Another childcare rant - how do people do it?!

[SMLSML]

If you and your partner both work how do you manage childcare? My eldest started school in September and prior to this we had wraparound care in nursery. We now use after school club, however this is committee led and we've just had an email saying it's at risk of closure due to not enough volunteers. If you don't use after school club how do families make it work? Do grandparents help 5 days a week? Honestly sick of this country not helping working parents 🫠 the irony of parents needing to be on the committee to keep it open when you're already busy working and juggling a million other school bits and pieces is hilarious to me also 😅 it's something I'd love to be part of but have no idea how if find time... Any and all advice welcome!

We chose a school slightly further away that had robust wrap around care. We had to pay for it though. Is yours free, is that why they have volunteers rather than paid staff members?
Otherwise we would have needed to find a childminder.
We both worked condensed hours so had one day off each a week, so only needed wrap around 3 days a week but those were long days. Dropped him at breakfast club at 07.30, picked him up at 17.30.

Agreed. If all it takes to keep your desired childcare open, surely the most convenient thing is one of you joining the committee?! I find it hard to believe that with your first child going into primary school, between 2 working adults you are so busy you can't fit in a monthly meeting.

There is no magic answer. Flexible hours, part time work, access to better childcare grandparents.

Our access to wrap around was poor too, so I went part time. It closed on Mondays and Fridays a year after we started.

We did 'pick a school' with wrap around, but it closed. Also the concept of picking a school in some areas isnt reality. Everywhere was oversubscribed in my town, and catchments didnt exist. it was just distance, so unless you found a house right next to a school, that was for sale, that you could afford, you couldn't guarantee a place anyway so could waste a fortune.

You’re being very dismissive. I very much doubt you would be so flippant if it was yourself or a friend. She might be behind a user name but she’s a person. She lived somewhere where there was provision, the situation changed, do you really think it’s a simple as moving? Potentially selling, buying, paying stamp duty, removals. Would they need to change jobs? That’s before you even get to impact on the children.

It’s not as simple as that and you know it.

How do people do it?

well, I’ll tell you how we did it 30 years ago when there were far fewer wraparound care options and before any subsidised childcare/ free hours whatsoever.

First of all, I returned to work after 3 months as that was the end of paid maternity leave. We spent a big chunk of money every week on day nursery costs. When dc2 came along, childcare was equivalent to my take home pay! So no extra money at all, though I hung on in there for the pension and career progression.

then came the school years. Great, I thought, at least we’re getting 6 hours a day ‘free’ and only paying before/ after school and holiday care. But back then there was no breakfast/ after school club and this was in a town, a fairly large primary school not a rural village. So we ended up having to pay for a nanny style arrangement, employing someone to do the before and after school care. Dh and I staggered our annual leave for several years, so we literally just took one week together, during the school summer holiday when we’d go away. 28 days leave is the minimum you’ll have so that’s 56 days between you, 11 weeks of working days so actually you can cover a fair bit of school holidays without needing to pay for care. Yes it’s a pain when you have to take most of it separately, but try to look at the positives - it means the kids get quality time with each parent.

I absolutely get that it’s not a race to the bottom. But My post illustrates that actually, childcare subsidies and provision are actually far better now than at any time in the past. There’s also the right to request flexible working now which wasn’t a thing when we had kids.

of course it’s not easy and it’s not cheap when you have kids but quite frankly it’s not the governments job to hand every thing on a plate. There will be a solution but living rurally it may mean you just have to throw a lot of money at it for the next few years.

we just accepted in the end that the primary school years cost practically as much in childcare as nursery had. At least the upside was that when they went on to secondary school and hit teenage years we felt we’d won the lottery with no childcare outlay! Then comes university and with means tested student loans, you find yourselves as working parents paying out hundreds a month to pay their rent!!

i totally get how challenging it can feel to juggle it all but it’s really not the Govt’s job to provide everything.

I am really sorry, but if you have children, they are your responsibility not anybody else’s. You have to cut your suit according to your cloth whilst you need childcare and you have to work your jobs so that there is always one of you available when they are needed.
It is nobody else’s responsibility but yours to look after the children that you created.

Relying on one option with no backup strategy isn’t what I’d call “planning.” Planning involves contemplating various (worst-case) scenarios and how you would manage in each. Unrealistic to settle on one thing and assume it will never change.

I was a single parent working full time the whole time DD was at school. I had no family help. It was a huge juggle! It was a mixture of childminder and wrap around school care which were all ££! Hardly surprising many people are only having one child. You know it’s going to cost money but until you’re actually trying to work and support a child through school you have no idea how difficult it is.

Will you get an MBE for your perfection do you think?

Very well said, @crossedlines

After school club, actual clubs, childminder and my mum is what I patched together and I worked part time!

@SMLSMLcheck what the after school club needs in way of volunteering- it sounds like it is run as not for profit, which means while the staff are paid, they need volunteers to run the charity board. How much time do they require? Would you or your DP be able to go on the board for a couple of years to keep it ticking over? It would probably be some evening meetings. It might be helpful for your cvs to have been on a charity’s board.

this is the model lots of preschools are run with. Then generally every 4 years or so they have a crisis as the parents who joined the board to keep it going for their dc have all their kids at school so resign with a “it doesn’t matter now if it closes.”

Otherwise ask the school if they have invited private companies not charities to run the after school club. Check the council doesn’t have anyone new listed as a childminder covering this school.

@JustTryingToBeMe bit harsh of a reply. It is in the governments interest to help mainly women back into work as they then contribute to taxes for the country. With the aging population they need more people putting money in the pot.

