Back up child care/ return to the office--> What was it like before?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the most part the sick days tend to be concentrated in the first few years after they start school, nursery or daycare. By the time they are 8 or 9 there are a lot less, if any. So at least the problem is temporary.
Parents of young kids end up taking a lot of time off when they are sick. It is the nature of the beast. If you don’t let them telework they will take sick leave- and failing that, annual leave.

8 years is not temporary. It's almost a decade.

[Anonymous]

I had three little kids pre-COVID, and honestly it was a mix of stuff.
We had a nanny largely because it covers when your kids are sick (and can't go to daycare) and also you can get coverage later in the day. (Our nanny could stay until 7 if need be.)
If the nanny was going to be out for an extended period (more than few days), I would pay to fly my parents across country. Southwest had discounts for over 55 -- not sure if they still do.
For a couple days, I would take leave or my husband would. We typically would do at least some work on those days. His employer did have a Bright Horizons backup care for some of the years and we did use that. We also contracted with White House nannies for backup care at one point, but actually never ended up using it because we were always able to cover other ways. Also, once the kids were in preschool or school, there was often a parent that would offer to take a few kids one day for a school closure, and then others could pay back on another school closure day. But it's much harder to make that work effectively if you have multiple kids.

The snow days are typically not that big a problem, because they will often do liberal leave, liberal telework, or just close on those days.

[Anonymous]

Tupperware

[Anonymous]

I had a teenager lined up for snow days, I had a school employee from extended day lined up for days school was closed randomly--she didn't get paid by the school on those days off, so it worked out perfectly for both of us. My kids sick days became my sick time off. I had a great female boss who didn't mind if I brought my kids in for a short period if I had an important meeting.

[Anonymous]

I've been a fed for almost 10 years and had little kids pre-Covid. In my agency, telework was almost unheard of at the time, so it was not an option for me. My agency did offer a backup care service, though, so I would use that pretty often. We usually had a nanny come to the house and the nannies were mostly OK (some better than others, but no horror stories). Otherwise, if my kids were too sick to be with a babysitter, my husband and I would take turns using sick days. And on rare occasions, I would beg my mom for help (rare not because she isn't helpful, but because she lived over an hour away at the time).

I remember stressing out about getting "the call" a lot, but we made it through...

[Anonymous]

Basically you paid to solve some of the burden. With 2 kids we hired a nanny. We were lucky when COVID hit because already has child care.

Even with a nanny we would stagger our schedule so that one parent would be home early “5:30pm.”

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if pre covid is a good comparison because OPMs memo is shooting us back to 1999–my office has banned telework. DH and I willingly go into the office daily now but that is supplemented with WFH as needed. Luckily my husband is at a now much more flexible company. Which isn’t great as I am the primary parent and that’s why I took the job i have

Anyways, fwiw, in addition to sick leave and PTO, at least at my agency you can take up to 24 hours of LWOP for child care purposes. It’s not an entitlement though, just encouraged I think for managers to offer it. and it doesn’t account for keeping the plates spinning.

i think trump supported agency heads will start to pretty aggressively argue for ad hoc or situational telework, just so that their own staff at a minimum can work in the evenings or weekends in these situations. i think the government has attracted a lot more young parents/dual fed households since PPL. i know trump et al want to burn it all down, but they still have some enforcement agendas that need people to implement, and the government doesn’t pay enough for republican men to have trad wives.

(OPMs follow up memo makes it clear they expect us to keep working during snow days 😒. because of course they do.)

[Anonymous]

For snow days often the government shuts down. Another option is to take your computer home if they offer liberal telework - that’s what my non fed office does.

For sick days there used to be services such at Whitehouse Nannies. Also parents were much more likely to send kids to school with minor issues and use family. But make no mistake this was always a very hard issue to deal with.

As for school days off, camps where available and sign up early. For those days with no camps and where you can’t find a sitter or family, you use your vacation and that typically meant all of your vacation went to cover this. These you can plan for though. School calendars come out early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For snow days often the government shuts down. Another option is to take your computer home if they offer liberal telework - that’s what my non fed office does.

For sick days there used to be services such at Whitehouse Nannies. Also parents were much more likely to send kids to school with minor issues and use family. But make no mistake this was always a very hard issue to deal with.

As for school days off, camps where available and sign up early. For those days with no camps and where you can’t find a sitter or family, you use your vacation and that typically meant all of your vacation went to cover this. These you can plan for though. School calendars come out early.

OPM has banned telework. The “RTO” mandate goes a lot further than most people seem to realize.

[Anonymous]

You took sick or annual leave. There was no back up care except family.

[Anonymous]

You took those days off work, and it affected your career.

[Anonymous]

We had an au pair because it made sense and never left us in a lurch. Even though it was a PITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For snow days often the government shuts down. Another option is to take your computer home if they offer liberal telework - that’s what my non fed office does.

For sick days there used to be services such at Whitehouse Nannies. Also parents were much more likely to send kids to school with minor issues and use family. But make no mistake this was always a very hard issue to deal with.

As for school days off, camps where available and sign up early. For those days with no camps and where you can’t find a sitter or family, you use your vacation and that typically meant all of your vacation went to cover this. These you can plan for though. School calendars come out early.

OPM has banned telework. The “RTO” mandate goes a lot further than most people seem to realize.

They banned teleworking on snow days? Before Feds could telework they just got the day off for snow. It was a big deal when the government started expecting them to telework on snow days. That seems like an odd decision and like it will change back.

[Anonymous]

do you think it will be a nanny market again if the feds are called back to offices? Many seem to be able to manage job duties/childcare combo perfectly, which just tells you something about their job duties, lol

[Anonymous]

I worked as a house cleaner when my kids were little. On random days off or snow days and even many days they were sick, I took them with me to work and they were on screens all day while I cleaned. I took my last baby to work with me for a year and he laid on a blanket on the floor while I cleaned. The homeowners knew I brought him and they said it was fine. It took me a little longer to clean, but it didn't matter to them as long as the price was the same.

I realize that most people can't bring their kids to work but I didn't get paid enough to pay for childcare, so that is how it had to be. I stayed as a house cleaner longer than I wanted to because of this arrangement. Now, my kids are older and I have an office job.