Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should manage childcare for RTO the same way you manage it for WFH. You are not supposed to be dropping off and picking up on the clock. Nor are you supposed to be caring for your kids at home. You were supposed to have a childcare plan this whole time. WFH is not your childcare plan. Why are you just now trying to figure it out.

NP here. My DH and I work from home. My hours are 8:30-5:15 and his are about 7-4:45 (he often also works in evenings). Our childcare for our younger child is open 8-6 and is an 5 min walk from our house. Our older child’s after school sport starts at 5:45. If we were commuting (my commute is well over an hour) daily we would have to find new child care. So not having enough hours for RTO isn’t the same as not having child care. That said, DH and I have paid a few thousand a month all along for child care (just getting less now as kids are school age) so the idea of not wanting to pay for it is different to me than not being able to find a childcare with reasonable hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it amusing that women want school to be all day to “help” working women.

But nearly all teachers are women and most have kids. Who will watch their kids when they are working all day?

Also amusing are complaints about day care costs. Daycare workers are almost 100 percent women and insanely underpaid with almost no benefits. They are way overworked in a stressful hard job for very little pay and working moms want them to get paid even less and work longer hours.

I don’t think making it worse for teachers and daycare workers is the answer.

A lot of women go into teaching specifically to have more time with their children.

[Anonymous]

Single parent. I wish I could WFH but I can't. I drop my kid off at before school care at 7am and pick him up by 6pm. That's the way it has always been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it amusing that women want school to be all day to “help” working women.

But nearly all teachers are women and most have kids. Who will watch their kids when they are working all day?

Also amusing are complaints about day care costs. Daycare workers are almost 100 percent women and insanely underpaid with almost no benefits. They are way overworked in a stressful hard job for very little pay and working moms want them to get paid even less and work longer hours.

I don’t think making it worse for teachers and daycare workers is the answer.

A lot of women go into teaching specifically to have more time with their children.

21:18 here. I am a teacher and my kid is in daycare from 7-6 everyday. I don't earn that much so I work at our school's after school program to try to make ends meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should manage childcare for RTO the same way you manage it for WFH. You are not supposed to be dropping off and picking up on the clock. Nor are you supposed to be caring for your kids at home. You were supposed to have a childcare plan this whole time. WFH is not your childcare plan. Why are you just now trying to figure it out.

I'm in a bit of a tricky situation in that we live near my spouse's fully in-person job, not mine (I was hired off a remote advertisement, so my life was set up to WFH). My spouse did drop offs and i did pick ups, with me working an earlier schedule vs spouse later, just like lots of working parents with short commutes. Neither of us was doing it on the clock. We paid for day care.

RTO for me means adding 4 hours of commute time to my day. 8-9 hours vs 12-13 hours is VERY different. If I could get a job 10 minutes away, sure, nothing would change, but no luck on that so far...that's why remote work was such a great opportunity.

[Anonymous]

I have a 6 and 7 yo. For the past week, I am out of the door at 4:30am with an hour commute. DH gets the kids ready and drives to work in DC (also an hour commute) around 07:30. I am back by 3:30pm to get kids off the school bus. We do not have any help, except for cleaning service. I can’t believe I am even up right now typing this 😳!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should manage childcare for RTO the same way you manage it for WFH. You are not supposed to be dropping off and picking up on the clock. Nor are you supposed to be caring for your kids at home. You were supposed to have a childcare plan this whole time. WFH is not your childcare plan. Why are you just now trying to figure it out.

When will you people come out of the factory assembly line mentality? 15 minutes break for a white collar professional is not a big deal especially when the same professional is eating lunch at their desk or continues answering phone calls and emails after work. I pickup my kids everyday, it takes me exactly 15 minutes, I have informed my team and by boss that this 15 minute timeframe is booked for me, nobody bats an eyelid.

In majority of white collar jobs, you do things in bursts, lot of tasks require thinking and planning, again this isn’t an assembly line.

[Anonymous]

Fortunately, my youngest is 6 and is ok with being in beforecare/school/aftercare from 7:30-6:30. I don't know how this will work for those with younger kids. I have been teleworking 2x for 10 years and my partner was hired fully remote, so it's been a big change. Now that both of us have to commute, we can't take our kids to afterschool activities during the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should manage childcare for RTO the same way you manage it for WFH. You are not supposed to be dropping off and picking up on the clock. Nor are you supposed to be caring for your kids at home. You were supposed to have a childcare plan this whole time. WFH is not your childcare plan. Why are you just now trying to figure it out.

