Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

If the solution is “more nannies” then compensation for women needs to match that of men, salaries of millennials need to catch up with inflation, and realistic childcare tax breaks implemented. Oh and we probably need to support immigration so we can actually find and hire people who want to nanny. BTW part time nannies are EXTREMELY hard to find, and even harder if only a few hours a week.

The solution is live closer to work. Whatever that looks like in your budget. Queue the balking in 3…2…1…

Not balking, but that’s not always as realistic as you make it out to be. Some people work in (gasp!) a different part of the metro area than their partner/spouse. Others (gasp!) change jobs and can’t just pick up and move to a new house every time that happens. Others (double gasp!) don’t want to raise their children in a 1-BR apt (which is pretty much all we could afford close to DH’s office). I could go on, but surely you could also use your imagination.

Also, given that the people in this situation are *parents*, it's worth bearing in mind that picking your kid up and putting them in a different school isn't always possible, definitely isn't great for them and is especially both of those things in March.

We don’t apply to jobs that are farther from our home than we are willing to commute. We live in Nova and literally do not even apply to jobs in DC.

This is a little unfair. Most people start their careers before they have kids. It's really hard to predict how your commute will work when you have kids in school. I used to live in another city in the outskirts and worked downtown. My commute took 45 minutes to an hour and that felt fine. I was single, no kids. Now I can't imagine our life if my commute was more than 30 minutes. I thank my lucky stars that the job I happened to get out of grad school is not in DC or other downtown area that essentially requires a 45min-1hr commute unless you have a lot of money. My dad used to do commutes like that growing up, and it seemed normal to me. But that lifestyle worked mainly if there was a SAHP/part-time working spouse. Telework/remote work is a way to adapt white collar jobs to dual working parent families. I do think these families should still have full time child care if they are working full time, but adding a 1+ hour commute each way to a full time job and parenting is insane and unsustainable.

It’s telling that you think the job you had long before kids should still be the same job you have many years later. Most people are many jobs removed from their pre kids job. My kids are teens and my DH has had five or six jobs since then and he was geographically limited on all of them. We haven’t moved houses.

It's telling you think everyone's career should be like your DH's. Many federal workers and contractors have very specialized experience and skillsets that you can just use anywhere. Of course, people can change jobs and shift skillsets, but if you don't care that certain federal jobs located downtown are essentially incompatible with any semblance of a sane family life for any but the highest paid workers, that tells me you are pretty ignorant.

Why would you choose such a limiting career that pays you so poorly you can’t afford to live near your job and you can’t easily switch to another job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Many daycares do close at 6 pm. Also after a long day without their parents you are saying young children shouldn’t see their parents for even longer and parents should just hire a nanny? Seems like what you are saying is that being a good parent is not compatible with having a full time job. Basically this is what republicans want. For working mothers to quit their jobs. What people who want women in the workplace but agree with you are saying is that either kids should just not see their parents except on the weekends or that women who want to work should not have kids. Disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Many daycares do close at 6 pm. Also after a long day without their parents you are saying young children shouldn’t see their parents for even longer and parents should just hire a nanny? Seems like what you are saying is that being a good parent is not compatible with having a full time job. Basically this is what republicans want. For working mothers to quit their jobs. What people who want women in the workplace but agree with you are saying is that either kids should just not see their parents except on the weekends or that women who want to work should not have kids. Disgusting.

Or, you know, just don’t live an hour away from your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

Jeez. Get another job. Unless you’re getting paid more than you are worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

Ok. There’s nothing wrong with that, and the vast majority of employers abide by mid-day “core hours”, with flexibility on arrivals/departure. Unless it’s an emergency (or was a clear part of the job from the start), 5 pm meetings are really rude.

I strongly believe that if there had been moderate compliance with the RTO mandate two years ago, we would not have been in this situation.

[Anonymous]

We found before and after daycare for our 2. DH and I have worked out a schedule for pickup and play drop-off my ear. It's working great so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

Not PP but we RTO a few weeks ago and I'm surprised how much free time I was giving my office. At home, I was working until the work got done, while now I pack up the minute my time is over. Whatever is left will have to wait until the next day. Oh well, this is what they wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

Not PP but we RTO a few weeks ago and I'm surprised how much free time I was giving my office. At home, I was working until the work got done, while now I pack up the minute my time is over. Whatever is left will have to wait until the next day. Oh well, this is what they wanted.

No one actually believes this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

Not PP but we RTO a few weeks ago and I'm surprised how much free time I was giving my office. At home, I was working until the work got done, while now I pack up the minute my time is over. Whatever is left will have to wait until the next day. Oh well, this is what they wanted.

No one actually believes this.

Well polygraph me then. I have nothing to hide. It's true for my situation in my office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

Not PP but we RTO a few weeks ago and I'm surprised how much free time I was giving my office. At home, I was working until the work got done, while now I pack up the minute my time is over. Whatever is left will have to wait until the next day. Oh well, this is what they wanted.

No one actually believes this.

