So how the F are we meant to work?

[Littlewhitedove2]

3 primary age kids. One parent left who won’t leave their house except the shops much less come anywhere near me or the kids. Inlaws in a similar position.
Primary school closed. It won’t be 2 weeks - it will be far longer than that.
Husband full time work.
I work part time as much as I can around school but not critical worker.
How do women work now?

Somebody will come along and shout about ‘children being the responsibility of their parents, not schools/childcare.’

Which would be true, and is true, but employers aren’t going to allow some parents to take control of that responsibility because they are going to continue to insist upon them being on conference calls when they have small children to watch.

If my children had been little during this period, I’d have taken a career break unpaid, but how many can afford (or would be allowed) to do that? I feel so sorry for parents, it’s not like you can even step in and offer to help them because we can’t mix households.

"Children are the responsibility of their parents not school/childcare" equals more dead and neglected children.

We need to weigh that against the harm done by Covid. The narrative of "the kids will be fine" is so, so wrong. Some will die.

We are sacrificing children to protect the elderly and vulnerable groups. That may be the right decision, it may not. But let's be clear on what we're doing.

@MessAllOver

"Children are the responsibility of their parents not school/childcare" equals more dead and neglected children.

We need to weigh that against the harm done by Covid. The narrative of "the kids will be fine" is so, so wrong. Some will die.

We are sacrificing children to protect the elderly and vulnerable groups. That may be the right decision, it may not. But let's be clear on what we're doing.

Exactly

At least not minimise it. So many do. The government are aware. I can only hope that it doesn’t drag on and on.

They should do a proper lock down to try and keep it as short as possible. Vulnerable children and families can and would be targeted for support, it’s a multi agency approach not just the schools responsibility.

A few might die. I’m sure it would be rare, but death isn’t the only harm children come to when they aren’t in school - or mixing with their peers.

(Lots of focus on physical harm. As usual, so little focus on mental health).

Yes harm yo mental health too definitely, not to be underestimated or dismissed

In terms of the impact of lockdown on young children:

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/article/coronavirus-young-children-s-mental-health-suffered-in-lockdown-study

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-10-27-uk-lockdown-linked-widening-disadvantage-gap-babies-and-toddlers

www.barnardos.org.uk/news/half-parents-struggle-cope-impact-lockdown-childrens-behaviour

learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/2246/isolated-and-struggling-social-isolation-risk-child-maltreatment-lockdown-and-beyond.pdf

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55352968

Should we not be doing something about these families who can't look after their children, if the only bit of safety etc is being in school for 6 hours that is no life for them. The bar for parental responsibility seems to be set very low.

@roundtable I hope you and your family are recovering. My son has covid but he lives along way from me so I can't even drop food off for him. I can't even get hold of him on the phone this morning so I am on here trying to stop myself panicking.

We are not sacrificing children to protect the elderly and vunerable. We are protecting everyone.

ICUs are not full of 80 year olds. Many people in ICU are in their 40s/50s. If your DCs teacher is in this age bracket or they re asthmatic, diabetic, overweight then this could be them tomorrow. That is not an acceptable risk for teachers.

Anyone on this thread could get an operable cancer, and yet not be able to have it operated on because hospitals have to cancel all theatre cases. Literally anyone. Schools are a massive factor in the spread and with the rate in many parts of england I dont really see how we van keep schools open

OP if you are self employed and contributing 20% of the income anyway you can reduce your workload over the next few weeks? Given you are part time any chance you can work the weekends and have most of the week off to care for the dc.

@MessAllOver

"Children are the responsibility of their parents not school/childcare" equals more dead and neglected children.

We need to weigh that against the harm done by Covid. The narrative of "the kids will be fine" is so, so wrong. Some will die.

We are sacrificing children to protect the elderly and vulnerable groups. That may be the right decision, it may not. But let's be clear on what we're doing.

I personally suspect that it will come to light that over this period, there were 10 times more child deaths due to schools being closed than there were due to covid. That’s why the government are keeping schools open at all costs.

The bit about children being the responsibility of parents and schools are not childcare, is a nonsense argument. Of course children are the responsibility of parents, that’s why the parents are working to earn and provide for them. No one has said otherwise. But government do not recognise (at least publicly) that wfh / childcare cannot be achieved simultaneously. Presumably as any solutions would cost them money

What should have happened is that legal employment rights were put in place to protect parents jobs, if they had primary kids at home as the schools are closed. Other countries managed this, why couldn’t we?

We are sacrificing them in so many ways. My daughters best friend is an only child, for example. Both parents WFH. She’s sixteen. We are in a t3 area. She’s literally not being allowed outside the house ‘because she might get covid and pass it to her grandmother.’

Her grandmother lives 20 miles away and doesn’t live alone.

She was banned from sledging outside this week with one other kid, despite ‘the rule of six.’ All to protect her grandmother, who she technically ought not to visit because she’s in a different tier. Her parents want to visit the grandmother more than they want their child outside with peers. It’s astonishing to me.

She wasn’t the most independent kid to begin with, but she was blossoming a bit before this happened.

CountessFrog that is down to her parents not school or govt.

I will have to teach 6 hours of live online lectures on my busiest day of the week (plus other lectures on other days). How I'm supposed to achieve that to a professional standard alongside home educating a 5 year old and a 9 year old I don't know. I'm also a lone parent with the kids 100% of the time so no DH/DP to share with. I do have an older DC too but he has additional needs and I can't realistically expect him to shoulder the load. Play with the younger ones for the odd hour or two sure, which may help in a very difficult time but he can't just take responsibility and leave me to get on, I'm supervising him as well really. Fortunately we're still tier 3 and as far as I know it's as usual next week (for now).

