Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I rode an hour long plus vanpool when I first started in the gov't. There was no telework. You had to figure it out.

Now I see people hopping off the computer and going to school pickup and then resuming work with their young kids in the house and thinking there is nothing wrong with it.

There is nothing wrong with it. Kids are allowed to be present in the home while teleworking. My kid being at home doesn't mean I'm not working.

"While the presence of dependents in the household should not be an absolute bar to teleworking, employees should not be engaging in dependent care activities when performing official duties. While an occasional, brief interruption may occur when a dependent is present in the home, teleworkers must be careful to keep interruptions to a minimum to avoid disruptions in work accomplishment."

https://www.opm.gov/telework/tmo-and-coordinators/dependent-care/

it is wrong moron, you can't care for children and work at the same time hire someone! You will need to follow the laws of your state

Telework and Dependent Care
While telework is not a substitute for dependent care, it can be a very valuable flexibility to employees with caregiving responsibilities, by eliminating time required to commute and expanding employees’ choices as to dependent care. Agencies and managers should recognize that employees use a variety of dependent care options, including agency on-site child care centers to ensure close proximity to young children as well as home-based supervision or child care arrangements (e.g., nanny, in-home babysitting by a family member or friend), which may be more cost effective or convenient. For teleworkers with in-home dependent care arrangements, it is important to remember that telework is official work time and a tool for accomplishing work. Employees are reminded that while teleworking, all workplace policies remain in place, including telework start/end times, rules regarding time and attendance, and employee expectations concerning performance and conduct.


Ages 8 and under: Children should always be under the care of a responsible person and should not be left unsupervised in homes, cars, playgrounds, or yards.

Ages 9 to 10: May be ready to be left unsupervised for up to 1.5 hours during daylight and early evening hours.

Ages 11 to 12: May be ready to be left unsupervised for up to 3 hours during daylight and early evening hours.

Ages 13 to 15: May be ready to be left unsupervised for more than 3 hours but not overnight.

Ages 16 and older: May be ready to be left unsupervised overnight for 1 to 2 days, with a plan in place.

The guidance you state is for children being left home alone entirely. My 8 year old watching a TV show in the basement has no bearing on my ability to complete my work.

You require childcare, we got a nanny until the kids were 15

Lol! 15 year olds are nannys in some situations! Your poor helpless kids.

So 15 year old nannies are going to drop out of high school to watch your kids? wtf, no they are baby sitters for when you go out to have date night maybe at pf changs or cheesecake factory (just leveling with the person's level complaining i am more of a great American restaurant kind of person or hole in the wall sushi place)

[Anonymous]

hello idiots, your salary and spouse together is more than enough to cover daycare all day or SACC, stfu and pay up. maybe cut down on the doordash you don't need that anymore because covid is over and can do your own pickups.

[Anonymous]

At my child’s private school, many families keep their nannies until middle school so that they can pick their children up from school at 3:00, drive them to sports/tutoring/ extracurricular activities and then bring them home and prep dinner by the time the parents get home from work. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

[Anonymous]

Lot of you haven’t read the op and need to take a breather.

[Anonymous]

Simple. Daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember one day in maybe 2018 when our toddler was sick and my husband and I both had big presentations at work that would have been a big problem for each of us professionally to reschedule. Thankfully, his was in the morning and mine was in the afternoon.

He went to work, gave his presentation, took an uber home, I met him on the porch to hand off the baby and took the same uber to my office to give my presentation. I don’t know what we would have done if our presentations were at the same time.

We also swapped a sick baby on metro to allow both of us to work a half day.

In some ways I’m looking forward to returning to the days when I have to take a day off when my kid is sick. I’m pretty sure my employer is not looking forward to especially since 20% of my office was fired last week.

I'm the hand waving poster from above, and yes, we definitely did half day kid swapping, too. I remember one day DH brought our older child to work around 11:00am and I picked her up at 12:00 to bring back home. It was certainly not ideal but she just sat in is office and watched a movie on his laptop while he worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a mom who managed this problem pre covid. It's not that I want more women to be miserable. I agree that flexibility is priceless for working families and I also agree that RTO will have the largest negative impact on women and that is sad.

But I am also annoyed at how clueless and entitled some of these posts are! This is a common problem that until very recently we all dealt with. It's not a unique attack on you. You can figure it out.

I also agree with the poster who said people used to prioritize commute when buying a home. I recall making a test drive to pick my kids up and drive by our potential new home to see what that would be like before putting in an offer. We didnt put offers in to houses that had more difficult commutes. Even if we loved the space the daily reality of needing to pick up kids and get to from the office was most important.

Sorry it's changing abruptly but not sorry you can't understand that this is life.

