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?

Er no.

I saw a sahp for a really long time for financial reasons. We're now a two working parent family.

I just feel like I've been screwed twice not that it's fine because at one point I couldn't afford childcare anyway.

It's not like I can just quit working and go back to being a sahp now. Kids get more expensive as they get older not less!

I was a sahp

Kids are as expensive as you make them. I'd love more money too.

2 of my friends have moved in with grandparents/moved grandparents in with them so that they can all provide childcare and work from home more effectively.

In both cases grandparents are under 70 and healthy (and working from home themselves in one case) so they are obviously fortunate in that aspect and also fortunate that they have enough space in the house for all.

Another friend has combined house with her sibling and isolates as though they were all one house (but sleep in their own houses) so that they can provide childcare for each others children and work more effectively.

More and more are going to do things like this as it simply isn't sustainable until September. And realistically, employers that are paying full salary are not going to be content with part productivity for the best part of 6 months.

I couldn't imagine anything worse tbh (I don't have kids btw). I sympathise with all people who are working from home with kids right now.
Whilst employers are sympathetic at present I envisage that this tide will turn in some companies. I already know it will in mine, especially now that our business is starting to ramp up...

Hah let’s avoid the derail

One step closer to the weekend already

Friend at work told me they have been offered 12.30-2.30 for nursery, sounds as pointless as what you have been offered gold and again the non working parents will be able to manage around that and the working ones... I would find that tough to manage tbh around work calls especially 1) my calendar is already mainly scheduled now and 2) not knowing how long you would need to queue for to get them in / out

friend told me that the only reason DP and I are finding it easy with DP's DD is because she is 9 years old and so easier to handle than a younger child and because we have 50/50 shared care with DP's soon to be ex wife Haha haha.

Mine are 15 & 13, and 50/50 care between us and exDH. It isn't easier. 15 Yr old has NOTHING to do, 13 year old has school work which he does do independently. But they all need lunch, dinner, I have frequent interruptions, arguments over PS4 use ( and pressure on room use as both DH and I try to work FT from home, seeing clients and also all the self-employed admin. I am also very worried about income and the drop off in work for us both has been huge. So feeling the pressure of trying to market and sell (what we do can be done virtually), but people are reluctant to spend. I feel pressure right now in every area of my life and it's overwhelming.

I am fucking exhausted. In the weeks they are at their dad's they are enabled to lie around, do fuck all, not help out, and when they come home to us they want the same. I am exhausted by trying to hold boundaries for behaviour, expectations - DH and I refuse to be slaves to teenaged boys. But I have very little emotional capacity right now.

I think most people are finding this very tough right now.

No full-time schools here in Scotland until God knows when. 'Blended learning' from August so we'll still be expected to support them from home half the time. But it's okay, because they will ask employers to be understanding!

At least we might get nurseries back at some point over the summer, that's something I suppose?

Update
I posted on a local forum looking for childcare last night and one sniper said 'I needed to think carefully about bringing someone into my home - given the risk to them'.
Ffs
We have probably had it
We have mental jobs - linked to the bloody crisis
My mental health is shot
And it is allowed

Golden must admit I don’t know how I would cope if I faced blended learning into the autumn - I mean what does it even mean?

I don’t have the headspace right now to chase DD1 to do schoolwork plus do my own work - and mine pays the bills so learning about dinosaurs will have to wait ...

I am really crossing my fingers that in England we don’t have that otherwise I have no idea what we will do. Hire someone to tutor during the day? Shared tutor with other school friends?

I assume all schools will be doing blended learning when they open - whether in June, August or September. In order to maintain social distancing, school pupils will need to be spread out, so can't all attend all day or every day. No word on how/whether afterschool clubs will be opening.

I am hugely worried about it. I cannot see how I'm going to be able to do my job without fulltime wraparound care. Especially if WFH is phased out. DP and I have endless conversations about this and go round and round with it, trying to figure out a solution. It's a nightmare.

