Campaign to highlight how mad WFH with kids is during lockdown

[UntamedShrew]

Hi MNHQ

Please have a read of this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3902119-is-it-just-me-or-is-this-working-from-home-with-children-completely-unsustainable?pg=6

I don’t know what the answer is, I just know this is having a terrible impact on parental and child mental health.

Possibly government policy to ensure parents’ get some paid leave to care for children and that jobs are protected If they do so?
Some talk of relaxing lockdown so families can share the load?
And definitely, definitely, a meme about wine o’clock and a suggestion to get the play dough out or try bbc bite size is NOT going to cut it.

Other ideas on the thread, do have a read.

Can you help?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Another media request here from the Telegraph, who are looking at this issue at the moment: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/media_requests/3941511-Daily-Telegraph-request-childcare-and-work-under-lockdown

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We've just had a request from Emma Yeomans at The Times, and I thought some of you might be interested in talking to her:

'I'm hoping to talk with some parents about how they're finding homeschooling. I'm particularly looking for mums who are finding it increasingly difficult, and are frustrated with the lack of government action on reopening schools.'

Please contact Emma directly on [email protected] if you'd like to find out more.

Thanks
MNHQ

[gapp]

What media coverage has there been today on this.?

Just caught a 5 minute piece on bbc news with an employment lawyer and freelance photographer .. looked like it had been heavily edited,

[SandysMam]

My DH just wouldn’t homeschool if I didn’t, our kids are young and he just doesn’t think they need it. I am doing what I can, but with a toddler, a job and a chronic illness, it is so hard. I feel like I am failing so badly at all aspects. My mental health has never been so poor, marriage is in tatters and house is a wreck. Can’t give up the job as we rely on my income. I am existing at the moment, not living.

[Nighttimefreedom]

Not sure if this has been highlighted already in this thread, but there is also the increased risk to children of online grooming during lockdown.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52999552/coronavirus-fears-over-online-grooming-of-children-in-lockdown

As many parents have said they are leaving children with much more unsupervised screen time than normal, as they try to carry out their job and meet demands from their employers.

Another very distressing effect of lockdown on children and young people.

[Jellycatspyjamas]

Ask, no demand, more of your husbands and partners (where they exist and are male, I mean). It is hard to do I don’t doubt if it’s not the norm in your family to date

I think this is an utter red herring. I work for the local authority who have been incredibly flexible, my husband works in the private sector - his employer has been intransigent in demanding he works from the office, no support for flexible working, compressed hours, working from home. His options are work or resign. He more than pulls his weight in the evening and at weekends but we both have work commitments during the working week. He’s now taking unpaid leave to give me some time to work and connect in with my employer. This will only be available to him until August when schools go back - which in Scotland will be an offer of 40% of schooling with the rest being covered by parents.

I was doing ok, I had my mind centred on getting some normality back in August and am furious that I’ll still be covering 3/5 of my D.C. education, still struggling to meet my commitments to my employer and still won’t be able to operate my business because kids still aren’t going to be back at school in any meaningful way.

None of this is my fault, nor is it my husbands fault, he works hard with me to run the household with all that entails. The reality is we both need to work - and his boss absolutely will not bend to accommodate working parents if either sex. So either he resigns or we find a way, which means on a day to day basis it falls to me, limiting my career, my opportunities.

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

@SomeoneElseEntirelyNow

I cannot understand why so many people cannot understand that there is no magic solution - it's a global crisis, there is going to be widespread suffering beyond the illness itself, and there is no magic money tree, the government can't save everyone.

I think any credence in the notion of "no magic money tree" went out of the window when Theresa May magicked up £1 billion for the DUP. That made it very clear that if the government really want to find money they can. I realise this is a different situation, but the fact remains that the government sets the priority for spending, and education ought to be a higher priority than Trident/HS2 or even transport right now (loads fewer cars on the roads). We're hearing about money being found for cycling/walking initiatives - why is that a higher priority than schools?

[Nighttimefreedom]

.

[goldpendant]

@drspouse

You are SO right in your post. My role less important financially, less important as not technical, less important if it's lost,

DH boss less understanding as he's a man, less flexible because they're corporate, less tolerant of kids on laps during zoom calls. So mummy ends up picking up the slack, working in the kitchen, making food, educating, cleaning, working. And repeat. And I can't focus on anything properly so the work I do manage to turn out is schocking.

I'm so utterly fucked off and fed up of it I could scream.

[drspouse]

And despite the #allparentsmatter rubbish above, it IS mothers who do this.
Mothers are the ones whose incomes are lower so they are the ones who work part time, the ones whose jobs matter less if they are lost.
Mothers are the ones whose employers are expected to be flexible; fathers are seen as weak if they can't do their manly job and need some adjustments.
Mothers are the ones who've been socialised to give in, move over, care for the DCs.

[BoardingSchoolMater]

I have been truly shocked by some of the things I have read on the threads about parents trying to WFH while supervising their children's education as well.

This is an issue that urgently needs highlighting. We ought all to be shouting about it very, very loudly.

It doesn't affect me personally that much (two of mine have had their public exams scrapped, and I have lost my job - but that's a different and horrible scenario). I would like my youngest to go back to school now, this minute - but at least she's 16.

