Do You Have Reliable Childcare?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Not every school employee is a classroom teacher, and even they get planning periods. Try to use your imagination. |
Anonymous
Why is PP using her planning period to post on DCUM? She is stealing from taxpayers. |
Anonymous
|
Yes it’s reliable.
Maybe if it’s snowing she doesn’t want to drive over. Only once in five years was she sick and we used care.com When kids are home sick one of use works from home. |
Anonymous
| School for our 6 year old and then he goes to aftercare or an activity. He will not sit alone for long but look forward to when he will so we can save money. |
Anonymous
|
I pay for:
2yo: full time daycare that is closed for two weeks a year (I take PTO those two weeks) 4yo: DCPS+aftercare or same daycare as 2yo when school isn’t in session If one kid is sick, I don’t take off work and they hang out playing by themselves while I WFH (my employer is aware and fine with this). If both kids are sick/home for snow days, I take PTO. So yes, I have reliable childcare at the moment. I’m dreading once we outgrow daycare and I have to piece together camps though. |
Anonymous
OP, your holier than thou shtick is tiring. |
Anonymous
|
NO ONE I know has ever had reliable childcare. What is your definition of reliable?
If something fell through, they had to take off work, or occasionally bring kids to work (or stay home and work with kids). We are all middle class families in the DC area. It must be a luxury indeed to have reliable childcare. Not in my universe. Thankfully, my kids are now teens. |
Anonymous
|
If camp is cancelled, no. Camp is childcare, why/how would you plan in advance for a backup to childcare? For random days off and regular sick days, not anymore either. Our 8 year old is self sufficient and likes to have "pajama days" at home. She also gets a week or two without camp during the summer, and loves to just sit around and relax without regular school year activities and practice schedules.
We both have flexible, but demanding jobs. DH WFH full time and I can take situational telework for unscheduled emergencies. If DH is traveling (rarely), I can block the time on my calendar to do pick up then sign back online from home. If she was so sick we needed to care for her (flu or norovirus I guess?), we'd just take a sick day ourselves. |
Anonymous
OK, nosy, the deal is that my DH works 7:30-4 on his WFH days, and I have a flexible schedule that allows me to take time off in the afternoon and make it up later in the evening or even on the weekend. We actually still use aftercare several days a week, but our kid has activities twice a week that are easier to get to if we can bring her home and then whichever one of us is not working can take her. Sometimes we arrange it so neither of us are working and one will take her while the other makes dinner. Sometimes we both take her and DH and I hang out while she's at her activity and then we all go to dinner. We make significantly less money by arranging our lives this way with my flexible job and his flex hours on WFH days, than we would if we both just took regular 9-5 or 9-6 jobs without flexibility. But we'd have to spend a significant portion of that extra income on childcare, plus we would not get to spend as much time with our kid or with each other, and stuff like meals and housework would be more stressful. So we accept this tradeoff, which works for us and our priorities. But go right on judging. This is why I don't socialize with the people at school who always seem to be a little too focused on the details of other people's lives. |
Anonymous
Hopefully your spouse works or ex pays child support too. Just keep your eyes 👀 n the ball. Child care days turn into after school drivers. Always save 401k and annual Roth IRA, 529s. Have your cv ready for any opportunity if it comes knocking |
Anonymous
Weird |
Anonymous
Fck off |
Anonymous
|
Our child care center closed for 5 months during COVID. DH and I traded off watching our then 1 yo and trying to work FT jobs. Thankfully our workplaces were very understanding, but after 5 months we were both completely burnt out. Since then yes, we've had reliable child care (center is open 6:30-6:30 though we don't use all that time) as long as our child was healthy, which thankfully has been most of the time. But like any parent I've certainly had to take time off to care for a sick kid. Thankfully all the senior people in my office have been there and completely understand.
FWIW the aftercare program at our ES filled up for the next school year in January. Thankfully we got a spot for our child but it is legit hard for working parents to find reliable child care. |
Anonymous
The only people I know with truly fool proof childcare coverage have both a full time nanny AND family nearby (who are able and willing to provide childcare when needed). It's a truly rare and privileged position to be in. I have a kid in 1st grade and we do school plus aftercare plus camps plus use leave to fill in the gaps. Which is what most parents seem to do. I also have a less than FT job (30-35 hours a week, so I still work pretty full days) which helps a lot on the margins and makes pick up/drop off and activities easier. But I have two friends with kids in my child's class who, because they have younger kids, have nannies, and even though I get that they are paying a lot of money for the nannies, I'm so jealous of the fact that they pretty much never have to stress about childcare coverage. Sure, they still do camps for their older kids in the summer and they have to pay the nanny extra when she's taking care of the older kid too, but even just knowing that you basically never have to arrange for care or take time off for a random school holiday or parent teacher conference or whatever... so nice. Like most people, we can't afford/justify a nanny for a school age child. I'd actually love to do part-time childcare if we could swing it because aftercare is pretty subpar, but that's expensive too and also it's incredibly hard to find a part-time nanny who won't quit on you after a few months for a full time gig. Point is, 99.9999% of parents will have gaps in childcare, especially for elementary kids who cannot be left alone (or for many early elementary kids, to self-entertain elsewhere in the house) but also are not going to have full time daycare or a nanny because they are in school for approximately 50% of the days of the year. It's a maddening problem given how common it is -- why haven't we figure out how to solve it on a societal level instead of just leaving every parent to fend for themselves? That's what other, more civilized countries do. |
Anonymous
| When I was a kid 8 year olds were getting off the bus and going home to an empty house until 6 or after. You're saying 8-12 year olds (even 6-8) need so much supervision now that a parent working from home can't pick them up from school and work for another two hours and should be expected to find childcare at that time? My 8 year old generally just stays home on the random day off days and entertains himself. Other than taking a longer lunch to actually sit and interact rather than eating at my desk it's really no different. It'd be more disruptive to commute to day off camp options and be offline at peak meeting times on my team. Yes there are differences for the 3 and unders. |