So we should all give up are low mortgage rates and buy homes closer in (since there is an abundance of homes on the market and it the COL in DC is so reasonable). Plus uproot our kids from their schools, activities and friends. What a short sighted comment

You made a decision that fit your situation at that time. But it wasn't smart to not plan for a change in situation. The situation has changed so yes you have to pivot. A low mortgage rate on a house located inconveniently isn't a positive thing.

Ohh geese guess I should have used my
Magic 8 ball ten years ago to know this was coming…silly me to think it was smart to have a family and buy a home!

Literally this is real life! You dont need to know what the change may be but you need to anticipate that family and work obligations shift with time. Assuming what you had at time of home purchase was a life long guarantee is very short sighted. Adults understand contingency plans. It's not fun or pleasant but it is real life. If you chose to have kids you should have expected that to alter your commuting or working abilities in some ways.

Your earlier assertion was that individuals should be able to pivot on a whim, as if selling and buying a new home or relocating children is a trivial matter. You also seem to suggest that there shouldn't be any complaints about returning to the office (RTO) b/c every adult must have their entire life meticulously planned out, accounting for every possible contingency. That reality ain’t possible.

DP. We still have elementary school aged kids and made sure to keep before and after care for our kids all through COVID and beyond because we realized this RTO would potentially be a possibility. I’m sorry if you didn’t plan better. It’s not an expense that we wanted but are thankful to still have it, tens of thousands of dollars later. We bought our home knowing we each could commute to office five days a week. We have colleagues that get up at 4 am to make the in person office commute work. There’s going to be no sympathy with this administration if you’re looking for more flexibility. They want you to quit. Either embrace the change and costs or give in to their demands and quit. There’s really no middle ground.

Not all of us commuted to the office 5 days a week pre covid. Majority of federal government employees were on a hybrid schedule.

+1 I was fully remote (private sector) before covid.

And to poster saying they continued to pay for after care during covid that’s either a flat out lie or you must have gone to private school. Public schools did not continue to have after care during covid nor did you have an option to hold your spot till schools opened again. But I appreciative the narrative you are trying to spin that all these WFH folks should have planned better. Guess it’s a better look than whining about how you have to go in so everyone else should

We are in FCPS and SACC absolutely did hold our spot until school opened again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you pay for childcare like everyone else before covid

There are so many bitter people here. Before Covid I was able to telework two days a week. So could my husband. Now he has to return to the office full time and I probably will too (haven’t heard from my agency yet). So no it’s not like before covid. My commute is an hour long and his is an hour and 20 minutes long one way. We live right next to the metro but they moved my husband’s office so now it’s just much further. That’s two hours a day commuting for me and almost 3 hrs for him. In that time we can make dinner, do the laundry etc. We are both in litigation so our jobs are actually stressful and don’t have much time during the day. But those two hours that I save mean everything. Also my eldest two are in elementary school and extended day is completely full. There is a waitlist to get in. I pick them up from the bus stop at 3 pm and bring them home. Since they are in 3rd and 4th grade they are self sufficient and even set the table for dinner and make the salad. Since we are a bilingual family, a tutor comes at 3:30 three days a week to tutor them in my native language. My youngest who is three is at daycare and my husband picks her up at 5:30 while I prep dinner. It’s tough having three kids but telework makes it much it much easier. Sure I can find childcare but it’s not easy. Who would want to work for two hours only? And it’s not cheap. And when would I find the time to cook? Republicans pretend to care about families but people don’t have kids or as many kids as they want because it’s so hard to balance working with having a family. Our school calls us and tells us to pick the kids up for every sniffle. What happens now? I would have to leave work (takes an hour) pick them up and drive them home. All that time wasted when I could have just driven 5 minutes and gone right back to work. Since my work has so many deadlines I will have to make up for the lost time in the evening. How do I balance that with spending time with my kids, making dinner, giving my 3 year old a bath? Cleaning up…. The entire thing is insane and people like PP who want us all to suffer are just disgusting. Society is going to have to resolve this issue. How do people have kids while two spouses are working full time? Republicans have the answer to that. They want women to stay at home. That’s what may end up happening because many of us may just have no choice. I’m sure PP will be celebrating

OK, deep breath.
I was very much in your shoes. What worked for me was to pay the tutor to pick my daughter up from car line (or in your case perhaps the bus stop), bring her home, get her a small snack and start the tutoring lesson at 3:30 as planned then help her with homework till I got home at 5:30. Yes, I had to pay her for 2.5 hours 5 days a week instead of paying her for 1 hour 3 days a week but to know she was being reliably picked up and when I got home all the homework was done and tutoring was done was really helpful.
For years I have meal prepped on weekends and planned lunches and meals around leftovers.
It felt weird to ask the tutor to do this, I was really hesitant to do it. I led in by acknowledging it was an odd request and I would pay her hourly rate. We had that arrangement for 2 years.

