most people who want to carry on working within their current teams.

Currently looking for work at the moment. Remote and hybrid work means not allowed to attend to kids’ needs during the work day - bar breaks. Though some do allow a bit of time away.

This argument doesn't fly in an open office setting, which is what most offices are these days. It's nothing but a room full of distractions. Then there are pointless meetings and coworkers coming by your desk to shoot the shit.

Don´t get me wrong, I like hanging out with my coworkers, it's a fun environment, but in terms of work, my office days are my least productive of the week.

I agree. My husband works from home too but he’s working… I can’t see how a child could be adequately cared for/entertained/stimulated in the odd 5 min breaks he gets from his computer. I don’t think kids need constant entertaining but they must get really bored stuck at home all holidays while their parents are in front of a computer.

The odd morning with a 10 year old is a very different scenario to a regular occurrence with a 5 year old, as is being described on this thread.

Small baby/toddler I think childcare should be in place, but with older children who are self sufficient then I think it’s fine to have them at home - if my company demanded that I work from home, I wouldn’t expect them to dictate that my older kids aren’t allowed to be in their own home between certain hours.

im not aware of a strict policy at work but I can’t see how you could work properly with a young child. My DC are sometimes around if I’m wfh but they’re 10 and 12 - they don’t need watching over and they respect requests not to bust in if I’m in a meeting. Wouldn’t have a young child at home

What about the gap between small baby/ toddler and ‘older child’ though? So 4-7ish? I think in that scenario either you’re not doing your job properly, or you’re not looking after your child properly if they’re expected to just amuse themselves all day while you’re working.

I agree. I think at that age you are letting your child down if you are doing your job properly or letting your job down if you are parenting properly

I am allowed to WFH with the DC around. They are 15 and 17 and have SN and cannot be left alone in the house but don't need a lot of looking after. And in any case, school holiday childcare for kids that age does not exist in any shape or form. my employer won't allow WFH with small children though.

My work doesn’t have a clear policy in this space, however there is an expectation that you need to put in your contractual working hours. That said, there is an accepted flexibility around how you do this, i.e. not necessarily between the hours of 9-5.

This is invaluable for me, with an autistic 6 yr old. We have no family to take him, and he can’t go to holiday clubs due to his high level support needs. So during school holidays he has to be around, and I need to balance my working day to care/support him.

It shouldn't be allowed for small children, I'd say it's even dangerous to split yourself like that and not pay enough attention to a kamakazi toddler (or maybe that was just my kids??) This is from someone who is a huge WFH advocate, but it was my life during covid (with small children) and it was miserable. My work wasn't getting done and my kids weren't getting what they needed from me either. It was a lose-lose. Now my kids are older however, they are self-sufficient and don't need me in the same way, they just 'happen' to be in the house with me during holidays etc 😂

THIS!
I looked after my nieces last week (one ;nearly 4 ,at nursery 9-3 the other just over 1)

I could not have WFH . The youngest is in to EVERYTHING !

The older one alone would want stimulating / snacks / bored of TV after a while.

10 + possibly, but even thn depends on child's needs

It’s impossible to wfh and look after a small child. I have childcare in place but one day when my mam was due to watch her she had a medical appointment at 3pm and I don’t finish until 5pm. As it was a one off I had the permission from my boss to wfh for last 2hrs and just answer important emails. I couldn’t even do that properly. I had to log on later when my husband got home to check I hadn’t missed anything. Never again, was bedlam.

Only one day's when the child is sick when the option is no work or doing some work. But not putting kids in childcare? Would not go down well in my work.

My friend did work and had kids home when her son was young. But she worked as a researcher in university and had annual hours she worked so didn't matter when she worked as long as she worked her hours that calendar year. But she and entrepreneurs are the only ones I know that are allowed.

Just like parents at the weekend manage to do laundry, chores, grocery shopping, life admin, host guests, cooking, cleaning, gardening while taking care of their kids.

I find this such a weird thing to say.

At the weekend - and mine are 6 and 9 so not tiny - in no way do I do 7 hours a day of things that aren't child related. And my work requires a lot more focus than putting a wash on.

Also.. I would have thought this was obvious but maybe it isn't - no one is paying me to do my own laundry/chores so if my kids are particularly demanding and it slips, it's not a big deal

I never WFH with toddlers, mine are tweens and teens and my work isn't full on, I have set meeting times during the week. My job is more reactive to a call, message or email, lots of downtime. I have to be available but not stuck at my desk all day.

It's posts like this that have ruined it for home workers. I WFH a long time before COVID happened. I had to sign an agreement with my employer that I would not use WFH as a substitute for childcare (i.e I wouldn't have kids around while working - not allowed to "pop" out for school run etc)
During 2020 and 2021 most office workers WFH because they HAD to and also managed to juggle childcare again because they HAD to.

Now coming out of covid we have mandatory office attendance - regardless of having a successful record of good productivity etc etc for many years WFH. My previous agreement of allowing WFH means nothing and its a blank "everyone has to return to the office" rule.

Its all because of the perception that many workers are now quite frankly taking the piss and trying to continue like we did in COVID and doing both Childcare and WFH - it just doesn't work - and its not fair on hard workers who do successfully WFH but we get tarred with the same brush being told we're not productive.

Sorry rant over LOL

It depends on the company ethos and job role IME. I'm at a very small, successful family business where the male bosses also looked after their kids whilst wfh. My work is easily done promptly and to a high standard because we all have a low workload.

At a very busy role in a huge corporate conglomeration, they can't be as flexible, understandably.

I’m ‘allowed’ to do this as long as the work is done. I work in a university

I WFH and there is no official policy about this, some people do seem to have kids i the background on Teams calls.

Honestly I don't know how they do it! We've had childcare issues a couple of times and I've had to muddle through the day with my 16 month old there.

It was hell! Got very little done (which I then needed to make up for the next day) and also wasn't 100% present as a parent either. Given the choice I would never ever have small children at home and work, official policy or not it's just a bad idea.

Two of my colleagues had their employment terminated for doing this and not remedying the situation when it came to light. Both had returned from mat leave and didn’t arrange any childcare. It absolutely impacted on their output.

I guess it depends how old the kids are. Imagine assuming when talking about this, we talk about younger kids. Not tweens or teens.

That said my employers are flexible and many colleagues leave meetings early to do the school run. That actually also impacts progress. I’m working on a time critical project and often key contributors are not on calls when they need to be. They may only have popped out for 30 minutes but it’s not feasible to avoid school drop off/pickup times for meetings as that’s a key chunk of the day.