Ehhh… Agree.

This argument only works if someone has a 5 minute commute. I put the kids on the bus at 8:15a and am in my home office logging on at 8:20, can start meetings at 8:30 easily. If I had to leave my house at 7:30 to start an 8:30 meeting at an office I would need a completely different level of childcare. My kids do aftercare at school, and I can leave work at 4:30 and pick them up at 4:40 to get to an activity by 5, if I left an office at 4:30 that would not be possible and I would need aftercare AND a babysitter that drives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should manage childcare for RTO the same way you manage it for WFH. You are not supposed to be dropping off and picking up on the clock. Nor are you supposed to be caring for your kids at home. You were supposed to have a childcare plan this whole time. WFH is not your childcare plan. Why are you just now trying to figure it out.

I'm in a bit of a tricky situation in that we live near my spouse's fully in-person job, not mine (I was hired off a remote advertisement, so my life was set up to WFH). My spouse did drop offs and i did pick ups, with me working an earlier schedule vs spouse later, just like lots of working parents with short commutes. Neither of us was doing it on the clock. We paid for day care.

RTO for me means adding 4 hours of commute time to my day. 8-9 hours vs 12-13 hours is VERY different. If I could get a job 10 minutes away, sure, nothing would change, but no luck on that so far...that's why remote work was such a great opportunity.

Commuting sucks, no question about it. I used to commute up to 2 hours each way. We dropped off our kids (starting at 1 years old) at 7 am to a daycare and picked up by 6 pm. At that age, it didn't matter. When they were around 4, we switched to a preschool with similar hours (7:30-5:30). We switched off for drop off and pickup. When they were in elementary school, we opted for the local before care and after care program.

It can be done. You will miss time with your kids going forward, but that's the price you pay for having a full time job with RTO requirements.

[Anonymous]

Its pure bs this RTO nonsense for feds. I'm so grateful that my husband was able to work from home the entire time my son was young to allow for greater flexibility. Suddenly with 5 days notice my husband no longer has ANY telework flexibility. NONE. Can"t spend an hour working at home after picking up the kid from school if needed. I'm suddenly finding myself reducing my work hours to make up for it. Flexibility is absolutely needed in the workplace and it's mean and spiteful to take it away for no reason.

[Anonymous]

Reading everyone's stories make me so sad and angry for everyone. Just giving you all hugs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its pure bs this RTO nonsense for feds. I'm so grateful that my husband was able to work from home the entire time my son was young to allow for greater flexibility. Suddenly with 5 days notice my husband no longer has ANY telework flexibility. NONE. Can"t spend an hour working at home after picking up the kid from school if needed. I'm suddenly finding myself reducing my work hours to make up for it. Flexibility is absolutely needed in the workplace and it's mean and spiteful to take it away for no reason.

That's exactly what this RTO policy is, mean and spiteful.

[Anonymous]

Where are people living that have 2 hour commutes each way? When my kids were in school, we lived near Olney and I left home at 6:15. Dropped off kids at morning care in Bethesda around 7, in office by 7:30-7:45. Left work at 4:30 and picked up at 5:15 or so. Sports practices were generally around 5:30pm or so because the coaches were working parents with in-office jobs. I did that schedule 5 days a week for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP there are lots of ways to do it, the real question is whether you need to / have to. Our daycare is open long hours and our ES has before and aftercare. We have made a decision that we don't want to spend these few precious years going into RTO everyday to do whatever nonsense Trump and Elon want. So, DH is quitting a perfectly good federal job. Hybrid would have been perfectly fine or a return to pre-Covid practices at his agency. Luckily we can coast for a period on my income, I realize that's a privilege. We had some reasons specific to us as well.

There are obviously other options. None really get you back the time with your kids that you may now have to spend on a long commute. Just my two cents.

Absolutely agree with a PP that they will cheer at women exiting the workforce, it's part of what they want.

That's a dumb choice for a temporary issue. What quality time do you think will be gained from an extra 90 minutes of helping your kid put their shoes on or standing at a bus stop every day? Weird priorities imo.

I really hope that was sarcastic, that you think time with kids is worthless. Plenty of families have a SAHP or one person with a PT or flexible job because they value that time, it's not an unusual "priority."

What part of it are you calling a "temporary issue"? Do you think RTO mandates will dissolve soon?