Thanks so much PP for the advice. I’m just so stressed I can’t think straight. I didn’t think about asking the tutor to babysit. That would honestly be the best solution. Paying her the hourly rate makes sense since that’s how much her time costs. It would only be an extra say 45 minutes so I think it’s doable. Need to muster the courage to ask though! I feel a bit embarrassed asking her :/

Don’t be embarrassed. I used to teach and tutor. So much money is lost driving to the house and back that I preferred to torture out of my home. I bet the tutor would be happy to double her money for the same commute. As long as you’re paying her tutoring rate, and she’s available, she’ll jump on it.

[Anonymous]

Our kids were both born before the pandemic where, other than 1x per week telework for me, we were both in the office full time. So they attended a daycare and we had to stagger our schedules for one of us to do drop off and the other pickup. DH has continued to be in person whereas I’ve only had to go in 1x per week since the pandemic. Now I’ll be back in the office full time too. Kids are in school and already attend before/aftercare, they’ll just have to go earlier now. So it’s not quite as an adjustment compared to those where both parents have been teleworking for several years now. Unfortunately situational telework will be gone too- previously if DH was traveling I could request telework to avoid the commute. Now I’ll probably have to take an hour of leave on those days to guarantee I make it back in time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Others are managing RTO without a village just like any other parents who work in person and don’t have a village. Having kids always has been a sacrifice for most people. You just had a reprieve for a few years.

A lot of child care centers decreased their hours and enrollment during the pandemic for safety reasons and haven’t been able to staff up to increase back to pre pandemic enrollment.

Parenthood has always been difficult, but I’ll put money on this delightful remark having come from someone ignorant to the fact that there is a dwindling supply of child care.

This

Center director here-many centers also closed or cut back on staffing due to reduced demand since parents were keeping their children at home. Our phone has been ringing off the hook since last month, mainly parents of infants and toddlers who kept their children home while they worked from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Others are managing RTO without a village just like any other parents who work in person and don’t have a village. Having kids always has been a sacrifice for most people. You just had a reprieve for a few years.

A lot of child care centers decreased their hours and enrollment during the pandemic for safety reasons and haven’t been able to staff up to increase back to pre pandemic enrollment.

Parenthood has always been difficult, but I’ll put money on this delightful remark having come from someone ignorant to the fact that there is a dwindling supply of child care.

This

Center director here-many centers also closed or cut back on staffing due to reduced demand since parents were keeping their children at home. Our phone has been ringing off the hook since last month, mainly parents of infants and toddlers who kept their children home while they worked from home.

So glad we kept our kids in a center even when we WFH. We wanted them to have the socialization and work in quiet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Others are managing RTO without a village just like any other parents who work in person and don’t have a village. Having kids always has been a sacrifice for most people. You just had a reprieve for a few years.

A lot of child care centers decreased their hours and enrollment during the pandemic for safety reasons and haven’t been able to staff up to increase back to pre pandemic enrollment.

Parenthood has always been difficult, but I’ll put money on this delightful remark having come from someone ignorant to the fact that there is a dwindling supply of child care.

This

Center director here-many centers also closed or cut back on staffing due to reduced demand since parents were keeping their children at home. Our phone has been ringing off the hook since last month, mainly parents of infants and toddlers who kept their children home while they worked from home.

Ding ding ding. The market adjusts. If the same people who are complaining now about lack of childcare had signed up earlier they would be okay now.

School-age children at home for 4-5pm while WFH is one thing. But children at home all day during teacher workdays, summer, etc. is not acceptable. And babies/toddlers is *definitely* not acceptable!

Those who WFH while providing FT care for more than an

[Anonymous]

^ And I’m not saying only Feds do this. I know people in remote jobs in private industry too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ And I’m not saying only Feds do this. I know people in remote jobs in private industry too

The funny thing is that outside of the early stage of the pandemic, I only know one person IRL that kept a baby home while working (a contractor) and even she admitted it was only possible because her mom/MIL helped out for 2-3 days per week (and once they were 18mo the kid went to daycare). I definitely know quite a few parents who dropped or scaled back on before/aftercare, some of whom are scrambling becasue some days are full. But are there really that many parents still WFH and caring for babies/toddlers fulltime? How is that even functional....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ And I’m not saying only Feds do this. I know people in remote jobs in private industry too

The funny thing is that outside of the early stage of the pandemic, I only know one person IRL that kept a baby home while working (a contractor) and even she admitted it was only possible because her mom/MIL helped out for 2-3 days per week (and once they were 18mo the kid went to daycare). I definitely know quite a few parents who dropped or scaled back on before/aftercare, some of whom are scrambling becasue some days are full. But are there really that many parents still WFH and caring for babies/toddlers fulltime? How is that even functional....

I don't know anyone who has done it. It isn't functional.