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.

Dang....my office is on Hong Kong. That's a heck of a commute.
Thankfully you're not in charge of me and I definitely don't take advantage.

This. And sour grapes because they had to do it “the hard way”. Ingrained misogyny and very disheartening. Don’t worry ladies, it’s still hard - probably harder

Did she even apologise?

Bollocks.

It is so disheartening that it is predominantly women still doing the juggling. My mum was more career driven than my dad, and I’m more career driven than DH, which probably speaks to why childcare hasn’t ever been my responsibility alone.

The cycle continues. We’ll never close the gender pay gap if women don’t insist on parental equality.

In the meantime employers get half a job and kids get half the care. It’s a shitty situation in the majority of cases.

Yep. And this is why so many companies are bringing their employees back to the office - because some people are taking the mick.

Calling someone’s comment Bollocks is pretty undermining to women. Great for you to have so cleverly landed a DH into parental equality and big clap for being career driven, more so than him - wow!

How do we know that this colleague’s DH isn’t also in the same boat and doing the same?! And we certainly don’t know she’s doing a “half-arsed” job. That assumption in itself is misogynistic. Most people I know WFH during the holidays have an overlap of a half day or so where they are also doing childcare, maybe with their partner. It’s just how it goes and is no big fucking deal. Personally I’d not have done it during a big meeting, but honestly! The vitriol against women / shouldn’t be juggling but if they do juggle they are also doing everyone a disservice?! Literally people - gasp - even single fathers, sometimes just do it for endless reasons.

So annoying on Teams. No one thinks your child : dog is cute or funny for interrupting. Really unprofessional.

@Blondeshavemorefun (hope I’ve got the right PP) I find it amazing how many people are shocked at the cost of holiday childcare- assuming we are talking about school holidays they’ve had 4 years to look at local options and prices?

Office attendance policy/WFH policy is one of my areas. I have a school age child and I am full of sympathy for the odd my child is sick and I need to WFH unforeseen emergency but school holidays aren’t unforeseen.

I’ve had to go to my own manager (CEO) about working with DS at home for two days and explained he was attending the one holiday club that was running 10-2, all grandparents were abroad and DH and I were taking equal turns WFH with a KS2 child around. CEO was fine about it as a short term one off. If I had asked to do that for 6 weeks I would have got a different response.

Lunch break I expect, people can go on whatever forum they want to on breaks.

There's another thread on Mumsnet at the moment started by a woman (wfh) who hasn't arranged any childcare at all for August as she says that there isn't much work to do. She then plans to take some of her annual leave when the children go back to school so that she can take a holiday on her own and have a rest.

When my children were young I stopped working to look after them as my husband’s job was long unsociable hours and I couldn’t rely on him to help out. We just about managed to live, pay a mortgage and all clubs my kids went to. There was no way I could have had a work from home job with my toddler in the background, it was unheard of!

I think people are just generally self absorbed though. I was in a garden centre cafe today, where there’s a little walkway through to the main shop. This woman was pushing her buggy and holding her little one’s hand while he toddled along, there wasn’t enough room to get past while they were at a snails pace, with the mother speaking in a loud lentil weaving voice, “ooh look at those lights Timothy, ooh you are such a clever boy.” Meanwhile behind them the trail of people was getting larger. Completely oblivious to anything other than her own world.

My kids know they only come in when I’m on a call if there’s blood or fire involved. Thankfully they haven’t come in. Would be appalled if any of my team did this on an external call.

I’m completely with you op. After you’ve sent the email I’d ring her boss and have a chat with him about it. I’ve wfh for over 10 years and during Covid I had no issue with peoples kids, but there’s no excuse for it now. It’s simply unprofessional and unacceptable now. My dc are late teens but when they were little I used to pay and take my children to a childminder. There’s no way I could do my job with young children to look after

I’m completely with you op. After you’ve sent the email I’d ring her boss and have a chat with him about it. I’ve wfh for over 10 years and during Covid I had no issue with peoples kids, but there’s no excuse for it now. It’s simply unprofessional and unacceptable now. My dc are late teens but when they were little I used to pay and take my children to a childminder. There’s no way I could do my job with young children to look after

I’m completely with you op. After you’ve sent the email I’d ring her boss and have a chat with him about it. I’ve wfh for over 10 years and during Covid I had no issue with peoples kids, but there’s no excuse for it now. It’s simply unprofessional and unacceptable now. My dc are late teens but when they were little I used to pay and take my children to a childminder. There’s no way I could do my job with young children to look after

Completely unprofessional and ttp! So unfair on everyone else who arranges childcare to be able to do their job efficiently.

No, we dont think your child is cute while needing to get on with the necessary stuff and do our job.

Yes, my GC go to various clubs over the summer and most of them end between 3 and 3.30, the length of the normal school day. Since so many children go into after-school clubs during the term it is strange that they don't run longer hours, but I suppose that would cost even more, and they're expenive enough already.
Many of the clubs around here finish a week or more before the end of the holidays so that the schools can clean up after them and get ready for the term, though exactly what this entails I have no idea.
I really don't understand why there are fewer clubs now, I'd have thought that parents wfh wouldn't want their children at home during the day - but from what people have written here this clearly isn't the case.

Are these self employed people I take it? Otherwise complain to their boss. Unprofessional.

I feel bad when one of my kittens pokes his head into a call! I do find it really distracting when its a child and that would be an absolute no on an external call. She should have rescheduled or requested to discuss by email. I would email her like you said but without the manager unless she becomes difficult.

I entirely agree with you. I have dc of both nursery and primary school age - it’s a balancing act of whether to take leave or take the financial hit of holiday clubs so that we can take leave together.

Wfh doesn’t work when young children are also home and should be for emergencies only.

Sitting at home on "teams" or "calls" isn't really working though is it? so doesn't really matter if the kids are there or not.

Unfortunately it's parents like this that gives WFH a bad name. I WFH on Monday mornings in the holidays because this is when our team meeting is and I can't take annual leave on Monday mornings unless I'm having the whole week off.

However my children are 10 and 13 so they're on the Xbox for an hour then we spend the rest of the day together (booked hours as annual leave). There is absolutely no way people should be working from home with children unless their children can safely entertain themselves. Full stop.

People like this ruin WFH for everyone. Like most parents, I have childcare needs. No family or help. It's either myself or my husband or a club.

Like everything, it is open to exploitation. My contract doesn't accommodate WFH with children home, rightly so. I'd neither be working or parenting with the focus either deserve. It also means we have a limited amount of time we can take to go away as a family.

I know lots of people who do this though. This then saves them annual leave and cash that they can use for family holidays.

Ultimately the other colleagues and the kids are the ones who suffer.

Childcare is expensive and the juggle is hard but I wish people would stop taking the mick like this. WFH is really important for me to be able to juggle working and life. People like your colleague puts it under significant scrutiny. It's just selfish.

Yep. I get it a cost

I have to pay for some days

but you know it’s coming and if paid for childcare from 1-4/5 then should be able to manage to pay for maybe 10w out of the usual 13/14w state get

when used to pay for 52w full time minus holidays

Definitely not acceptable and gives WFH a bad name. It's ok with an older child (who can play or watch tv independently) for an hour or so, but not this!!