Anyone else not able to focus on work due to lack of good childcare options?

[Anonymous]

My eldest was out of school for 6 months. We have no childcare for the younger one, who is 3. I’m lucky in that I can flex my hours. But yeah — it’s been a rough year.

If you can try not to care so much about work performance, OP, that will help. I was firing on all cylinders for a few years and this sucks but at the same time I just decided to prioritize family. It’s temporary. In a few months many more nannies will be vaccinated and you can replace yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My eldest was out of school for 6 months. We have no childcare for the younger one, who is 3. I’m lucky in that I can flex my hours. But yeah — it’s been a rough year.

If you can try not to care so much about work performance, OP, that will help. I was firing on all cylinders for a few years and this sucks but at the same time I just decided to prioritize family. It’s temporary. In a few months many more nannies will be vaccinated and you can replace yours.

It is not a few months. It will be 5-10 YEARS until it evolves to be less deadly. There are already variants that partially evade vaccines that occurred BEFORE vaccines were widespread. With evolutionary pressure from so many vaccinated (plus international travel, which is still occurring) we absolutely will have a bunch of new variants by fall. With new vaccines out all the time it will be difficult to impossible to vaccinate everyone esp. given so many people are already suspicious of the vaccines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My eldest was out of school for 6 months. We have no childcare for the younger one, who is 3. I’m lucky in that I can flex my hours. But yeah — it’s been a rough year.

If you can try not to care so much about work performance, OP, that will help. I was firing on all cylinders for a few years and this sucks but at the same time I just decided to prioritize family. It’s temporary. In a few months many more nannies will be vaccinated and you can replace yours.

It is not a few months. It will be 5-10 YEARS until it evolves to be less deadly. There are already variants that partially evade vaccines that occurred BEFORE vaccines were widespread. With evolutionary pressure from so many vaccinated (plus international travel, which is still occurring) we absolutely will have a bunch of new variants by fall. With new vaccines out all the time it will be difficult to impossible to vaccinate everyone esp. given so many people are already suspicious of the vaccines.

Please stop being an alarmist.

Send me the link to an article which states life will not return to normal by the end of this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My eldest was out of school for 6 months. We have no childcare for the younger one, who is 3. I’m lucky in that I can flex my hours. But yeah — it’s been a rough year.

If you can try not to care so much about work performance, OP, that will help. I was firing on all cylinders for a few years and this sucks but at the same time I just decided to prioritize family. It’s temporary. In a few months many more nannies will be vaccinated and you can replace yours.

It is not a few months. It will be 5-10 YEARS until it evolves to be less deadly. There are already variants that partially evade vaccines that occurred BEFORE vaccines were widespread. With evolutionary pressure from so many vaccinated (plus international travel, which is still occurring) we absolutely will have a bunch of new variants by fall. With new vaccines out all the time it will be difficult to impossible to vaccinate everyone esp. given so many people are already suspicious of the vaccines.

PP here. The shutdown was not to prevent people from catching it, but from overwhelming our hospital system and creating a situation where many people who needed care could not get it. Yes, there will be new variants, and since we missed the boat with eradication (unlike NZ and Australia) we are likely looking at a yearly booster for an endemic virus. But that is livable. Therapeutics are improving and one day soon that might also significantly decrease the mortality rate of the virus as well as the rate of severe after effects.

It’s no longer a novel virus, and that matters. We are definitely on the road to it being safe (for both parties) to have vaccinated nannies again, for example, which many people haven’t had the whole year. In another year children will be vaccinated.

[Anonymous]

We were also unable to find good childcare options, so we begged my mother in law to come live with us. It’s distracting to have the kids in the house but we make the best of it. Do you have any retired family members who could come help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic that is never ending as we all know has been detrimental particularly to working moms.

The first 7 months we were without daycare for our then six month old. Like most people we thought it was a two week flatten the curve wait...then it rolled into a month, then okay until Memorial Day etc etc. When we realized that our child would be a year old before the daycare reopened and then found out there was not space in the older big kid room...plus factoring in the daycare location was no longer a good option because we were not going into the office...we ended up with a part time nanny.

Of course we would have liked full time, but that would be double the cost of daycare. Nanny shares wont work for us now since we are at home working and the house isn't big enough to accommodate.

Every single daycare in our neighborhood is at reduced capacity or a long wait list...same for preschools for twos in the next year.

I am not the type who wants to be VP or anything, but that being said I enjoyed work and making decent money. However, at this point I am so stressed and can't focus on work because of a crappy childcare situation. Our nanny is okay and she works for now since we are home, but she isn't the best honestly.

Hmm, we are in NoVA and have actually found the opposite to be the case. We recently returned to the area and were able to immediately enroll our younger child in a highly regarded NAEYC accredited full-time preschool that is less than 10 minutes away from us, usually has a multi-year waitlist, and was out of the realm of possibility for our older child several years ago, even though we got on the waitlist before birth. I think many middle/upper income families that have either not needed childcare this year due to more flexible work from home schedules or shifted to private nannies are now far less willing to reassume the costs, logistical inconveniences, and /or increased commute requirements of the standard childcare options. Bottom line is there are still childcare options out there- it’s just become acceptable for parents to become more picky.