What will you do for childcare and work if school is online in the fall? Quit? Hire nanny?

[Anonymous]

I make a little over half our income. I'm definitely not leaving, we'll figure out how to make it work. If I have to hire someone, I will. Even just for a couple of days a week would really help us. I'd be fine with some temporary loss of income for taking leave, it's the longer-term effect of losing my job that I am not voluntarily risking.

[Anonymous]

We have a nanny who we have been paying to stay at home for the last eight (nine?) weeks. We can probably limp along through summer without her, but next year we will need to have her (or someone else) work full-time again. She has a health concern which is why we have not had her come, so we will have to decide together if she is willing to come back or if we need to find someone new. But there's no way we can deal with the distance learning next year without help. This year they had already made it most of the way through the year and we figured if we continued to work on math and language arts through summer they'd end up where they needed to be. But next year, we can't do it anymore, even though we will both likely be working from home until at least January 2021.

[Anonymous]

You can't seriously consider HS grad for infant, toddler, or preschooler care. They would be OK for school age children in regular times, yes. But in pandemic, can you trust their social distancing habits?
I think using grandparents is fine within your social bubble (neither goes anywhere else), after everybody quarantined themselves for at least 2 weeks. Has nothing to do with Italy where grandparents were watching kids of already sick parents, and took them to play to parks, etc.

[Anonymous]

I WFH anyway, and while it sucks to juggle/stay on top of my kids' schedules, it's doable.

We would have to be more organized than we have been thus far. They are 10 and 12 and while they are very responsible and good about doing their work, sometimes assignments slip through the cracks or they miss the start-time of a class session or something. They would do better with a more consistent daily routine and a bit more work. They are both happiest on the days that they have live classes to attend.

I think the biggest change for us would be if that we're continuing to do online school in the fall, I'm going to look for ways to constructively fill more of their time. Online music or voice lessons with an instructor, some kind of online program that caters to an interest of theirs, plus maybe an activity with very limited human contact like riding lessons.

[Anonymous]

I have 50/50 with my child's other parent, I think we could both manage a rotating schedule where each of us teleworks 2-3 days. But if there is any inperson option, I'll push for my child to be part of it. I really feel for parents who don't have any telework options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 kids and we've been limping through the spring with 2 parents working full-time at home.
If this is the situation =in the fall (or if kids are home half-time) I think I'm going to leave my job.
I'm the secondary earner and while we need my income for long-term goals I don't think it's worth it to my family in
the here-and-now to be living on the edge of sanity like this.
Things will only get more complex if the kids are only in school part time (be that rotating days, rotating weeks, half-days etc.)

What are your thoughts on what your family will do?
Clearly I'm a planner and thinking this through helps me deal with an incredibly frustrating situation.

**Please no debate in this post on whether or note we will have distance learning. Let's say for this post that we do. I think everyone can agree that it's a good possibility.
Let's work off that premise.

Split time with hubby. Work will not be allowing people in unless we are socially distanced so working from home will continue as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe we need to rethink nuclear families and revert back to multigenerational families.

Multi-generational families is one of the reasons Italy had such a horrific death rate until they finally started to get things under control. Not the answer during a pandemic.

Yes. Here we just throw our old people into group homes and let minimum wage immigrants care for them. But our elderly are dying of covid at almost the same pace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I quit and took a part time job working two evenings a week. I can’t telework and take care of kids at the same time. I have no idea how people are doing this.

Can you take FFCRA leave? I asked for it part-time It's worked out well enough in terms of getting them through school online. Though, I don't know how much I'll have left for the fall, even with the extension.

[Anonymous]

For those getting babysitters, will you be asking them to prove they are Covid free with a test? I want to hire someone but I obviously can't control what they do when they leave my house.

[Anonymous]

School will not be online in the fall. There is no way the state is opening up and daycares and public schools are not open to accommodate the parents going into work. I am sure it will be an option (parents that would like to continue online in the fall may do so and are encouraged to do so but others that must work, will physically be in the classroom)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it's 100% online we may decamp to FL so my mom could help my rising kindergartner.

Same here. Will move to a normal state that’s open.

DC sure things it’s something special.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe we need to rethink nuclear families and revert back to multigenerational families.

I wish! For years I've been trying to get my parents to move here and watch my kids. They are not interested, alas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe we need to rethink nuclear families and revert back to multigenerational families.

I wish! For years I've been trying to get my parents to move here and watch my kids. They are not interested, alas.

Works well when everyone has their kids at age 20....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is military, essential, and goes in every day. I am a fed who was already doing TW almost full time. But my job is complex and requires sustained periods of work. My rising K kid has special needs and we decided to continue with in home therapy for him, so a therapist comes x3/week for three hours. I imagine we’d ask her to align her schedule with DS’s school schedule so she could support him with school work. I usually use my lunch break to run him around. We might look into a sitter but we’ve been managing this far between me and the therapist.

Same here. And we’re watching a military nurses kids m-f as she’s been sent to Detroit to work in hospitals and her husband is essential military with mine. We manage, big kids work and play together well enough but I have two others in diapers. But I don’t work... except for uso which is closed..