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?

[quote MySaladDays75]Ask to be furloughed:

workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/coronavirus/[/quote]
I think although this is possible, I wouldn’t advise in every organisation

If your company has taken a hit in the past year, redundancies loom and this is a sure fire way of being top of the list. Whatever the rulez may be

ou can be furloughed I believe for childcare reasons. Shit I know but I think the government response is pretty measured and appropriate for once.

I work for a shoe company, they are refusing to furlough us that are struggling with childcare. I’m surprised as they are usually quite flexible. I’m panicking as we aren’t essential workers so not entitled to the school hub. But have got to go in. I’m going to have to take unpaid leave. I could cry

If you can pay and the DC will sit in front of computer screens a bit (and you have enough laptops to go round), then OutSchool is quite good. It's like an AirBnB for online tutors, mostly American. All sorts of subjects covered. About £5-£15 for 30 mins to an hour. Just mixes it up a bit so the DC are getting outside contact.

For younger DC, professional nannies (and grandparents) can 'zoom sit' where they arrange a time to talk to your kids on phone/zoom. Children read to them, chat, test them on arithmetic, whatever. Pro nannies will organise activities. Anything to give you time to do a little work.

I agree. Kids in years r, 3, 5. I cannot wfh with them here as I am interrupted literally every two mins plus need to keep an ear out for disasters. I cannot hold a thought in this situation let alone be in an online meeting

I'm a 'full time' single parent - as in her father doesn't have her overnight.
I was a Sports Therapist (self employed)
That went tits up! But, I do get the self employment grant. I've started making soaps & beeswax wraps and selling them on etsy to make io the difference.
Mum and Dad are too old and ill to have DD. I just have to cope. For what it's worth, I think we need to be sensible. But I've lost a lot and I'm far from privileged. I'm just glad I'm still alive as I know 4 people who have died from Covid.

I'm sorry OP. It's utterly shit and you have my sympathies. I've done the 4am starts and using the screens as babysitters during the last lockdown and two isolations. I know how it feels and how down you get.

Totally get what you say about your DH's job. It's the same for me. I was able to get him to do the reading with my KS1 DC when he finished work. That helped. It's the one task that doesn't have to be done in the morning when the child is most able to concentrate.

It's a pandemic. Not an assault on women. We will all just have to do what we can.

Your husband will have to step up and do his share. Why will your children not get any remote learning?

Your husband has to exert some of his legal right to leave. Emergency or dependent or parental.

I’m self employed and dh employed and he had to take a day off each week and a lunch break each day and I worked those times plus evenings. It’s shit. But there’s no way my dh’s employer was getting away with not experiencing ANY of the impact. It’s a global pandemic. They don’t get away scott-free.

The only way you do this is by taking shifts with your husband. I would be mightly pissed off if I was your boss and you said you had to do it all (unless your husband was a key worker). He will have to do his share and it’s unacceptable for men to duck out. During last lockdown we did 2 hours on 2 hours off starting at 7am. It was horrible but someone had to look after the children. We both still did our hours and diaries just had to be changed. We were preparing to do it again next week but have a reprieve for now.

I have 3 in primary which is now closed according to the list. Both dh and i work full time and luckily can do so from home. We split the days. I have the kids from waking until after lunch and he takes over after. Both our employers will have to suck it up. I did close to zero home schooling last time around and it will be similar this time. No way can i teach 3 different year group kids and do my job.

At home?

and no women are not being punished.

I heard the civil service is letting people with young kids go on furlough, rationale being they can't possibly wfh.

Can you bubble up with anyone? There is guidance on the government website that states that you can create a childcare bubble with another household - only allowed 1. This will be what we are doing.

What if your husband had to isolate from a contact.......or was off with stress for example??......he'd be off then.......

@stovetopespresso

I heard the civil service is letting people with young kids go on furlough, rationale being they can't possibly wfh.

Where did you hear that? Most public sector employers can’t furlough staff, or at least couldn’t unless it’s changed recently?