You think she’s the only one? Children’s mental health and all aspects of their development are being put on hold, with goodness only knows what consequences on the short and long term.

So much of it is illogical, too. When intelligent parents keep a 16 year old locked in the house for fear of catching a virus outside on a rare snowy day, we have problems.

That’s rough, coconut.

Re: the newspaper article. It's a tragic, tragic case, although let's not ignore the fact that the lid was accidently left off the hot tub. The coroner identified this as a factor in the child's dreadful death. It doesn't make it better for the parents, it makes it worse. But let's not weaponise this tragic case as being just about trying to wfh and look after young children, or pretend that children didn't have accidental injuries and worse before March 2020.

Re: the harms that schools being closed and lock downs are having on children. Agree completely, though disagree that it's solely the responsibility of schools to pick up the slack.

I'm old enough to remember when local authorities and councils had sufficient funding to run free or very low cost play schemes and the like. When CAMHs had short referral times and a range of services to offer families. When social workers actually had time to develop relationships with families who were in their caseload for as long as they needed to be and more, rather than the current remit of getting everyone off their books asap. When schools didn't need to ask for parental contributions for paper, stationary, tissues and loo roll.

The pandemic has really highlighted the damage that's been done through years of cutting, cutting, cutting the public sector. If LAs hadn't been cut to the bone, they could have been easily and efficiently utilised for track and trace. There could be funding for childcare hubs for working parents which would be safer than schools as they could be smaller and easier to manage infection risk in if properly funded.

Before neoliberal ideology took over the provision of healthcare, people could have gone to their GP or local chemist for a covid test. Instead what we have is Dido Harding and her friends trousering millions, while teachers and LAs do the track and trace work for them.

And yes legal protections for working parents and mandating parents rights to flexible working, short notice parental and dependency leave to be taken as the parents want it etc. Financial support for those organisations affected to come from the govt.

In short, reducing this debate to schools should/shouldn't stay open for childcare is exactly what the government wants. It gets them off the hook at every turn, increases animosity towards teachers and other public sector workers and leaves women carrying the can to the golden altar of neoliberalism.

Great post. I’m that age, too. I work in the nhs, where we used to be able to use judgement and autonomy rather than following Tick boxes.

I still don’t follow rules/tick boxes.

But people must see that from a purely pragmatic perspective, protecting children and families makes much more financial sense than protecting other sections of society.

Child poverty and deprivation are extremely expensive, both in the short and long-term. As is child mental health and educational disadvantage.

Each death from Covid is a tragedy. But Covid deaths, especially amongst the elderly, don't necessarily have knock-on long-term effects for society in the same way.

I'm not saying we shouldn't close schools or that Covid deaths don't matter. But, in the bigger scheme of things, it is absolute madness leaving parents and children to struggle on alone. It is going to cost us so much later on in terms of social and educational intervention, lost tax revenue etc.

A possible short-term solution would be an immediate grant of at least £2000 per family to cover alternative childcare/unpaid leave/tutoring/educational resources. Combined with targeted intervention for the most vulnerable.

Great post Christina. Divide and conquer is what this government goes for and it's worked.

But let's not weaponise this tragic case as being just about trying to wfh and look after young children, or pretend that children didn't have accidental injuries and worse before March 2020.

I completely disagree. There is no way a toddler of that age would have been left unattended for 2 hours had the mother not been trying to do a work conference call. If it wasn't this accident, it would have been another one. Leaving young children unattended for long periods is an accident waiting to happen...in this case, it happened.

Trying to wfh with children of that age is negligence (in this case, state-sponsored). The government has done a good job of convincing parents that the circumstances somehow make child neglect ok. They really don't. Parents who are trying to wfh need childcare.

I’ve long held the opinion that those who are entitled to sick pay should all go off sick with stress rather than leave their children unsupervised. In what way are they not stressed? In what way is it ok to continue with unsupervised children at home?

There is no way a toddler of that age would have been left unattended for 2 hours had the mother not been trying to do a work conference call. If it wasn't this accident, it would have been another one.

100% this.

It’s extremely important that we talk about these cases as it is inevitable that accidents will happen when parents are forced to have their attention elsewhere.

There have been many ‘near misses’ recorded on here too (I have my own story, which I won’t go into).

Children’s safety is being compromised very seriously if we allow the bullshit to continue that parents can do two all encompassing tasks at once.

@MessAllOver

But let's not weaponise this tragic case as being just about trying to wfh and look after young children, or pretend that children didn't have accidental injuries and worse before March 2020.

I completely disagree. There is no way a toddler of that age would have been left unattended for 2 hours had the mother not been trying to do a work conference call. If it wasn't this accident, it would have been another one. Leaving young children unattended for long periods is an accident waiting to happen...in this case, it happened.

Trying to wfh with children of that age is negligence (in this case, state-sponsored). The government has done a good job of convincing parents that the circumstances somehow make child neglect ok. They really don't. Parents who are trying to wfh need childcare.

I completely agree that trying to wfh while looking after young children is impossible. I also agree that parents who are trying to wfh need childcare, although I don't think it's the duty of schools to provide this until rates are lower and they are properly funded to be much, much safer.

But toddlers and young children don't have to be unattended for 2 hours for tragic accidents to happen. Parents do make mistakes, we all have, most of us are extremely lucky that they don't result in tragedy. Leaving the lid off a hot tub is a mistake that these poor parents will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

I know two families whose toddlers/3 year old were fatally killed by stepping into the road. Both had hold of their hands immediately before. Neither family has or will recover from the dreadful tragedy of approaching traffic just at the moment that their child slipped out of their hand. This could happen to any one of us, it's just luck if it hasn't.