This isn’t what the OP asked, she asked how do people juggle it all. Asking for advice or workarounds, not judgment telling her to find another job in what is a horrible
job market right now. Or that they are failing as parents as they don’t always have a one parent available when needed, way to pile on the parent guilt.

Most families nowdays more than ever before need two working parents to be able to survive. The phase we are expect as women to work like we don’t have kids and parent like we don’t work comes to mind. A bit of compassion can go a long way?

@CheeseIsMyIdol A parent might be able to pick a school with an afterschool club and several local childminders -

But if the club closes (a) everyone will then be looking for a childminder space and there won't be enough and (b) there wouldn't be a number of local childminders on top of the ASC if there wasn't the demand for both, AKA the childminders will probably be full already with other children (eg those whose parents decided on a home setting rather than ASC, who did full time care with the CM before school years and then stayed on for after school care, whose parents couldn't get a space in the ASC etc)

Surely you could take a half day annual leave to volunteer? I know you can't commit to every week but you could do other things, ask other parents to do the odd day.

Me and my ex are both self employed so we can do the school runs, I admire parents who can't do that and have to juggle after school clubs, child minders, changing jobs/shifts etc. I don't know how a lot of people do it!

Our village school has no after school care. There are no childminders picking up from the school. Our kids get the school bus home as we’re not walking distance, and luckily we are able to work from home so nip out to meet the bus and then continue working. However, I know other parents who don’t work from home who have had to find a part time nanny. Try local Facebook groups, Nextdoor, or even childcare.co.uk. There are sometimes retired people or students, shift workers etc who would be happy to do a couple of hours after school. Or put a post on the school page? Perhaps another parent or one of the LSAs would be interested? You have my sympathy though, it’s a complete pain. BTW, don’t get dragged into the wrap around care committee unless you know what you are getting involved in. It sounds like they are a charity and need trustees - which is fair, but being a trustee does come with legal obligations. Which should not be taken lightly or stumbled into when you are employing staff and caring for children.

I've never heard of an after school club that requires parent volunteers. Is it to keep the cost down? Could you suggest raising the cost of the club and not using volunteers if that means it can stay open?

Do they mean volenteers for the committe?
Which really means parents to keep the charitable status. At which point why not join the committee?

Out of a five day week I dropped to four days, WFH on one but take my lunch at school pick up time, and then my wonderful DM/MIL do pick up the other three days and feed them/keep them until we finish work. Very very lucky to have this set up.

Alternative would be paid childminder or after school club, ours is an outsourced company and charges the going rate so there is little risk of that being closed.

Agree that the lack of support for working families is disappointing. So many people either rely on the goodwill of family members, employer flexibility, and the availability of reliable good quality childcare in order to work earn a decent living.

It’s a preschool that does after school care as well. They are often charities and will need trustees for the board.

We had a lovely childminder who started looking after DD when she was 1 and told us from the start she didn’t do wraparound/ school runs.

By the time DD was ready to start school the CM was very attached to her and agreed to do the after school pick up as long as long as DD attended the school a few mins from her house. Luckily DD got into that school😅

The early years juggling childcare in this country can be an absolute nightmare. Mine are 10 and 12 now and our childminder was only marginally cheaper than a nursery (but worth every penny) so I remember those expensive years. People are very blasé with their “just move to an area with more childcare” advice. It is NOT that simple!

We have a 4 year old in reception and a 1 year old in nursery. My partner and I work flexibly, a mixture of wfh, office based and reduced/flexible hours. I don't work on Mondays and Tuesdays, 1 year old is home with me on those days. I do drop offs and pick ups for my 4 old on those days. We alternate our wfh days, partner wfh on Wednesday and Fridays, I wfh Thursdays. I'm in the office Wednesdays and Fridays, he is in the office Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whoever is in the office does drop offs in the mornings but doesn't do pick ups. This allows the person wfh to start earlier and do pick up for 3:15. It's not an exact science at the moment and it's bloody exhausting but we communicate when we have a meeting that can't be shifted or when we have to stay in the office late. We do also use our mums sometimes for the school pick ups and they'll sit at our house for a few hours while we finish up with work. We're also both really lucky our employers are very work life balance friendly so that's a massive help, as long as the work gets done they're happy for us to work flexibly around childcare. My stress levels on the other hand are at 100, always thinking about where I need to be and if I've forgotten something and we both find ourselves having to work after the kids bedtime.

It will be a volenteer committe with paid staff.
It effectively means a not for profit, charitable organisation. Ours means 4 meetings a year, but we also have paid accountants, who also operate an HR service.

But if the paid manager was to quit it would mean the committee trying to find a replacement - so keep the manager happy!

What a nasty piece of work you are 'just trying to be me' well please don't because quite frankly you trying to be you is a dreg on our society. Please try to be someone better for all of our sakes.

Back to your point.

OP had childcare. This was planned out accordingly and she thought long and hard about this, putting them in the most appropriate school to address her needs. Since joining the school, a scenario out of her control has meant the school care provision may be no longer available in future. .

Maybe there is a possibility for one or both parents to change jobs in the future but you must understand that is not that easy especially since we're in the worst job market since the last recession. Often flexible working is made available for workers who have been long standing in their role and that's assuming their career is something not client focussed where they work outside of the home.

It is always easy to be flippant behind a screen when the situation doesn't concern you personally. Of course children are more than just the parents responsibility, without children the workers of the future reduce to keep cogs moving and help fund state pensions! The dropping birth rate indicates the limited amount of help working parents get!

We're human with feelings, have some compassion and regard.

I say all this as someone without a school age child.