Fed up with being called selfish for having kids in school

[Namechangeforcontroversy]

NC just in case

I’m so exhausted with people laying into other parents for being selfish for sending their children into school. Most of my friends ended up in tears daily, having to be furloughed and later losing their jobs and being fairly confident that having children contributed to that during the last lockdown. Parents cannot work from home effectively while homeschooling one or more children especially EYFS/KS1. These children are being failed. Parents who have important (but not key worker) jobs and who are reliant on both salaries are being thrown under a bus for months on end. I understand why the schools had to close but it’s almost unbearable on a daily basis for parents at the moment. Working every hour under the sun, attempting to keep up with home schooling, cook, clean, get some sunlight to help with MH. My standards have slipped but we still need to eat even if it’s just a sandwich for lunch and something for dinner.

Parents are seen as selfish for being anxious about living in mess, off ready meals, no time for exercise or health for weeks on end with no end point for the greater good. When did caring about your family become selfish. When did we have to think about every other person in the UK before ourselves.

I know it’s a pandemic and it’s shit for everyone. But I have to say day to day it’s got to be hardest for full time wfh parents with young children.

My three are in school as DH and I are paramedics. I see the impact of covid every day and it’s horrendous. But I also so friends who are shells of the people they once were and are weeks away from a complete breakdown. From losing jobs and their home. From their mental health deteriorating to the point that they can’t function. And that’s bloody terrifying too.

Im not sure this is a time to moan about not having time to read ffs. If you have kids and a job you are very buys. If you are a young single person living by themselves you are trying to cheer yourself up with the thought you can read lots etc.

You've misunderstood my post. I was responding to a poster who thinks we all have time to teach our kids to cook, see, change a tyre etc.... all while trying to work and homeschool. This idea that now the kids are off school we suddenly have all this extra time is incorrect.

Reading is one of few pleasures we have at the moment and always prioritise it in this house!!

By that metric, what is the point in having lockdown at all? If the season changing was the only thing that caused falling case numbers

Well if you look at the spring/summer data from Europe, comparing those countries with hard lockdowns/soft lockdowns/no lockdown at all, you would start to wonder.

I don't think any word has ever lost or changed so much meaning so quickly as the word "selfish". I think that it's become one of those words that reflect onto the user more than the object.

Quite a large proportion of people who call other people selfish actually mean they believe those people's action affect them personally so what they are actually saying is "Your actions are wrong (selfish) because you don't consider how they affect me! Me! ME!". Or "You're selfish because I think you don't deserve to be in a better position than I am" as per the OP's circustances.

@jazzwink the OP doesn’t appear from her previous posts (name change fail) to be a paramedic. Whilst I think there’s lots of good discussion on here it may be worth noting that the OP obviously had an agenda when posting this rather than posting about her actual own experience

The criticism would never be aimed at you OP- your job and your dhs absolutely qualifies you for the provision. However, there are some who are abusing it and that means that numbers in schools are really high- far higher than they should be if we're going to fix this mess quickly. I know someone whose dh is a key worker (construction not NHS) she, however she runs an MLM type 'business' from home. Her kids have been in school this week so she could sort her make up orders. I mean, really?? Me and my dh are both full time key workers but have managed to make WFH arrangements between us so our KS1 child can stay at home. The effect of this is that I'll be working all weekend catching up on some of the work I couldn't complete during the week.

The current restrictions clearly aren’t working.
1325 people fucking died yesterday.

The government needs to absolutely limit the number of children at school. Increasing the list so people could still send their children to school was a bad idea.

There are more people out and about now than in March, when the pandemic was mild in comparison.

At this rate, we are not coming out of this at half term, more like Easter.

Why? Because people feel they go to do what they got to do and ultimately that means Covid isn’t a priority.

@Ohbabybab

Oh, I see. I take back my reference to the OP then but my comment still stands in general terms.

[quote Ohbabybab]@jazzwink the OP doesn’t appear from her previous posts (name change fail) to be a paramedic. Whilst I think there’s lots of good discussion on here it may be worth noting that the OP obviously had an agenda when posting this rather than posting about her actual own experience[/quote]
Exactly and I think it was obvious from the first post.

What kind of jobs are the jobs that weren't on the critical worker list last time?

I remember reading that accountants are now classified as keyworkers... Give me a break

@Jetatyeovilaerodrome

What kind of jobs are the jobs that weren't on the critical worker list last time?

