Childcare and working - WWYD?

[Wittyname10]

I've received lots of helpful advice here in the past and am coming to the wise sages of mumsnet for more help.

I work in a job that is seasonal, think 5 months of busy/on the phone/sales etc, 7 months of being relatively quiet, with spreadsheets and lots of desk-based work.

My wife and I have 2 kids, 2.5 yo boy and 4.5 year old girl. Daughter will be going to school in August - Scotland - and son will be starting nursery in February when he turns 3.

For various reasons we are now on to our third childminder in our rural setting. They are very limited in number and the ones we have fill up very quickly.

Current childminder who looks after my son had to give up caring for our daughter as she was having to do school runs of her own and sending over an hour each way dropping off/picking up my daughter and her kids, with my son spending way longer than she was happy with in the car.

I have been WFH on Mondays and Tuesdays so I can drop the kids off and pick my daughter up from nursery at 3pm, my wife picking up my son on her way home from work at 5pm.

When I get home at 3.10 with my daughter she has TV for an hour or so, and then busies herself with activities, colouring and painting or imaginative play etc.

I was called in to my line manager this morning to discuss the situation, as this WFH is not contracted, but has been something everyone has been doing since COVID. The company even consulted on hybrid working to assess how it was working for everyone and approved to continue the hybrid set up.

My situation was approved - unofficially - by my line manager who said if asked he cannot lie, but won't mention anything to senior managers.

I was told this morning it has been questioned, with a screenshot being sent of me appearing to be "away" (MS teams) for over an hour. I was not privvy to when this was but I could have been on my mobile/having lunch etc. The point is that there are times where I'm not active on Teams and sometimes maybe take a longer coffee break than I would at the office if I'm WFH when theres not a lot happening work-wise (this time of year is what we call the "dead zone" between sales ending and end of year things starting).

Now I should point out that when I WFH I am online usually an hour before I need to be to accommodate the school run, will respond to emails after working hours etc, so I'm trying to re-pay the company in terms of time because they are (were) accommodating my needs.

I was told this morning that a potential promotion in the next year is being reconsidered as I am perceived to not be flexible enough to do the job that is coming up. It will involve a lot of travel, and I'm being told that me needing to be at home for school runs 2 days a week inhibits my ability to do the job.

We will not be able to find any childcare options, wraparound care has cost us 2 childminders already and isn't really an option. Everyone is full, including the private nurseries around us.

Family are close to us, but it's unfair to expect them to step in for 2 days a week - particularly my BIL as they have 3 kids of their own so couldn't take their kids and ours to/from nursery/school in 1 run anyway.

My wifes parents are retired and are busy people, they already do a day per week of childcare for us as well as various bits and bobs of childcare for my BIL's 3 kids.

My parents are 80 miles away, so I'd be asking them to come through weekly to do about 8 hours of childcare over 2 days.

My wife is already working her minimum hours at work and cannot do any less than her 3.5 days per week.

Sorry this is so long, I didn't want to leave anything out.

My options are:

1 - I tell work I have explored every option and this is literally all I can do, accepting it will effectively rule me out of an opportunity that will not come around again in the next possibly 30 years and make do with hat I've got.

2 - I tell work I need more flexibility and if they cannot provide this I will be looking elsewhere.

3 - Place an unfair burden on my family in order to advance my career

4 - Ask my wife to look for a job that can allow her to drop more time, which we could just about manage financially, but she'd be dropping a whole day at work to pick up the kids at 3pm which seems total overkill.

5 - anything else?

This is a nightmare, so thank you for reading and contributing. All opinions welcome.

Also love the practical advice and pointers in Autumnleaves post! Fab.
But I would avoid getting into a tussle with employer. Just be very polite and professional and don’t back yourself into any corners.

I’m surprised someone would be sending screenshots of your Teams status. I don’t think people do that to team members that are producing a good level of output. I have Teams on my phone and sometimes the sync between phone and PC ends up with me looking offline when I’m not. I also sometimes choose to show my status as offline so I can focus on a specific task. I would argue the Teams status with them, because it’s not nice to feel that you’re not trusted/watched and personally I wouldn’t want to work for a company who is accusing me of skiving.