It’s crap OP, but what other options are there? The government have tried to carry on and have schools open as normal, but it doesn’t work. My brother works in a school and I honestly couldn’t believe how rampant it was there, yet the school was allowed to stay open. It’s bloody hard for everyone but we have to do what we have to do to get through this. It’s not going to be for much longer.

The primary school work last time was absolutely awful and non engaging.

Hopefully this will be better this time as the Government haven't suspended the curriculum this time round. Plus the rules and guidelines were finally put into place properly in October. Your schools should now have a firm remote learning plan in place. If they don't follow this then you should be questioning the managements as to why.

@Ilovegreentomatoes

Don't worry about the education side right now that can be caught up after.Just keeping ppl safe is the most important thing right now.

I agree with this on the whole. however I have kids in years 11 and 13. I wish they would make some decision on whether exams will go ahead. My year 11 DD has missed so much schooling over the 2 GCSE years.

Yes, also a FT single parent MattTebbut - just wanted to say good luck with your business and I am sorry you have lost your regular employment. I hope it picks up soon. It is a difficult situation all around.

OP your employer can legally furlough you.

If your dc are R, 1 or 2, just read to them, talk about stories, the colours in their books, mix colours with their paints and do potato printing.

Get them to count out Penne, put it in 10s, decide who can eat how many. Do halves and quarters with orange satsumas and green apples. Get them to count the plastic bottles into the recycling. When mine were little I once worked out the following:

Arrive at school at 8.55, 10 mins on coats, wellies and lunchboxes, 20 mins on register and getting them to the hall for assembly at 9.25. Back to the classroom at 9.50, 10 mins settling them down. About 45 mins of literacy until 10.45. 15 minute playtime. 11am fruit and milk time (pick it up off the carpet Peter). 11.15ish probably some phonetics until 12ish. 12ish lunch, 12.30 to 1 playtime. 1 to 1.15 settling down time and register. 1 15 to 2ish, PE or Art or reading to a volunteer. 2pm to 2.15 some sort of chat about beasts, 2 20 to about 2.40 playtime - 10 minutes settling down time - story time something to share time. Actual teaching time about 90 mins max. 90/30 = 3 mins per child. It exhausts me just thinking about it and the poor children who may be neuro diverse and find chaos difficult. I take my hat off to the teachers but I couldn't do it and wouldn't want to.

Just think of the impact you can have on your child's learning in 3 x 10 minute quiet and dedicated bites.

You can do it.

It’s so fucking depressing reading thread after thread where there’s always cast iron reasons why the man is let totally off the hook and the woman has to solve the problem, because his job is just so totally rigid and unmovable. Perhaps that’s genuinely the case, but it says a lot about what jobs men and women will take once they are parents. Perhaps in some cases it’s the men refusing to push for short term flexibility in the same way that women are, perhaps it’s that men accept jobs that genuinely are that rigid when women wouldn’t do after having kids. Either way it makes me want to weep. I really hope anyone reading these boards who is yet to have children is prompted to think long and hard about the arrangements they make with their partners about work and childcare responsibility.

@stovetopespresso

I heard the civil service is letting people with young kids go on furlough, rationale being they can't possibly wfh.

Lots of civil servants can't work from home... prison officers, court staff, immigration officers to name but a few.

Those that can work from home are expected to. They are not eligible for the furlough scheme. The civil service has offered limited 'special leave' as a last resort but it hasn't been encouraged.

@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?

Fuck knows. My kids are older but that's a whole other set of problems with them asking for help with things I have no clue about.

It's not practical and employers are going to be looking at who has "pulled their weight" when it comes to the inevitable recession after this shitshow.

Not one of them approached me to ask for flexible working to cover childcare while their kids were off school, presumably because their wives sucked it up instead. They could have had that flexibility, certainly, but they did not feel the need to ask for it

Agree. For everyone who says their DH is on non-stop zoom calls and isn't allowed to take an hour out, I'll show you a man who has never asked. I run a large department and the only people who asked for flexibility when schools were last closed were women. The men told me that their wives preferred to do the school work.

Ask your partners to do 50% of the childcare, it's that simple.