Do you work from home and look after kids at the same time

[Amy8]

I've posted about this on my socials today and many agreed with this article
I was mortified ! Does anyone else find it sexist ?

This was initially our problem - no nursery places and by the time one became available we had been managing fine and the thought of then using basically all my wages for childcare seemed awful !

I’m sick and tired of people abusing wfh and risking an arrangement that is an absolute necessity for some people. In my case it is a disability and asd, though that just makes being in an office unpleasant. Being forced back into an office because people can’t manage to find a babysitter could mean the difference between me being able to work or being forced to be declared officially disabled. It would radically change my life and force me into poverty. I am angry every single time I see someone abusing wfh because they are risking employers removing a system that is an absolute lifeline for people like me. It allows us to be contributing, earning members of society, instead of people on benefits with limited resources.

How family friendly

I'm sorry you feel this way
When a lot of mothers also feel absolutely desperate given the cost of childcare

Rather than blaming mothers blame the system and your bosses

It's actually very family friendly with lots of flexible working options available

They just don't think someone can work and look after a toddler at the same time.

A parent who cannot work and pay for childcare would presumably be entitled to some sort of UC as their income would be very low - regardless of their sex.

mothers and fathers are well aware that childcare is going to be a huge expense when they are planning their children. Yes, we should advocate for better options, but the current situation is what we have and people have to make their plans accordingly. Doing a poor job at work is not the solution.

it is decidedly unfeminist to say it’s acceptable for women to be bad employees simply because having children is expensive.

You can earn a good salary and still not be able to afford the cost of child care or find it

How naive

No that's not what I'd be saying I say it's a problem created and judged upon by men

Why aren't men even mentioned as homeworkers ?? Don't they ? Or when they work from home why don't they have childcare responsibilities too

Pre covid, almost everyone worked out of the home, so childcare had to be sought. It really isn’t a right to be able to WFH and at the same time look after your children. As a teacher, I can’t take my kids into school with me for me to look after whilst I do my job. I’m quite annoyed when I’m trying to speak to a company about something important and they are clearly WFH with their very noisy kids in the same bloody room! In one instance, I was discussing my mother’s bank account situation with the bereavement team after she died, and the person I spoke with firstly apologised that he may have to cut the call short as his children were at home. This was only last year. I was absolutely furious!

Don't be ridiculous. The "bosses" employ you to work. To work for them. Not to work for yourself and not to look after your children. I don't know what has happened to this country. Sit around on the dole all day and you are a scrounger. Sit around on your bosses time not working and it's the bosses who are unreasonable when they expect you to do what they are paying you for.

If you want to fight for better childcare that is affrodable, that's great. Have at t. But the only thing that will happen to working from home as people continue to abuse it is that most people will have it removed. It's already happening. And it will continue to happen whilst people brag about the fact that they are scamming their bosses.

You’re just being goady now. Anyone who has a child and wants to work needs to sort out childcare. That’s the bottom line.

All the people (men or women) who think it’s acceptable to work from home at the same time as caring for your young child. How would you feel if nursery staff did something else which took all their attention while they are supposed to be looking after the children in their care? There is no difference. Stop making it about saving money. It’s just not fair at all on small children for a carer to not be fully present mentally for them and to provide proper care, attention and stimulation. No wonder many children are starting school with barely any basic skills and barely able to speak.

There's problems with childcare in this country.

I also don't think it's reasonable for people to be using WFH as an excuse to save on childcare for younger children .

I'd not be too bothered of someone used their flexible working available to do the school run (eg core hours for availability are 9-3) and then have their 9 year old at home whilst they finish off, they're on top of their work and all their meetings are completed without children around.
I would be bothered if core hours ended at 4pm and I couldn't get a meeting booked because from 3pm they were using WFH to do the school run most days.

I am bothered at the number of parents who seem to think that they can WFH with young children. They're unlikely to be doing either role well to be honest because decent parenting means being present and engaging the DC plus all their care needs, and working to a decent standard means focusing on the task and workflow.

My concern is that after progress on hybrid working, WFH and flexible working (which has made it better for all parents to share drop offs, appointments etc)the piss takers will prompt a rollback to less flexible and less family friendly working, which isn't good for women overall.