However, you really can’t have the kids there when you WFH. I understand, I have a 8 and 5 year old. What do you do in school holidays? It‘s so unprofessional when you’re on a teams call and someone has kids running around or screaming behind them. They can’t possibly be focusing on ensuring the kids are attended to well, and working well.

I have a nanny, and WFH full time and I appreciate not everyone can do this but I would never try to juggle kids and work at the same time.

I am contracted 9-5.30 but I actually work 8-6.30pm most days and rarely take lunch. This is my choice but if I were for some reason to need to do a school run, I would do this instead of, not as well as, a lunch break. I never take “tea breaks” certainly not extended ones. If I have no work; I find work. I’ve never had a job where I can’t find something proactive to do. If it’s that bad, ask your boss for some work.

It sounds like you need to sit down with your wife and look at the overall work/finances to determine what is best to do. It sounds like the problem with the new role is travel, not your current WFH situation. If the new role is going to pay significantly more it may make more sense for your family for your wife to work less, for you to push forward in your own career. Equally maybe your wife has other opportunities she’s not pursuing and you could both focus on her career for a bit? I think any decisions need to be part of a wider picture and we don’t have those details to best advise.

First of all well done for taking your childcare responsibilities seriously- I know it should be a given, but it feels like it's unusual for a DF to put them at the heart and centre of his arrangements.

However because of this, I agree with your employers. You need to wfh 2 days a week and if the new role requires significant travel, then without different childcare arrangements its hard to see how that would work.

Also it's important to show a bit of give and take, particularly in the scenario where your manager is letting you wfh without childcare.

I'd be scrupulous about making sure you don't take more than your allotted breaks and if you are working late or early - especially early as people don't see that as much - make sure to send out emails and meeting invites so people can see you're working then. Also if a meeting comes in at lunchtime make sure you never say you're off for a run or whatever, either accept it and reschedule or say you have a clash.It sounds a bit cheesy and demeaning but a lot of working life is about the image you present and sadly at the minute it feels like they might view you as being a bit work shy - absolutely not saying this is the case, but be careful of the image you present.

I sometimes show as away on teams, infact my manager is permanently ‘away’ on teams however if you send her a message, she replies within a minute. I feel that if your productivity is not suffering then it’s a shame that they are sending screenshots of your teams profile. At my work, we have monthly productivity target and as long as you meet them all and come to the office on your 2 core days, you’re fine.
Anyway, in your shoes, I’ll try and see what can work before passing off on promotion.

1. an afterschool nanny. There’s a website called childcare.co.uk and some other similar ones where you can search for someone who offers something like that in your area.
2. As I understand, your first child is not going to school till next year, can you not just change her to go back to the nursery your younger one goes to for those 2 days and your wife can bring them both home. Obviously it’ll cost more than it costs at the moment.
3. when she’s going to school, make sure you select one that has wrap around care even if it’s not the closest to you so long as you can get in and get her there. The outstanding school that’s 10 mins walk from my house does not have after school club and I ended up sending my dd to a ‘good’ school that’s 7 minutes drive ( would be 40 mins walk ) because of their after school provision.
4. if renting, move house to a bigger city with better childcare options if it does not affect yours or your wife’s work.

Managers are not that stupid. We know who is faking it, and there are many ways we can prove it.

We also do not allow WFH where someone is in sole charge of a child during working hours. And school runs etc have to be logged out time not "breaks". Attendance at work is measured the same way as in the office - if you are away from work then you must log out or show evidence of a legitimate and allowable reason (such as a personal medical appointment).

To be honest I think your employer has been honest. If you cannot meet their requirements then you perhaps need to look for a job that works better for you, or find childcare.

Whilst I understand your comments about unfairness towards your family, I'm not sure why you think it's fair that your employer has to pick up the problem?

Apply formally for flexible working

Thanks for your feedback first of all.