Parents (mostly, but not all, mothers) can't be expected to carry on doing this. It is a disgrace.

[itswonkylampshade]

Adding my support! I bet the burden of homeschooling is nearly exclusively a female problem which is why it isn’t in public consciousness whatsoever. I’m working f/t desk-based hours and doing all the homeschooling (or at least attempting it and doing what’s possible in the circumstances) whilst DH works f/t as a key worker and does none.

[drspouse]

I could probably ask for some time/days/hours off but any work I don't do is going to need to be done, by me, later. This means I have to pass up any extra opportunities, I'm chasing my tail and missing deadlines, getting lots of tuts and my CV is going to get weaker and weaker. This will impact my career down the line when someone else gets a promotion.
DH is a KW WFH like a previous poster. He does what he can but is on calls a lot of the day. And we are lucky that both DCs have part time school but one school can't offer more, and being in a high R region we really don't want the other one to go full time as her school had a very large number of KW/vulnerable children in.

[CinnabarRed]

Don’t be fooled into thinking that online learning is a great solution either.

My three, yes in private education, have to be online from 8:20am until 4pm each day. I already had one personal laptop; I could afford to buy a second but not a third so one of them uses my work laptop. Means I can’t work.

And my WiFi is fried.

One or other of them needs something ALL THE TIME. Help getting back into the WiFi, or onto the Team lesson, or printing a worksheet, or with the content of the worksheet, or uploading the completed worksheet for marking, or with downloading a new app... It’s relentless. And as a single parent there’s no-one else who can help when something doesn’t work.

And my 8 year old is struggling so badly. He has suspected dyslexia, has lost all of his support, his anxiety is through the roof, and he spends most of each lesson in tears. But not letting him do the lessons is worse because then he gets panicked that he’s falling behind.

They’re sticking to their normal timetables, so none of them have the same break times. We can’t exercise together or do an activity together, or eat together.

It’s fucking awful, and it’s killing me.

[goldpendant]

I'd be very happy to be interviewed, identified;

I'm a civil servant, my agency is 'understanding' but I'm not furloughed, working f/t.

DH is a highly skilled, breadwinning, architect. Company is not understanding.

DS went back to school yesterday, yr 1, reduced hours. DD has been offered 5 of her 30 per week at the nursery.

Schools, government, councils are not thinking innovatively or ambitiously for our children and I'm fuming. And both of mine are 'back'!

Paid leave for those with caring/home schooling roles. Job protection if unpaid leave is the only option.

How the fuck do they expect us to live up to their guidance on home learning (www.gov.uk/guidance/supporting-your-childrens-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19) while juggling wfh? It is a disgrace.

Meanwhile the gulf between private and state education grows, because they're businesses and adopted zoom classes from day 1.

[AgentCooper]

Adding my support. The way things are is completely unsustainable and damaging.

[gapp]

To think working from home and looking after//home schooling kids is unsustainable until sept! http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3926380-to-think-working-from-home-and-looking-after-home-schooling-kids-is-unsustainable-until-sept

[gapp]

We need to rise up about the lack of education for our children www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3931427-We-need-to-rise-up-about-the-lack-of-education-for-our-children

[gapp]

How the hell are parents meant to work? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3933363-How-the-hell-are-parents-meant-to-work

[gapp]

There are so many more threads of this today with the news that schools will be closed until September for many

Not one journalist asked a question on how working parents are supposed to manage until then with no childcare

Many people trying to hold down professional demanding roles will be forced to resign

Companies are expecting many childcare related resignations .. in many cases this will save redundancy costs

What is the government doing?

[RowanMumsnet]

Sorry for the delayed response.

The survey was in a widget at the side of the screen - it's closed now but the numbers do seem to show that the MNers who responded are worried about the impacts of lockdown on their careers, in lots of cases.

We're going to run a bigger survey soon with more detail soon - we can't really flag it up to you directly because it would skew the results if we encouraged a particular group of users to take part. (But in general, my understanding is that if you join our Insight Panel you get shown most of our surveys!)

One other thing that some of you might be up for - when we think about doing stories like this for the press, one thing that can really help is having a couple of case studies. That means people whose own lives reflect the story the journalist is writing about. Ideally these people are willing to have their photos taken and generally be publicly identifiable.

Fully understand why lots of you may not want to do this for various reasons, but if any of you might be up for it in principle do let us know - you can email us on [email protected] - you wouldn't be committing to anything, just letting us know that you're cautiously interested.

Thanks

[CinnabarRed]

Thank you. I’ve retweeted and liked.

[meringue33]

Could there be a petition to go alongside the open letter so we can all effectively co sign too?

[meringue33]

Great thank you. Where is the user survey?

[RowanMumsnet]

[quote CinnabarRed]@RowanMumsnet - where did you get to on this?[/quote]
Hello - we've co-signed this letter with the Fawcett Society and lots of other groups asking the PM to act on this week's IFS study and recognise properly funded childcare provision as the essential economic infrastructure it is (much like, in our opinion, road, rail, and broadband provision).

We've Tweeted about it here if any of you are on Twitter and would like to give us an RT.

We're also collecting some stats at the moment about what our users say about how this crisis has impacted on their careers and we're going to try to make some media hay with that - recognising that as many of you have said, some women/families have been affected worse than others because of their circumstances.