I do. My in-office days are definitely shorter than my at-home days. I tend to use in-office days as “face time” days and schedule a lot of meetings/do a lot of planning, etc. Then my at-home days are “work product” days. I’ve started calendar blocking so that I don’t have a lot of Teams meetings on my at-home days and can focus on knocking stuff out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Yeah, if I’ve been at work since 8 am I’m not staying past 5. This is the type of rigidity that RTO creates. You need my @ss in the seat for 8 hours, that’s exactly what you are going to get. Schedule your ridiculous end of the day meeting for earlier.

It’s fine. It’s not like you were working more hours than that at home anyway. You were just “flexing” your time as you like to say. No one actually believes this results in more work product.

Not PP but we RTO a few weeks ago and I'm surprised how much free time I was giving my office. At home, I was working until the work got done, while now I pack up the minute my time is over. Whatever is left will have to wait until the next day. Oh well, this is what they wanted.

No one actually believes this.

I do. My in-office days are definitely shorter than my at-home days. I tend to use in-office days as “face time” days and schedule a lot of meetings/do a lot of planning, etc. Then my at-home days are “work product” days. I’ve started calendar blocking so that I don’t have a lot of Teams meetings on my at-home days and can focus on knocking stuff out.

But if you worked 5 days in the office, the imbalance of meetings vs work product on office days would normalize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

If the solution is “more nannies” then compensation for women needs to match that of men, salaries of millennials need to catch up with inflation, and realistic childcare tax breaks implemented. Oh and we probably need to support immigration so we can actually find and hire people who want to nanny. BTW part time nannies are EXTREMELY hard to find, and even harder if only a few hours a week.

The solution is live closer to work. Whatever that looks like in your budget. Queue the balking in 3…2…1…

Not balking, but that’s not always as realistic as you make it out to be. Some people work in (gasp!) a different part of the metro area than their partner/spouse. Others (gasp!) change jobs and can’t just pick up and move to a new house every time that happens. Others (double gasp!) don’t want to raise their children in a 1-BR apt (which is pretty much all we could afford close to DH’s office). I could go on, but surely you could also use your imagination.

Also, given that the people in this situation are *parents*, it's worth bearing in mind that picking your kid up and putting them in a different school isn't always possible, definitely isn't great for them and is especially both of those things in March.

We don’t apply to jobs that are farther from our home than we are willing to commute. We live in Nova and literally do not even apply to jobs in DC.

This is a little unfair. Most people start their careers before they have kids. It's really hard to predict how your commute will work when you have kids in school. I used to live in another city in the outskirts and worked downtown. My commute took 45 minutes to an hour and that felt fine. I was single, no kids. Now I can't imagine our life if my commute was more than 30 minutes. I thank my lucky stars that the job I happened to get out of grad school is not in DC or other downtown area that essentially requires a 45min-1hr commute unless you have a lot of money. My dad used to do commutes like that growing up, and it seemed normal to me. But that lifestyle worked mainly if there was a SAHP/part-time working spouse. Telework/remote work is a way to adapt white collar jobs to dual working parent families. I do think these families should still have full time child care if they are working full time, but adding a 1+ hour commute each way to a full time job and parenting is insane and unsustainable.

It’s telling that you think the job you had long before kids should still be the same job you have many years later. Most people are many jobs removed from their pre kids job. My kids are teens and my DH has had five or six jobs since then and he was geographically limited on all of them. We haven’t moved houses.

It's telling you think everyone's career should be like your DH's. Many federal workers and contractors have very specialized experience and skillsets that you can just use anywhere. Of course, people can change jobs and shift skillsets, but if you don't care that certain federal jobs located downtown are essentially incompatible with any semblance of a sane family life for any but the highest paid workers, that tells me you are pretty ignorant.

Why would you choose such a limiting career that pays you so poorly you can’t afford to live near your job and you can’t easily switch to another job?

Do you really need this explained to you? I would answer your question, but I know you'll just turn around and post about overpaid feds on another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly experienced mothers would not stoop to this pettiness.

I agree - truly experienced moms get that balancing kids and work is hard and we applaud those parents who are investing in reliable childcare so they can actually work. I’ve been burned at work by parents who are distracted trying to juggle kids and work for an extended period of time and don’t get that the solution is to invest in childcare.

Ha- doesn’t get better back in the office. I get burned by parents having to leave at 5pm on the dot to pick up their kids from daycare. We often have meetings that go past that. They claim daycares close at 6 and kid has softball. Seems like more nannies are needed.

Many daycares do close at 6 pm. Also after a long day without their parents you are saying young children shouldn’t see their parents for even longer and parents should just hire a nanny? Seems like what you are saying is that being a good parent is not compatible with having a full time job. Basically this is what republicans want. For working mothers to quit their jobs. What people who want women in the workplace but agree with you are saying is that either kids should just not see their parents except on the weekends or that women who want to work should not have kids. Disgusting.

Or, you know, just don’t live an hour away from your job.

I simply can’t afford to live in DC. What I can afford is a 2 bedroom apartment and I have three kids. What you are telling me is I shouldn’t have kids. Do you believe that working women should have kids? It’s a simple question. Or do you only believe that working women who are rich enough to afford a house right next to work should have kids? Also do you believe that kids with working parents should be able to see at least their parents for more than an hour a day?