How the hell are parents meant to work?

[worzelsnurzel123]

With this latest blow from schools and yet further delays, I predict employers will cease to be “ fair” and they will run out of the patience BJ vaguely muttered about hoping they’d have. So what are the options?

1. Resign from jobs? This could have massive impact on income, likely to affect women and the future of women’s’ rights and progress in the workplace, creation of mental health issues and socio economic problems
2. Will some parents be pushed in to feeling the have no choice but to leave kids home alone? Esp those who are borderline age group eg 8-12. Not ideal at all. Clearly this will impact on MH, safety, parental work performance.
3. Leave kids with grandparents who are likely to be over 70 in many cases, shielding or vulnerable. Risks of passing the virus on would lead to guilt , worry on both sides.
4. Wait for everything to fuck up work wise, scrabble for child care here there and everywhere, lose employers good will due to time off needed and eventually get dismissed for poor attendance, breach of conduct and or poor performance

This is a disgrace. An absolute disgrace

We have come full circle - the young people whose education has been scuppered were first supposed to be used to pick fruit and veg, now they should also be used to do childcare, anything but get the education they are legally entitled to as a human right. Fuck 'em, they are fodder to service The Great Adults. I don't have to tell you how many of them are starting to feel about all this.

This thread really demonstrates how misdirected the anger of so many continues to be.

There's no doubt that a late lockdown has cost us dearly and that the imminent easing is ill-advised. Even today it's reported that there were 10k more deaths in May than was previously reported.

This of course shows that ending Socisl distancing or expecting schools to double in size is premature and frankly not doable at this stage. Yes it's hard to swallow but it's the reality we currently face. We are not at a stage yet whereby any business, travel provider or institutions able with any confidence reopen whilst disregarding the guidelines.

We need to wait -uncomfortable and frustrating though this is it's simply all we can do for now

@peonypower totally ! What are we doing to this country and the next generation ? In the name of What ?

@Sunnydays123456 surely what we are doing is protecting the next generation?
With all the info we have that's kind of logical

Will all the "crack on" and "all back in September" chanters please say exactly how that is going to happen.

Schools do not have elastic walls, teachers cannot clone themselves. I'm so sick of the whinging and whining and carping on without any practical suggestions. "Crack on" is just plain stupid. How?

Anyone who thinks that way clearly does not understand the situation and should maybe educate themselves a little, instead of expecting teachers to perform magic tricks.

The 2m rule is necessary
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/risk-of-infection-could-double-if-2-metre-rule-reduced-study-finds

Pretending it isn't helps no one.

Schools need extra teachers and extra space. The government have to pay.

The unions and the teachers are NOT to blame for this mess, although the teacher haters on this site would love you to think they are.

Comparison with schools in Europe is ridiculous. Their buildings aren't crumbling, their classes are small, their governments invest in them.

Johnson is where the buck stops - and his privately educated chums. Have a go at them instead of teachers dragged down and exhausted by the situation not of their making.

Just stop being so vile, some of you. It's awful to read the venom. Direct it where it belongs.

If people really believe that teachers are fussing and that children aren't spreaders of the virus, then what's the problem with asking grandparents to look after them?
Or is it that people don't want to "risk" grandparents' health, but couldn't care less about that of teachers?

No the 2 metre rule isn’t necessary. Your link is discussing the need in hospitality and public transport not schools whilst ignoring the WHO guidelines and the fact that other countries aren’t keeping to 2.

I think you don't get cause and effect. There isn't such a high death toll now because there was a lockdown. As for "I bet", we've all got opinions.... Where's the science for this or do you feel it in your elbow?

Where's YOUR science? Show me the correlation between lockdown & death rates?
Who didn't have a lockdown? S Korea? Lower death rate than us. Sweden? Lower death rate than us.
Zero correlation between lockdowns and death. NONE.

The virus is following Farr's law, as viruses do and will be gone - apart from isolated outbreaks which do not necessitate a national panic - very shortly.

Then all you lockdown supporters can suck up the economic horror show you've created , the unemployment and poverty, the excess deaths you've caused from cancer and heart disease and god knows what else, the children whose education is suffering. It's ALL ON YOU.

Can you tell I'm angry? Following the science my arse. Following idiotic public opinion more like.

@Rapide

If people really believe that teachers are fussing and that children aren't spreaders of the virus, then what's the problem with asking grandparents to look after them? Or is it that people don't want to "risk" grandparents' health, but couldn't care less about that of teachers?

I would do but all my child's grandparents work too! I don't have anyone else for childcare hence why I pay for ft nursery.

DS starts school in sept if he can't go ft I'm probably going to have to pay for a childminder however many days per week and then I guess teach him at the weekend.

Sounds ideal

And doubling risk when the risk is minuscule doesn’t make it a big risk.

I am currently in school and would happily work to 1 metre.

@Rapide I would, but my mum is in her 50s and still works full time. Not everyone has retired parents.

