Get frigging childcare

[JuniperJuly]

Yes another one of these posts.

Emergencies dont count obviously but otherwise, no you cant do your job and look after your young child at the same time.

This morning I had a 2hr teams meeting with an external person trying to organise an event for September. It was almost impossible. Every 2 minutes it was no darling, dont stick the pencil up your bum (true story. I dont care if she is on here), or telling me to hang on a second while she dealt with her child or her child shouting down the headset and being told he is sooooo cute.

I said that its awful when you get let down by childcare and she said that she was always planning on working with him at home. But she obviously isnt working! If shes like that on a teams call what is she like normally?

Last week I was on a group call and could hear someone's baby crying. Maybe she has a nanny or something, whatever, but then it became very obvious that the person wasnt actually on the call but had dialled in and buggered off, presumably to look after the crying child.

Ive now got to send an email to the person from this morning to discuss all the things we couldnt do this morning. Im not even going to bother putting in another meeting with her.

I've half a mind to send an email along the lines of
lovely to meet your child this morning. You had your hands full with him so we couldnt discuss everything so here is what I need. Its probably easier to do via email to limit distractions"
and cc her manager in.

Would that make me a bitch? Im so annoyed at the delay and the extra work it will give me.

I suppose it depends what area you work in as I do have discussions over email and I actually need to document them so I prefer it but obviously it isn't the case for you so that is annoying but if it's someone external, I personally think it isn't your place to highlight this to their manager.

I’m really annoyed on your behalf, and on behalf of everyone who works and I include in that the work of parenting, about this sort of comment.

It’s tantamount to saying that WFH isn’t working, and/or that looking after children is a doddle. The second of those ideas is I think particularly undermining of women, and wouldn’t be said if men did more proper parenting.

You can't compare between the cost of having a child now vs before covid vs 20-30 years ago.

Before covid we didn't have a COL crisis.
There are people locked into 5% mortgages, if they can even afford a house, food is through the roof, utilities, insurance, everything. So excuse some of us for wanting to save a bit of money on childcare when wfh.

If it wasn't for covid, yes we wouldn't be working from home but we also wouldn't have the rest of this shit show going on.

We fixed our mortgage for 10 years 2 weeks before the financial crash in 2008. It was fixed at 6.8%. For 10 years. DD was born in 2010.

People really are struggling with reading comprehension on this site at the moment.

OP's interrupted and pointless call was not with a colleague. It was with an external supplier, who works for a company which is being paid to do work for the OP's employer. OP is in effect this woman's customer. In what world is it acceptable to attend a meeting with a CUSTOMER where you are continually breaking off to tell a child not to stick a pencil up its arse?

edited - duplicate post.

Guess what sex the author is?

House prices locally have increased £200,000 since 2008.

Agree it’s totally inappropriate. All the time we see women complaining they have to return to the office 3-4 days a week, and this is why. No-one is doing an honest day’s work whilst looking after their children when they are as demanding as these kids. And they should be demanding, demanding parents attention instead of being left to go on screens all day. Plenty of holiday clubs, childminders, use them.

This week I’ve had to mentally register people doing calls from their car (outside kids’ activities) and with kids in the background in several calls. I know it’s summer holidays but we all had to put childcare in place for the summer - clubs, Nannie’s, au pairs, family.. It seems that no-one makes the effort now.

It’s gone too far as people (actually women in every case this week) expect everyone else to accept kids in a work sense. If the only answer is returning to the office, then maybe that’s what we actually deserve at this point.

The price of holiday clubs has increased to the point they are almost now a luxury, that’s if you can secure the spaces you need in the first place . A lot of my friends and colleagues are unable to rely on family support as many grandparents are still themselves working. What you describe is far from ideal but I can see how it happens.

Childcare has always been expensive- it cost a fortune when DS was young, but we just accepted that as a cost associated with working as we had to go into the office so had no other options apart from unpaid parental leave which I used as well. It meant compromising on holidays and making plans well in advance.

I have genuine sympathy for those on low wages but less so for most standard office jobs. In the case the OP stated the woman seemed to be at management level if they were organising an event together. She should have had the wherewithal to organise childcare in conjunction with her DP or solo if no partner.

Try 15% when I had my first. Both parents working, neither with exceptional salaries and 2/3rds of my salary on childcare. I had to go back to work 6 weeks after giving birth otherwise we would have lost our house. Tried to sell it but the housing market crashed due to interest rates so I had to get a second job in the evenings. Yes house prices, goid etc have gone up since then but so have salaries. Having children costs and childcare is one of those costs if you have to work. I'm now one of the group of people that everyone complains "has ut easy" because my mortgage is paid off and I can afford a holiday or two. My Gov pension does not cover my bills (small 2 bed terrace) but my private pension, that I saved, gives me a comfortable life. That said I get taxed to the hilt because I prepared for retirement. Somewhat f@£#!=g annoying when I worked for 50 years, waited an extra 6 years for my gov pension, worked 2 jobs a few times in my life to make sure we had a roof and food and went without holidays, new clothes etc until we could afford them. Its life and sometimes it's hard but no past generation "had it easy" despite what seems to be the thinking now.

With respect every single time some plonker comes along and tries to claim there were 15% rates. I have to get out the link that shows they were 15% for less than a week.

