RTO with pre-teens

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:After care through 6th which was awful for DD as the oldest kid there by a lot. Then I job searched until I found WFH that would allow school pick up- I still work 9 plus hour days. Prob not the answer you are looking for, sorry Op.

Just a vent, but my job (which is now 100% in the office) was the WFH job that I got in order to support school pickup. I'd change jobs again but the market is so bad right now. We've got 2 more years at this school before DD can walk 1 mile to the next school.
-not OP

Many people are in the same boat.

The WFH parents of elementary kids who never had to deal with commutes have a rude awakening.

Exhibit A above. Crab in a bucket thrives on schaudenfreude.

It’s not schaudenfreude. But life is about tradeoffs. Plenty of us have complicated situations.

A family's income and ability to pay the mortgage, medical bills, local taxes, save for retirement and not end up on a cot in our kid's basement at 80, is a pretty big tradeoff. We're all not sole proprietors running shops in a sweet little town where the kids can skip home from the one room schoolhouse anymore. We work for cold hard agencies and corporations ran by mostly men who still think it's 1950 and mama's waiting by the door with a glass of scotch and dinner in the oven.

You seem to be targeting your anger in the wrong place.

Pre pandemic working parents had FT Nannie’s, PT college students, after care, before care. Post COVID, working parents were used to working from home, driving kids around, going to bus stop while working from home. Now things are returning.

OP has a 10 yo and 12 yo, so she already juggled kids plus commute before COVID - probably she had daycare, or an aftercare designed for little kids. She probably also teleworked a few days a week, which everyone seems to forget was a common thing pre-covid.

But care options for bigger kids are different, and post-COVID childcare availability is worse for everybody. Most of the afterschool pick-up type programs have closed. Part-time nannies are not really a thing because you can get more hours anywhere else. The onsite aftercare at my kid's school is designed for 6 and under; my kid is allowed to be there but there's not a supervised quiet space for homework, let alone a club offering like chess or music.

And yes, it was hard before COVID too - but things are not simply "returning," they are worse than they were before COVID.

We'll deal with it, but it sucks and people are allowed to say it's sucky.

OP here. Yes, I had a convenient daycare and elementary school with aftercare. And then COVID hit and employers and schools sucked parents dry expecting us to literally do it all to keep their businesses afloat and keep the staff healthy, all on our backs. The least they could do is make employment in the post-COVID world a little easier. Many of our did our part and stepped up to support our employers and schools. So yep, I feel we're owed a little bit of accommodation. But alas, everyone has very short term memories. We did so much-- for them and for the schools, opening our homes to the workplace, setting up desks, working longer than 40 hours per week, doing our best to help teachers and schools get by and then... swift kick in the a$$?

Your kids are old enough to stay home alone for 2 hours. You are going to have little sympathy here.