I'm a university lecturer. Last time I was told we weren't considered critical workers but this time my employer has made it clear that we are and have offered to provide letters and speak to schools.

Here’s the list. I think it was pretty much always this broad but I think in the first lockdown employers weren’t looking to fit themselves in to one of the categories.
You could fit most jobs in to these categories. Apart from the arts and sports (audience not participatory) I can’t think of that many jobs you couldn’t squeeze under one of these headings, if you so wished to.

Health and social care
This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare
This includes:

childcare
support and teaching staff
social workers
specialist education professionals who must remain active during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response to deliver this approach

Key public services
This includes:

those essential to the running of the justice system
religious staff
charities and workers delivering key frontline services
those responsible for the management of the deceased
journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting
Local and national government
This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of:

the coronavirus (COVID-19) response, and the delivery of and response to EU transition
essential public services, such as the payment of benefits and the certification or checking of goods for import and export (including animal products, animals, plants and food), including in government agencies and arms length bodies

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food:

production
processing
distribution
sale and delivery
as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines)

Public safety and national security
This includes:

police and support staff
Ministry of Defence civilians
contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and EU transition)
fire and rescue service employees (including support staff)
National Crime Agency staff
those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas
Transport and border
This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response and EU transition, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass and those constructing or supporting the operation of critical transport and border infrastructure through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services
This includes:

staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure)
the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage)
information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response
key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services)
postal services and delivery
payments providers
waste disposal sectors

I have to work to keep a roof over my child's head, financially if I request furlough we are screwed.. My OH is a lorry driver, neither of us can work from home.
My DD is a very mature 12 and I would have no issue leaving her home some of the time however 4 long work days a week is just not fair on her mental health. I think perhaps teenagers are going to be the collateral damage in this whole mess; their education, their social skills and their mental health!

I have formed a childcare bubble but for logistic reasons what has happened is that she has effectively been evacuated. Just another stick to beat myself with :(

The list is the same as ever minus the fact it now includes Brexit matters

The changes come from schools now needing to provide for more vulnerable children

Can we all just stop beating each other up over this for god sake, it's creating a horrible decisive atmosphere in our culture

We all know where that's led on the past...

More children are now vulnerable, no bloody surprise is it, especially as we fucked them over last year!

@whittystitties

More children are now vulnerable, no bloody surprise is it, especially as we fucked them over last year!

This true. At DSs school the number of vulnerable kids has more than doubled.

Plus more employers are expecting staff to work so are being less understanding and are making sure their employees know they're classed as critical workers.

We will never come out of lockdown at this rate. Fed up of having to bear the brunt of parents who don't want to care for their children.
You brought them into this world, why can't you care for them?

@newaroundhere2

We will never come out of lockdown at this rate. Fed up of having to bear the brunt of parents who don't want to care for their children. You brought them into this world, why can't you care for them?

Are people still spouting this shit???

How oblivious and ignorant does someone have to be to think this is why people are sending their children to school?

This is the new stick to beat working parents ( mothers) with. Anyone who genuinely believes this needs to have a word with themselves.

newaroundhere2 it’s not that parents don’t want to look after their children. It’s that they cannot do their job and look after their children at the same time. Especially when schools are expecting hours of home schooling and employers are not being flexible. So what do they do?

@newaroundhere2

We will never come out of lockdown at this rate. Fed up of having to bear the brunt of parents who don't want to care for their children. You brought them into this world, why can't you care for them?

That simple isn't it, The likes of me stop doing my job and you'll soon be crying

It's like we are undoing all the good work of allowing women to also contribute to society other than via owning womb

@minipie But what about those families in which one parent is a KW and the other a SAHP? Would you say it is OK for them to take up places?

My DH and I are now classed as critical workers. I work in financial services, primarily dealing with Brexit transition and he works in IT.
In the first lockdown we managed as best we could at home and employers gave us a lot of latitude. This time the work needs doing and they're less sympathetic.
Simple fact is we can't afford to lose either job. Asking to be furloughed is not an option and would really not go down well with our employers!

I asked the school whether they'd have our year 1 and year 3 DC in school this time around and they were fine with it!

I'm not referring to kids of HCPs or people who supply our food chain, or kids who have serious disabilities. But half the people in the list given by a PP should be able to look after their own kids. How long do they want lockdown to last for?

Btw why do all the posters here assume the woman will be looking after the kids? You could choose men as partners who will be SAHDs. I, for one, will not be settling for a partner who wouldn't be prepared to be a SAHD.