All this is a direct result of social media once again inflaming issues and the government then reacting.

First it was "they did not lock down soon enough."
Then "what is the exit strategy? When will we come out of lockdown? When will schools and workplaces be open again?"
Next "why are things being eased? It's too soon! The schools aren't ready!
"It's dangerous for schools" "The unions are up in arms" "Parents wont send their children in"

Now the government has backed down and the result is chaos.

There are mainly two opposing factions.

Those who are comfortable on furlough and enjoying a very long holiday with their children, don't want immediate change if employers still okay with it.

Those who have to go back to work and need childcare (and an education for their children thrown in where needed).

Who i

@S1nkorSw1m

No the 2 metre rule isn’t necessary. Your link is discussing the need in hospitality and public transport not schools whilst ignoring the WHO guidelines and the fact that other countries aren’t keeping to 2.

Of course it's necessary. For all the reasons it's needed in those other places. There are other countries keeping to 2, we aren't the only ones.

Even 1.5 would mean smaller classes. What's your solution?

@S1nkorSw1m

And doubling risk when the risk is minuscule doesn’t make it a big risk.

I am currently in school and would happily work to 1 metre.

Well, the science wouldn't appear to agree with you there. It's not as simple as "doubling."

And not a mention of this in the briefing tonight unless I missed something? not one journalist question around it????

Hospitality and public transport aren’t dealing with the vast majority being children who have been proved to be low risk do no it isn’t needed in the same way.

No not a mention.

They simply couldn’t give a stuff.

Peonypower you forgot Japan!

Of course the 2 m rule is nonsense, that’s why barely any countries are using it, even Spain announced today that they are reducing it. If it was so important then every country would be using it.

I am leaving DC on their own for about 9 hours on 4 days I have to work 5 days / week... DH working shifts 4 days/ week.

My youngest is borderline being left (10) wit 15 yo in change ... (I just told them who ever survives has to clean up the mess.)

This issue doesn't affect me in the same way that it affects parents with younger children. My younger one is about to go into Year 12; my older one has had his A levels wrecked and is about to go to a semblance of a university in October.

It is bad enough being in this situation with older teenagers. I have lost my job as a result of lockdown, so I am at home with them in a way I haven't been since I was a SAHM when they were pre-schoolers.

All that said: I am so very, very angry with the situation for parents with younger children. How the hell is anyone supposed to work with children at home at all, never mind young children whose online "education" needs supervising? How are you supposed to tell your employer that you can't turn up? Are you supposed to hand your children over to your parents/PIL who might be elderly and vulnerable? Oh no: you can get a teenager to look after them who has spent the past two years studying to get a place at vet school but who will now be doing fuck all, because of the way this has been handled.

As always, women will carry the can for all these shitty, stupid decisions made mostly by men who haven't a clue how their decisions affect us, and probably wouldn't care even if they had.

It's all very well saying that only 8% of the workforce has children of primary age - but what proportion of the workforce has children of secondary age? Presumably a larger proportion. How could it possibly be desirable or healthy for, say, a 13 yr old to spend every single working day at home on their own in front of a screen, with no real-life interaction with another human being? No touch, no smells, no nothing? And what of those families where there's more than one child of secondary age, but limited space? People keep saying "give them all laptops" - but are they all then going to be on laptops in the same small space? That's assuming they're actually going to be doing any work at all, and not actually watching Netflix while their parents are at work.

I am desperately upset and anxious about the effect on children's and young people's mental health, never mind their educational attainment. The whole thing is completely monstrous.

If my children actually sat and did the work and it didn't end up a ball of screaming, crying, fighting and shouting, then I'd be fine muddling through. But as the weeks have gone on, the kids are doing less and less. I have one child who struggles academically and I am so fearful for their future. We are waiting assessments for learning issues but that's all been delayed now.

Wellll I’m NHS so I’ve gone off sick because the stress of watching my children decline has just finished me off.

I was going to consider taking up keyworker places until school told me they’d be unable to be educated with their year group if the year returned.

Oh and after they intimated it was irresponsible of me to take up a place for them if I could ‘technically’ WFH.

So I can have six months full pay and six months half. Stressed to the eyeballs by it all. Colleague also now gone off with same stress, friend who is a GP taken indefinite leave to look after three small kids. Her husband is a consultant, he’s at breaking point.

I hope the people making these decisions not to open schools don’t expect to be treated by healthcare professionals adversely impacted. There was a 4 month wait for my service prior to lockdown.

They should just abandon the idea of social distancing in schools - it can never work. Just don't fucking bother - staff can wear PPE of they want, get the kids to wash hands more often etc. but honestly, anyone who thinks SDing in schools is EVER going to work is bonkers.

Oh and after they intimated it was irresponsible of me to take up a place for them if I could ‘technically’ WFH.

Did they say that recently? My DD's (secondary) school have said that the children of all key workers could go now whether or not it was essential as the policy has changed.