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 ?

DH does this quite a bit, but usually only for 30 mins a day. It doesn't affect his work and he's fairly senior, but really I think people find it novel when a curious 3yo pops onto the screen in a meeting. I've never considered how differently it might be viewed if he were female.. but given how male-dominated his industry is, I wouldn't be surprised!

Occasionally, I will WFH with DS here and no other childcare. Usually, someone else would be in the house to be available for him. However, he is 10 and pretty self-sufficient. If I need to I could leave him with a sandwich playing computer games all day and he would think it was a great day. He knows not to disturb me if my office door is shut (meaning I'm on a call / meeting). He has never disturbed a meeting.

I have noticed colleagues have children appear on calls though, including my manager / senior manager, so I don't think anyone is too worried. As a team the focus is generally supportive and as long as the work gets done people are happy to be a bit flexible. If I wanted to take an hour to go to parent evening / sports day etc. this would be fine and I would just make it up later.

I don't think wfh and managing childcare full time is reasonable though and certainly not for small children.

Absolutely not allowed in my work If you weer caught you would be on a severe disciplinary warning.
Discretion is used for the occasional day when kid is off school sick, but they ask all parents of under 4s for proof that their child is in nursery/CM. And so they should.

I had to WFH for the past few weeks with my toddler because her nursery closed for a while, and we have no other option apart from me or her dad taking unpaid time off which we couldn't afford to do.

Her dad did two days WFH with her but his job only allowed it begrudgingly, and there is 0 downtime at his job at all. Whereas my boss offered for me to WFH as long as I needed, I do have downtime but I'm expected to take calls when they come in.

It was NOT a treat or a nice relaxed few weeks WFH. Couldn't leave the house in case a call came in, toddler bored, always seemed to want me as soon as the phone rang, I'd miss calls because of doing a nappy change or putting her down for a nap. I explained all to my boss and he said as long as I return any missed calls and get all my work done then he was ok with it. It meant I had to put off a lot of work until she was in bed for the evening. Didn't even get a proper break when she was napping, she only has one nap a day and it ranges from an hour to an hour and a half so i used the spare time to catch up on work.

The I'd find work was quiet and as soon as I'd sit with her to read a book or play, anything that wasn't putting the TV on for her her, that's when there'd be a sudden surge of calls or tasks and it was so unfair to her.

So it may be doable but you have to have the right job for it and you need to sacrifice a lot. So actually no, it isn't doable. I'm very lucky that my boss allowed it, but unfortunately my partner will never be able to WFH at the drop of a hat if she's not at nursery for whatever reason. He earns more money than me so I guess it makes more sense for me to risk my work than it does for him. It is not fair but it's the way it is.

Thw article is problematic and childcare costs are ridiculous.

But working from home with young children isn't fair on your employer and it definitely isn't fair on the child.

My work are really flexible when it comes to working patterns but states clearly in the policy that you can't work and care for children at the same time. As a one off if they're ill for example or for the odd hour after school with an older more self sufficient child but there is no way you can be doing your job well whilst also providing adequate care for a young child.

The system is broken but if you are being paid to do a job you should be doing the job, not looking after your kids.

There’s a huge difference between having an under 5 around all day when you’re working and a 10 year old watching TV after school for a couple of hours. One is ok and one defintely isn’t

I've managed people that try this on and the first thing I do is say it's not ok, the second is manage them out. We give a lot of flexibility where needed but choosing to do something that makes you unable to deliver in your role isn't acceptable. I say that as someone who has had to work from home whilst looking after tiny children during lockdowns and on sick days.

Besides, @cannaecookrisotto is right, they're hardly going to promote women if they're the ones half arsing their job because they're expected to do 100% of the childcare.

I home ed, so our children are at home a lot. DH works from home two days a week, and I'll book medical/dental/vet appointments on those days so I can leave the children with him for an hour (if the appointments aren't for them/all of them).

They're older so just sit and watch TV or whatever for that time, and he just has to keep an eye out.

There's no way he'd be able to do this if our children were younger and required more attention, however, as a lot of his time is taken up with client meetings.

We would accept a child appearing on a Teams call in am emergency but if it continued the employee (regardless of seniority) would have their wfh withdrawn.

I woukd not be impressed if I found out one of my team was regularly WFH and had their children with them. They are being paid to do a job and not look after theirs DC. And the same applies to me.
Having said that, the odd emergency day is fine but not as a matter of course.

What about the women who have to work and can't afford childcare ?

Probably should have thought of that before having kids - usually several - with feckless fathers who don't stick around

We’re not machines and shouldn’t be measured in terms of efficiency

Presumably you expect your local council, your electricity supplier, your bank, etc, to be efficient if you have a problem you need them to resolve? Or are you quite happy if they don't answer the phone because they're dealing with their children, or as a pp said, have to cut a call short because their child needs something?