No schools opening here til sept. We decided last night we're going to give this 1 more month, see how it goes, if no improvements on horizon I'm going to hand in notice. So 2 months more max.
We really can't go on like this for the foreseeable future.

Zero sad to hear that it’s come to this

what a tough decision

Thanks...yes it's tough to say it when you consider there's mass unemployment at the moment and plenty of people would love to have a job like mine. What dh and i are realising though is that it no longer makes sense to compare our individual situation with that of others, too many variables.

To be honest I just put these baby's on and it seems allot easier lol

Yes to the ear defenders @apropercatlady they were one of my first purchases.

I've found as lockdown goes on I've become less and less tolerant of friends I see in an "easier" position than us complaining about lockdown so no kids, on maternity leave, SAHP, very part time jobs etc. It's horrible and I hate myself for it as I know everyone is finding it hard but I dont feel like I have the mental bandwith to catch up on Zoom calls with them when I'm working until 9.30pm every evening after the DCs are in bed and then back at my desk by 6.45am and then trying to catch up at weekends. I feel like such a shitty person but I have literally just closed the doors on everything at the moment other than coping.

My parents are sending helpful pictures of them on lovely long walks, picnics and day trips which is also giving me the rage and complaining about the queue for Waitrose on a Saturday when they could go on any other bloody day of the week.

Also had a lovely nightmare last night where I was chasing the rest of my team at work through a warehouse where they were trying to sabotage me at every turn. I ended up trapped in a tiny room and then they turned off the lights. DH was a bit concerned about my subconscious after hearing about that one!

polexia i understand and have been heading that way too. Which has been a huge factor in my stress and frustration and has fed into my realisation that i need to stop comparing or even wanting other people to 'get it' and affirm how this is harder for me.

It reminds me a bit of when I had non sleeping babies who were breastfeeding all the time- it was so hard and only other people in my exact situation got it - it felt like the world was gaslighting me!

So this thread is helpful to me because we all get it but outside of this thread sadly the understanding has been slow. That's fine. Not really but I've accepted it now. My decisions will be based on the way to keep us all sane and i don't need other people who aren't in my circumstances to validate them.

If that makes sense. Fwiw it sounds like your routine is so gruelling. And the dream says it all.

Reached out to one of the kids clubs where they have loads of freelancers delivering lessons and asked if anyone wants to do childcare.
Got one of the highly qualified drama teachers who is skint beyond belief joining me two mornings a week from Tuesday.
DBS checked, known to children, loads of energy.
Ridiculous i can pay someone .. but my brother can't come to house

@cocktailoclock Great you got something sorted. Ignore the snipers...I bet they expect there to be food on the shelves of the shops, doctors available if they need them, etc etc...these all mean lots and lots of people have to go out to work! Something some of the "everyone stay at home" seem to forget about.

@zerocraic Where are you? I know I felt like quitting a few times too. I was worried about getting another job that suits as well though, especially if jobs get scarce. This is a temporary blip and we have sorted childcare now so I'm like a new person. But I had a great work-life balance before so keen to keep it. I also don't do too well being at home fulltime.

Can you take parental leave or unpaid leave? Career break? Sort childcare some way?

I'm livid about the Cummings story! Just because he needed childcare it's ok for him to cross the country infectious with Coronavirus when the rest of us are knocking ourselves out trying to do it all? FFS. If he's a key worker he could have had a childcare place for his kid.

Rainbow12e both mine and my DH's companies have policies of not working from home with no childcare, however they had to relax these for the foreseeable, given they'd have lost a proportion of their workforce at a stroke if they'd said this couldn't happen.

Quite a few people at my work have gone on furlough where it's been impossible to WfH while doing childcare, it makes me feel sad that these are all women due to:

• being a single parent
• having a DH whose "big job" is far more important
• elderly parents who they do daily care for

It will be interesting to see how soon companies like ours begin to enforce their no WfH with no childcare policies, as we're not planning to send the children back to nursery until most likely September at the earliest.