10% and above for longer than a week for many. Oh and "with respect" shows absolutely no respect when followed by calling someone "a plonker". But then respect is a rare find these days 🙄

Oh, you have it as hard as people who will retire at 70+ without a mortgage-free house and probably without a state pension?

I really don’t think it’s helpful to descend a thread into a competition on who had it harder.

If people can’t afford holiday childcare then they can’t afford it. It’s irrelevant what other people did in the past.

However there are options available to make childcare more affordable. I expect many people though just don’t want to spend the money and as a result other people (in this case, work colleagues) are inconvenienced. I find there is a weird aversion around paid childcare among some people I know.

I expect OP would not have posted if her colleague was genuinely mortified and gave a plausible explanation like my child is sick / I couldn’t find a holiday club / couldn’t afford it. However, it sounds like that didn’t happen, which does reek of entitlement somewhat, if a child is constantly interrupting. The last time I had a child off sick I explained to colleagues at the beginning of calls, and did my best to space calls out/reduce them as necessary.

At my work we are reminded that WFH is a privilege and we can be told to come back to the office full time at any point. If people take the piss too much then that’s more likely to happen.

You’re absolutely right. I’ve got no respect for people that lie to try and make it look as if they are in the position they are in because they were also clever as opposed to an accident of their time and location of birth.

You can have a go at me all you like but you actually can't see into the future so your comments are just whiney and jealous. I dont feel bad for having my house paid off, for having more than 1 holiday a year and for having a small car. I was late 40s before could afford a car and my mortgage got paid off when I retired. I do not get my nails done, wear expensive clothes, go on long haul expensive holidays. I worked hard and lived modestly and am now enjoying the rewards of following in my parents footsteps. Those who taught me that nothing us given and if you want something you work hard until you can afford it. My AC are in their early 30s and have their own houses, work and pay childcare. Again they were brought up not to whine or blame the previous generations but to go out there and work for what you want. They won't get a great inheritance from me because I'm using it to live now while I have time left. As for no state pension in the future, maybe have a go at all those currently sponging off the gov and not paying anything in rather than those of us who worked hard, saved and never expected something for nothing. I've done my time, paid my taxes and still paying so you won't make me feel bad 🥰

I don’t think anybody’s trying to make you feel bad as opposed to pointing out that you’re just full of shit 🥰

Born to working class parents in the 50s. Brought up on a large "rough" council estate, in the midlands, went to local schools and was an average student. Went into retail because wasn't "clever enough" for college. Found something I loved and worked my arse off. Overcame the "only men get manager positions" misogynistic views then, and showed them that many of us "women" could handle those roles. Eventually made it to a senior role then crash came and got made redundant (no big payouts then!). Got couple part time roles to pay mortgage and keep the house until set up my own business. Did that for 20 plus years then went back into retail. Eventually got another manager role before retiring just after covid as the business was struggling. So no silver spoon here, no parents to leave me a nice inheritance, because they died weeks apart and were still living in the council house where I was brought up with enough savings for their funeral. I have had a basic, hard working life but never envied anyone theirs. Sad that you assume (& you know what that word makes 🤔) that because someone questions your narrative you think you "know their story". Well there's a brief outline of my life, I've had some tragedies, but compared to some am lucky. Much of my "luck" has been how I was brought up, my parents strength and work ethics instilled the same in me and my siblings all of whom have worked hard and done OK. You are like so many now, have to have someone to blame rather than look at how you can improve. Im off to make myself a cup of Aldi tea (yep sorry to disappoint that Im not a wiatrose shopper) but once a council house girl... old habits and all that😉. Enjoy the rest of your sad and bitter day. Maybe one day you'll grow up and realise that no one owes you anything and that a lot of "luck" is down to you to make. Hope the OP gets her work done and the situation she found herself in doesn't impact on her job/income.

Thanks for the incoherent rant but I note it doesn't answer the question. Or rather it avoids answering it whilst making the answer perfectly clear.

Plenty of people are born to proper working class parents, Who no longer have access to rough Council estates or any others.
They do everything that you did that you think is so clever and yes still there will never have the privilege that you have due to just falling out of your mother’s vagina at the right time

You didn't ask a question, you made a statement about "having it as hard as people retiring in their 70s ....... it was I reply to that! You and bumblecoach should get together and have a good old moan about retired people, in their paid for homes, with their paid for pensions and how hard fone by uou are. Have a coffee or 2 might make you feel better about how difficult your lives are compared to those if us lucky to be born earlier and have everything given ymto us. You are both bitter, sad individuals. But like I said I'm actually learning to finally enjoy the rewards of working hard, saving when I eventually could afford to and looking up where to spend my next holiday. To those working to better their lives, paying out for childcare despite the cost and doing their best, keep going. You'll get there. You'll be older and there may be other complications but life is good and the bad shit is there to make you appreciate the shit free days. For some, sadly, it will always be shit because thats who they are and how they think 😉

Wow you really are bitter and twisted. Shame, maybe you need help, so that you'll understand that being disrespectful to someone who had no say in when/where they were born really doesn't "help your case". Shout at those that make the decisions about how the country is run and where the money goes. Hope your kids, if you have any, dont follow your attitude through life, they'll never be happy.