It is women multitasking wfh and childcare being talked about because men’s wfh is respected as actual work. Very few people would ever even suggest that a man try to do his job while also taking care of a young child. It is obvious his career would suffer.

just further reason to believe that the people cheerleading watching children while working are anti-feminist.

You’re right. It’s disgusting what some people are offering in terms of “professionalism” at work these days. I’m fed up of it. Employers are not doing you a favour. You are working. In return for money.

Similar here. It’s clear in our policies you work at home as you would in the office, so looking after kids while trying to work is not allowed. If someone (either sex obvs) wasn’t performing, working from home as an option would likely be removed in any case. Having said that, if someone cancelled/didn’t have childcare and continued performing fine at work, the employer wouldn’t necessarily know so that may be happening too.

I do. It has never been a problem or affected my work in any way.
I certainly will not waste my hard earned money on childcare when my children are perfectly able to occupy themselves at home and not disturb me while I'm working. If they were under 5 I probably wouldn't though - but when mine were little their grandparents cared for them while we were at work.

DS is 3 next month and he is just starting to understand that daddy is at work, although sometimes it is just too tempting to go into the office.

I don’t think there is a problem with school age children watching a bit of TV or reading for a couple of hours. If wfh was an option in my work id much prefer that to after school clubs or childminder.

It's not just challenging for the parent we are now working with the children who were shoved in a corner with screens and toys who have major learning delays

I am the childcare provider in these instances! My last family had both parents wfh while I watched their baby. Their companies had very clear rules that they must have childcare if they wanted to wfh. And I rarely saw either of them as they were very busy. However, they also did have the flexibility if the little guy had a doctors appointment or something.

I can’t imagine trying to work a full time job while also caring for small children, unless I was spending hours at night doing it after they were asleep.

We’re the same. During lockdown everything was obviously different but since then we’ve reverted to the original rules, no wfh without childcare for your children. You are expected to be available for Teams meetings so can’t guarantee that you can do drop offs and collections from nursery/school.

87% of all hybrid workers are caring for children?

I call bullshit - I doubt 87% of hybrid workers have children within an age range that need looking after.

Thank you for your work

It's clearly not just judged by men and this thread demonstrates that.
I'm a woman and a feminist.
I'm also on a board of directors for a multi-national company. I also have my own children. I'm not daft, I know what it's like raising kids and how expensive childcare costs but it's not acceptable to expect to WFH whilst looking after children under the age of 12.

In emergencies, yes that's fine. Flexibility afforded is huge and given to all staff despite their sex, however looking after children cannot be done whilst trying to work. You're either shit at your job or neglecting your children. Can't do both very well. I tried during COVID and it was a complete nightmare.

It's not about being family friendly, it's an organisation with whom you signed a contractual agreement to work certain hours doing specific tasks in return for an agreed salary. Maybe you could re-negotiate that salary to match the output produced whilst looking after children, because it's sure as shit not the same level as initially agreed.

How do women manage childcare costs when they don't have the option to WFH? Do that. If you can't afford childcare then you can't work. It's really that simple.

We've had women try this since COVID, cancelling nurseries and childminders and attempting to do both. It became obvious quite quickly what was happening, so contracts were updated making clear childcare was a requirement when working from home and if it continued, WFH was withdrawn for those staff.

As a feminist, I find this infuriating as it gives women a bad name in the workplace and raises questions about the women WFH who genuinely have childcare in place. Women want to be treated equally in the workplace yet can't grasp a simple concept like "working and looking after children does not work. One will suffer". And coming out with tripe like "well that's not family friendly".

Then a position becomes available for a senior management position. Who are they going to choose? John, who is always present for meetings, highly efficient, doesn't WFH to look after his kids or Julie, who misses meetings to pick kids up from school and nobody ever sees her? This is how we end up with male dominated organisational management and we're back to square one. Men managing and women reporting to them.

Your workplace isn't there to subsidise your childcare costs, it's there to make money otherwise the business won't survive and numerous livelihoods will go down the pan.

People can say I've "swallowed the business tripe" but I don't give a fuck. If that narrative makes you feel better then scream it from the rooftops, but you don't need to be Stephen Hawking to understand a basic business principle like working becomes difficult when looking after small children.