RTO and No Childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a lack of childcare that’s the problem; it’s that these women want to have it both ways. They don’t want to pay anyone else to watch their children, they prefer to fleece their employers.

This comment upsets me. It’s either patently misogynistic or latently misogynistic. “Women” aren’t the only ones needing child care. Last I checked, it takes two to make a child. And anyone can be a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

A mandate that people now have to be in the office for 10 hours a day is not happening.

DOGE is recommending it for federal workers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kid has been working from home since well before Covid. When she and her husband decided to have kids they lined up child care first - the grandparents when the kids were babies and a preschool/daycare once they were toddlers. It never occurred to her for a second that she could watch her kids at home herself and work at the same time. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

Time to return to reality, ladies.

Please get over yourself and also learn to read in order to understand what the thread is about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Women asked for it. Let’s not forget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are a lot of women employed FT in professional careers really saying they have no childcare? That's not what I've seen on DCUM. People are often talking about the extra time for commuting and difference of being out of the house. So like a 10yp may come home from school and not have childcare from 4-5pm because they can entertain themselves while parent works. But the parent may not want them actually alone in the house. It's a childcare gap. Same with the mornings before school opens - I would need beforecare to RTO and it might not be available this school year (already full). Or preschool may close at 5pm but with commute I'd get home later than that, etc.

WFH necessitates childcare if you have a real job but can be for fewer hours, or you cover the occasional days off and breaks without always taking PTO etc

I’d say telework saved me about 3-4 years of aftercare. But that’s for an older kid - he didn’t need any hands-on care while I was working.

Me too. My kids were in 2nd grade when the pandemic started. By the time I was forced to RTO the majority of the time (not every day though), they were in 6th grade and childcare was no longer an issue. Flexibility has been a big thing though, I ad hoc telework when my kid has an early sporting event and flex my hours so that I can get them to practices that start before 5 pm. I don’t like getting up at 5 am so that I can get to work early and leave early, but you do what you have to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

A mandate that people now have to be in the office for 10 hours a day is not happening.

Given that my office is 2 hours away (my job was advertised, and I was hired, fully remote), this actually would make me quit. I'd try to stick out a full RTO with flexible hours.

And yes, OP, for me it's the aftercare. My kids were in day care until elementary and now we just have an after school sitter the one day a week neither of us can make school pickup (husband works in person locally and has a lot of flexibility, I am remote and start my day early). It costs us $200/month. Putting both of my kids in daily aftercare would be over $1200, plus getting to the office costs me $26/day, of which I think commuter benefits would only offset about $130. So we're talking about $1600/month higher cost of RTO. My take home is only about $4000.

Unfortunately I'm the higher earner, so I couldn't quit unless I found a job locally near my MUCH smaller town, or my husband changed to a higher paying career. But yeah, while i paid for 10 years of full time day care, my current life IS set up around being remote, just as my job offer said. This would be a big impact.

If you're two hours away and they order you to come in, then you'll need to pay relocation. That might mean a pay increase assuming you're not always in the DC pay locality region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Women asked for it. Let’s not forget.

women asked to be allowed to leave the home!? lol silly women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People will just have to do whatever they did before COVID.

My kids are 8,6,3. Before Covid they weren’t in school and were in daycare. Our school hours are super short and the day ends at 2:30. We do have aftercare but my kids would prefer to walk home and play outside with their friends while I finish working.

I personally think the solution is that the school day should be longer. If school ended at 3:30 or 4, a lot more people wouldn’t need aftercare.

If a fed doesn’t have childcare, they can be disciplined and fired. There’s no excuse.

Schools are schools, not childcare centers.

This hasn’t been true for years, now, and the sooner we admit it and start formally tailoring it as such, the better off we will be as a society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Women asked for it. Let’s not forget.

women asked to be allowed to leave the home!? lol silly women.

So things are much better now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

Right. I think that is what the childcare threads are talking about. It’s not lack of childcare it’s the commutes along with the 8-6pm requirement. If before care and aftercare is from 7:30-6 and my commute is an hour it doesn’t work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, any RTO mandate will have so many loopholes and exceptions, it’ll look like Swiss cheese — Ad hoc telework, medical exceptions, etc etc. And in the end, things won’t be much different than now.

But DOGE can claim victory and move on. And the maga public won’t know the difference.

Do you know who’s really screwed? MANAGERS and HR staff, who will spend 90 pct of their day addressing requests and reviewing badge data, etc.

What a stupid policy.

From what I know about the inner workings of my agency, your assessment is spot on. The pot will be stirred, but nothing will actually change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kid has been working from home since well before Covid. When she and her husband decided to have kids they lined up child care first - the grandparents when the kids were babies and a preschool/daycare once they were toddlers. It never occurred to her for a second that she could watch her kids at home herself and work at the same time. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

Time to return to reality, ladies.

Please get over yourself and also learn to read in order to understand what the thread is about.

The thread is about the high cost and lack of availability of child care and how that may affect the ability of parents to work in an office and make working in an office less desirable than working from home when you have kids.

DUH. The point is that it’s ALWAYS been difficult for families with two working parents to deal with child care. And that’s something where it definitely should be in the government’s interest to get involved.

It’s no excuse, though, for working parents to expect their employers to allow them to work from home and watch their kids there at the same time. And that’s what some of the posters on this thread want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

A mandate that people now have to be in the office for 10 hours a day is not happening.

DOGE is recommending it for federal workers.

People need to take a deep breath here. They talk about 8-6 because they have no concept of what an actual workday is for a government employee. They also have no concept of the laws governing the hours in a workweek and the compensation involved with mandating a 45 hour work week. I’m not talking about salaried employees with a 9-5 tour of duty who work more than that, I’m talking about actually changing tours of duty so that they are 8-6, which would require additional compensation. I know DOGE is saying a lot of things but you need to consider each of their talking points rationally before deciding what is worth getting worked up about and what isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Women asked for it. Let’s not forget.

women asked to be allowed to leave the home!? lol silly women.

So things are much better now?

yes they are, dumb*ss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

Black women can make the same choices as white women. That privilege card is not goi g to work any longer. In short people should not have children if they can’t afford them. That’s why I only had one, it’s what I could afford.