I do think they’ve been honest yes, but their inflexibility towards the situation we are in has been a bit OTT. I know for a fact that there is a married couple within the organisation who are both 4 days a week and don’t sen their youngest to nursery/childminder etc, their days overlap and they seem to have been overlooked/ignored by senior managers. They are both more senior than me, I don’t really know what to make of that other than it’s not really my business to question it.

I don’t want my employer to take responsibility, that would be daft. I’m just asking for a bit of breathing space for a few hours a week, when I am actually able to and do work, my daughter watches tv and plays away by herself. It’s not like I’m downing tools to look after her for the 4 hours we spend in the house together during my working day.

I’m not meaning to try and minimise the issue, I just don’t see how, in my role, it’s affecting my performance. It just isn’t and there’s no metric around that would suggest it is hindering my job performance.

Thanks for the feedback.

Point 1: tried without success to find someone.

Point 2: youngest is at a childminder who for her own kids sake she had to stop having my daughter as she wasn’t able to do the multiple drop offs at different locations in the mornings/afternoons. The childminded kids were spending nearly 3 hours a day just driving about doing the pick ups etc.

Point 3: we don’t have that flexibility unfortunately, there’s only 1 school she can go to and, all her friends are going and she has a couple of cousins there too so it wouldn’t really be fair on her.

Point 4: own our home, we moved here so we could afford to get somewhere a bit bigger than what we could afford if we were nearer big cities. Also finally starting to our roots down here after moving here during covid. My in laws also sold the family home and moved here to be closer to the grand kids, I think they’d be a bit pissed off if we moved away!

Sorry Neriah the post 2 up was meant as a response to yours, can’t fix it on my mobile.

Have you applied for flexible working?

I haven’t, and I’m not really sure what our flexible working policy is but I will find out tomorrow.

Thank you all for your input, some great practical advice with minimal patronising.

Our childminder has, fortunately, agreed to do wraparound care for the 2 kids starting when she returns from her holiday in a weeks time, so thats a positive. It's costing us basically another mortgage but I guess we all have to deal with that don't we?

This is probably a temporary fix, as her kids go to a different school to the one my daughter will go to, so in the summer things will in all likelihood change again and she will have to stop but at least now I can go to my boss and say I've sorted it for now.

I've actually found in the last couple of days that I've felt a lot lighter at the prospect of NOT taking on a promotion at this time. It would put so much pressure on me and my family that I don't know if it's really what I want, so that has given me food for thought.

We can maintain our current lifestyle, which is by no means lavish but we get by, at our current levels of work. It's not what we planned long term but this problem of childcare is not going to go away until the kids are probably 10/11 so its definitely a 6 or 7 year problem.

If your daughters friends and cousins are going to same school could t th pick up for you twice a week and have her till 5 for play date /you pay them

As under 2hrs won't need to register as a cm etx

I have a similar situation coming up for myself. Next year my DS will start school and I’m hoping to collect him from school at 3 and plonk him with his toys or Tv while I finish work. I’ll prob not tell my employer but I know plenty of people who do this. His school will be 2 mins walk away. He’ll do wrap around care the days I’m in the office.

Id not threaten them with leaving. At the moment more and more companies are going for more days in the office so you’ll unlikely find something more flexible.

Do you think a flexible working request would be considered whereby you finish at 3pm 2 days and do longer hours on the other days. You could formalise that you basically start work earlier those days.

It’s a nightmare isn’t it? Is your job one that you can work around your workload?

Im weighing up all the options at the moment. Leaving the job is bottom
of the list unless I can get something lined up elsewhere, this is an industry where everyone knows everyone and I’m hesitant to circulate a CV in case it were to get back to my company.

Like I say it’s an option, but it still leaves me “inflexible” for the two days I’d be picking up at 3pm, when in fact all it would be in reality is I would need the space to plan those days accordingly. Eg if there was something urgent I could arrange a granny to collect them or I was allowed to actually plan my own week and not be treated like a child. I’m 30 years old ffs!