The kids are at home for about an hour after school on one day of my working week. They usually read or watch tv in another room. Most colleagues have left by that time and I can easily work longer if interrupted or take calls.

DH is also home and working.

So technically we are both potentially looking after kids while working but I would not do this with pre- school age kids, or do it for any length of time. They are at school or in childcare for the rest of the time.

It seems to me that it’s impossible to look after very young children ( under 6?) and work at the same time. However the extremely high costs of childcare have meant that people are understandably trying to do this.
Another factor which is relevant is the long hours which so many jobs require and the lack of part time options for parents who want/ need to work and make time for their young children as well. My daughter is a trained lawyer with many year’s experience and now has a commercial role in a big company but she does not see any part time options for when she has small children. Why not? I just can’t understand why in 2023 there is not more provision for part time roles, she earns enough to manage part time ( I know lots of women don’t have this) but will probably not be able to do her type of work part time just because employers are too rigid and lazy to provide this. Those of us who were feminists in the 70s and 80s are disappointed by this.
it is also unreasonable IMO for employers to start making a huge issue out of whether it’s acceptable for parents to work from home if a child of up to 12 is arriving home during their work hours. That’s just nonsense. A child of 8 plus should easily be able to be safe and happy in the house for a couple of hours if Mum or dad is working nearby. Obviously all day every day would be a different issue. (And some children need extra care for special needs etc. )
Flexibility is important for modern life and both employees and employers need to be reasonable. Yes employers are paying people to do work and employees need to be productive and reliable but society should not be making life for parents too difficult.

All women who can't afford childcare dumped into this category ?

I run my business from home and my clients will have to deal with my kids on my terms if they want my brilliance and I'm bloody good at my job - they and I know it
If my kids are a problem I take my services, elsewhere - my children learn from a young age how I work too and have fitted into that lifestyle and pattern for now. I may change it up , I enjoy complete flexibility as far as work goes.

But I'm still fortunate being self employed and being able to choose
My work and not being a slave to the system - therefore for me I'm able to mix it all up

I just think your view is pretty dogmatic , corporate and well Tory, it isn't empathetic to the majority of women in the predicament of low childcare costs and needing to work too

I'd never work for a boss like you with such views but I'm sure many men would

As most have said the survey is meaningless without the ages of the children. My ds walks himself home from school and lets himself in and gets a snack. He’s 10. He has some half days at home while I work in the holidays too. I wouldn’t leave him totally alone till he’s 13/14 but age 10-14 “childcare” is just being in the same building for emergencies.

The expectation is that you work in the same way as you would in an office.

Multiple distractions every hour or so when people want to chat? Definitely less of those at home

@Hfuhruhurr this arrangement sounds perfectly reasonable for example.
fgs let’s not have employers getting draconian and bringing in controlling rules which would make perfectly reasonable arrangements unacceptable.
Given that almost all parents need to and are expected to work, what on earth do employers expect people to do

I work fully remotely, and I really appreciate all of the benefits that this offers. I only started WFH recently though, and DS is 13 - I absolutely wouldn't have considered doing this if he was much younger. I don't think it would be fair on him or my workplace if he was younger.

I can WFH with my 5 year old around for the odd day here or there from her being about 4, just as productively as I do in the office. As there are so many distractions and people chatting to you etc in the office that it evens out if I have to attend or talk to her sometimes. However I've only ever actually done this for a day or two when she was sick and therefore off nursery and laying on the sofa watching movies all day.

I did debate doing one day of the half term with her at home to save childcare costs but I decided against it in the end as ultimately our local holiday club isn't that expensive and it's a much better day for her there than at home mostly being ignored or watching screens.

And then as it happens my employer has now completely banned home working for part time workers anyway and severely limited it for full timers, giving us all one weeks notice. Nobody else in the team but me has young children so its definitely not because anyone was working with kids around, and we had intensive productivity monitoring a few months ago that found all of us had a better output at home than on our office days. So I think this will spectacularly backfire on them and I will probably start looking for a new job in the new year because of it. One FT colleague has immediately put in a request to drop her hours down to PT because of it too.

That doesn't give them a free pass to steal from their employer. It's not their employer's problem. If a person has to work and is on UC they get a lot of childcare paid for as you well know.

Nurseries are expensive because the staff deserve to be paid for looking after your child. Surely the choice is to look after your own child and don't work from home or to go to work either in an office or from home and pay someone else to care for your DC. Why was the thought of using your wages to pay childcare for your child awful?

I think anyone WFH with young DC should have to show nursery agreement or similar.

The reality in my area is that once you get to age 5 there is no decent after school care (after school club finishes at 5) and no holiday care. You would have to do an hour's round trip to get kids to a holiday club, the cost would be eye watering, and the child wouldn't know anyone there. So it's inevitable people will be WFH with kids in the holidays. It's not great for the kids or the employers, but that's how it is for many.