Is it just me, or is this working from home with children completely unsustainable?

[Lovemyphone]

I'm terrified that the schools will remain closed until September.

I'm wfh with two dc. Youngest is 4, as the weeks go by it's becoming more and more unbearable and I can't do it much longer. I'm on my own because dh is still out at work. My employer have been pretty good and taken a 'just do what you can when you can' approach. But the work is picking up again, at the same time the dc are climbing the walls now.

I can't even make a phone call or do an online meeting without constant "mummyyy", or one of them hurting themselves, or asking for snacks, or trashing the house.

Surely it's neglect to essentially leave your children unsupervised for 7-8 hours a day? Which is essentially what you're expected to do.

Is anyone else in this position and just cannot possibly see how this can go on?

@goldpendant yes I have used GP. They are in their 60s no underlying health issues and stayed at home except for shopping and walking the dog. It's only been a for a few hours but its helped. Their uncle also took them out for a long walk few days ago. I know they shouldn't be going to my parents but it felt like the best option before we all cracked up.

This thread is a godsend.

On Monday I found myself sitting on my kitchen floor crying with despair. Our DD's nursery said they won't be reopening on 1 June. However, we have managed to find a childminder who can offer us 2.5 days a week. It's not fulltime childcare, but compared to the zero we've had these last 9 weeks it is amazing.

Solidarity with you all. This situation is just horrific - for everyone, of course - but especially for working parents of young DC.

My work calmed down for a while and things were just about manageable but now it’s picked back up again. And while they make all the right noises about “just do what you can” the reality is the work is still THERE.

We’re in Scotland. When I heard yesterday that they were going to have the schools only open part-time in August I just about broke down in tears. How the fuck am I supposed to deliver “blended learning” when doing my own job? I’ve spent the past two months trying and failing while the toddler launches herself off furniture in the background. I am just clinging to some last shred of hope that they aren’t REALLY going to expect working parents to do this, surely, surely...

(sorry, that’s not official word on the Scottish schools, it’s what the papers were running with yesterday but may not be true of course.)

It's looking like DCs school and childminder will open June 1. I can see light at the end of the tunnel somehow, especially as the news from London on infection rates is good.

It's been such a rough ride. Now I just desperately need the dentist to open!

Sending good vibes to you all. Concerned7777 I can't believe your company made fucking league tables! What a crock of shit!

I read and shared this last night.

www.facebook.com/798750262/posts/10163446373035263/?d=n

Woke up this morning and someone I know, who liked it, has posted a meme along the lines of how Karen and her colour coded timetable needs to have a glass of wine at 3pm like everyone else and chill out. And I am so tired and premenstrual, that it feels like a dig. She doesn’t work and keeps posting about how hard she finds it to get the school work done.

I have three kids, a part time job and my husband works full time. Everyone else with school kids at work has been furloughed, so I’m picking up bits of their work. My husband bagged the study early on, so I spend all day, every day, at the dining room table with our autistic, dyslexic 10yo and the 14yo who needs constant prodding to get on with it. My 16yo should have been mid GCSE, so he’s okay work wise, but emotionally he’s a bit lost. I’m there all day, every day, Monday to Friday - and I am exhausted. I salute those going through this with younger children, I can’t even imagine how what that’s like. I did a training course on Monday, so DH swapped with me and it was lovely being him for the day. I’m taking a couple of days off at half term, but not the whole week because I’m the only one working, so all it really accomplishes is me having to cram my work into 2 days, although this is maybe doable without supervising school work.

It’s become pretty clear to me (I am a school trustee) that DS(10) won’t be back to school until September. My cleaners start back next week, so that will help a bit. I really hope schools can go back fully in September. The idea of having to do this to the end of the summer term is exhausting enough.

Our school seem fairly convinced they are reopening on the 1st for 4.5 days per week (DC1 is yr 1) and our nursery has never shut so DC2 will go back then as well. It is such a relief. To have some uninterrupted work time! I can stop feeling panicky the whole time.

Really really hope the schools go ahead. There were no new cases in London at all yesterday.

The longer this goes on I'm shocked the government haven't acknowledged working parents. The notion of doing any home school and retaining a job is a pile of crap and they want us to do it for another 3 months! We've barely done two and everyone is at breaking point, kids included.

They should have made concessions right at the start for families where two parents work full time and orders they be given paid leave or furlough. This is a mental health disaster waiting to happen. My brain has gone to absolute mush, I made a major cock up on work yesterday and the DC haven't picked up a pencil in days. They need to get schools back or allow more flexible (cheap) childcare. My DM is going to start coming twice a week, I'm done with this crap!

Great news @Breadandroses1 - our nursery is attached to the school and we've been told 2.5hrs a day but it'll be one week on, two off. So basically completely pointless

@goldpendant I had to give up work 2 years ago because I had dt. Should the furlough include me ? Our family could do with some extra too.

• because childcare was too expensive.

@zipzap02 paying for full time childcare in the form of a nanny is hardly equivalent to what most will pay for wrap around childcare or after school clubs. There's a vast difference between the two and implying that people should be able to afford it all of a sudden is stupid.

The narrative that school isn't childcare is silly - of course it isn't, but it does allow most people to work if they wish to without footing massive childcare bills.

I wasn't talking about a nanny , I was talking about nursery childcare. Normal childcare.

And it's not polite to call a comment , stupid.

If I want to put my DD in a day nursery here in SW London it will cost me the best part of £90 per day, never mind the fact that they have long waiting lists! Then I'd still need childcare for DS who is school aged - nursery won't take a 6 year old. Childminders are full or working only for keyworker families before you ask.

The point I was making is that where there are no viable childcare options, families with two working parents need to be given, officially and fairly, time off to care for and educate their children. My company is pretty good but many I've heard about are terrible, that inequality isn't right.

Naive then. Sorry.

I understand your point. The point I was making was that, I have twins and I would like to work but I can't afford childcare. I couldn't before all of this. Shouldn't everyone be afforded time off to care for their families? Families like us that couldn't afford childcare to begin with?

I think you're the naive one. Just because you are already a two parent working family , doesn't mean you should get extra help us one working parent families wouldn't get.

Those were choices you made because of your personal situation @zipzap02 - and of course you can't plan for twins. I too didn't bother going back to work when DC were small because of enormous nursery fees.

But with all due respect, this thread wasn't about the unfairness of childcare costs for parents that want to return to work (that's another thread!), it's about the unfairness of being thrust into an unprecedented situation and being asked to carry on our roles as normal!

Because @zipzap02 it's a public health emergency- if there's a parent at home not working, they can reasonably be expected to do the bulk of childcare (as they presumably do already).

Where there are two working parents the pressure doubles, the resources are spread far more thinly, and as has been said here already the care we can offer our children borders on neglectful.

Anyway, we've derailed the thread somewhat with this squabble, shall we agree to disagree?

I understand things are difficult
With two working parents. I knew I would be neglectful if I worked from home without childcare (because I couldn't afford it) so I chose not to. It's your choice not to work too.
I want to work just like you. What I'm saying is all families should get what you want.

I'm speaking in regard to the current pandemic, not anything that existed prior!

Yes it would be fab if all childcare was free always but that's not what this thread is about!

Normally my kids aren't neglected in any way, they go to school and nursery and my mum has them for a few hours afterwards- those options are both gone now and I'm suddenly expected to find and pay through the roof for an alternative, as well as do my role. This is the point I was making @zipzap02 - sorry if it wasn't clear.

I understand your point. But this is how we were before all this. I just feel it was ignored. You're right, it's another thread.