Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

Are you able to fly in a willing and able set of grandparents for the week? Might be cheaper and easier to manage travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

For Magas who want people to have as many babies as possible, these schedules are SOOO not family friendly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

I haven't looked through the responses here, but here's my perspective. My husband and I had to go to the office M-F when our kids were younger. This was pre-covid days. When my kids were toddlers, I traveled every other week to NYC for 2 days at a time. The way we handled it was daycare and my husband and I working out a schedule to figure out who does dropoffs/pickups. It was expensive, daycare was equivalent to our mortgage but I knew that I had to keep working for my career. We also realized that this was a short-term sacrifice. Kids would get older, and daycare would no longer be needed. My kids are in HS now. If I had quit my job years ago, I wouldn't be where I am with my career today; and honestly, I feel like the teen years is when being at home would really, really benefit.

I just want to say for those of your who found it hard 10-15-20 years ago that childcare costs have actually increased more than mortgages, cars, insurance, food, etc. It exceeds the price of COLLEGE TUITION. There's actual data on this.
So, I am glad you all made it work but it is untenable. It cannot continue to be an individual problem. The response will be either no children or no women in the workforce. Again, there is DATA on this. I dont care how many SAHDs you personally know.

Also, most of the 50 pages of posts are NOT about toddlers in the day care years, when care schedules are meant to support work schedules (even if some hours may not be enough). They're mostly about the challenges of filling the gaps for school aged kids.

I have teenage daughters who would be happy to meet elementary kids at the bus stop and babysit for a few hours before parents get home or after camp for a small amount of cash, but I don’t think parents these days are willing to make that type of arrangement.

I'm the PP you're responding to and I have actually hired a high school student for this kind of help this spring! It's a good solution for us and I'm super relieved.

But I exhausted our existing roster of sitters looking for someone who had availability in that window, asked around A LOT, and got lucky that I had a friend who knew this girl. It's not that easy to make these arrangements these days, plus even high schoolers make $20/hr so it may not be affordable for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

I haven't looked through the responses here, but here's my perspective. My husband and I had to go to the office M-F when our kids were younger. This was pre-covid days. When my kids were toddlers, I traveled every other week to NYC for 2 days at a time. The way we handled it was daycare and my husband and I working out a schedule to figure out who does dropoffs/pickups. It was expensive, daycare was equivalent to our mortgage but I knew that I had to keep working for my career. We also realized that this was a short-term sacrifice. Kids would get older, and daycare would no longer be needed. My kids are in HS now. If I had quit my job years ago, I wouldn't be where I am with my career today; and honestly, I feel like the teen years is when being at home would really, really benefit.

I just want to say for those of your who found it hard 10-15-20 years ago that childcare costs have actually increased more than mortgages, cars, insurance, food, etc. It exceeds the price of COLLEGE TUITION. There's actual data on this.
So, I am glad you all made it work but it is untenable. It cannot continue to be an individual problem. The response will be either no children or no women in the workforce. Again, there is DATA on this. I dont care how many SAHDs you personally know.

Also, most of the 50 pages of posts are NOT about toddlers in the day care years, when care schedules are meant to support work schedules (even if some hours may not be enough). They're mostly about the challenges of filling the gaps for school aged kids.

I have teenage daughters who would be happy to meet elementary kids at the bus stop and babysit for a few hours before parents get home or after camp for a small amount of cash, but I don’t think parents these days are willing to make that type of arrangement.

I'm the PP you're responding to and I have actually hired a high school student for this kind of help this spring! It's a good solution for us and I'm super relieved.

But I exhausted our existing roster of sitters looking for someone who had availability in that window, asked around A LOT, and got lucky that I had a friend who knew this girl. It's not that easy to make these arrangements these days, plus even high schoolers make $20/hr so it may not be affordable for everyone.

PS if you know any families with parents RTO and tricky commute, your daughters could be making bank AND helping others right now. Let people know!!!

[Anonymous]

The exactly same way i did pre covid, during covid and now. Paid childcare. I’ve NEVER worked from my home with kids under foot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

Same way as we did for 40 years before covid

It is hard and it sucks. And one of the parents has to have a mommy job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

Same way as we did for 40 years before covid

It is hard and it sucks. And one of the parents has to have a mommy job

The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years and many people are not trying to go back to 1985.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

For Magas who want people to have as many babies as possible, these schedules are SOOO not family friendly.

Magas don’t want people with education and white collar jobs to have babies. They only want more people like themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

For Magas who want people to have as many babies as possible, these schedules are SOOO not family friendly.

MAGAS want women staying at home, churning out babies, while their husbands work in the private sector. They don’t want men taking care of children, or doing anything “home” related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

Same way as we did for 40 years before covid

It is hard and it sucks. And one of the parents has to have a mommy job

The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years and many people are not trying to go back to 1985.

then why cant you figure this out? You can't be judgmental and complain both ways!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The exactly same way i did pre covid, during covid and now. Paid childcare. I’ve NEVER worked from my home with kids under foot.

Like many people, now they just need about 10 hours more a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone do a 6am - 2 pm schedule? I’m wondering if it will be manageable with a 1 hour commute. I’ll miss seeing my kids in the morning but it would be nice to have the entire afternoon and evening off and have focused time with them.

Right now, I’m often on calls until 5:30 (even though my schedule ends at 4:30) and then finishing up emails until about 6. I am hoping to get on a 6-2 schedule and actually follow it. Not sure how realistic this is.

I am on this schedule with an hour commute each way. 4am wake up does suck, but I am in bed by 8pm with kids….so it is completely doable. DH drops them off at school and I get them off the bus by 3pm ish. I can’t wait for the summer to start with camp and extended camp hours 😳…..

We have a similar schedule where DH is doing the early shift and me late which will work, except for when we work travel. I have travel next month actually and need to figure out how we can get someone to come to our house at 5am and then drop kids at before care when it opens so DH can go to work and not take leave. His commute is 1-1.5 hours each way. Even in the before Covid times managers were good about granting situational telework for occasional situations like this. No longer.

For Magas who want people to have as many babies as possible, these schedules are SOOO not family friendly.

MAGAS want women staying at home, churning out babies, while their husbands work in the private sector. They don’t want men taking care of children, or doing anything “home” related.

Then why is the first ever female White House Chief of Staff MAGA? And why is the White House press secretary a new mom?

This comment will probably be deleted but 🤷‍♀️.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

I don’t know. I still wouldn’t have quit your job. First off, your husband got off work at 4 and should be able to do pick up.

Your in office was only 2 days a week so worst case scenario you hire extra help 2 days a week.

You needed to start your job a little later and handle drop off. Surely your manager would rather you start work at 8:30 AM than quit, right?

Did you actually have a conversation with your manager about this, or did you just quit?

Last, your son at age 5 should be able to go full day to school. I understand it’s not ideal but what man would quit his job to not earn a salary because his son doesn’t like full day school?

Seems to me you had a lot of options and you threw your hands up. All of this was temporary. You hire extra help for 2 years!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to know how other parents are managing RTO without a village.

I quit a job that paid $112K in the state government because of RTO, and we had no support network - no grandparents, friends, or family who could help with pick-up/drop-off or sick days.

My husband is gone from 4AM - 4PM in a secure, union job. I am solely responsible for school drop-off, pickup, and sick days. I was managing a full-time, supervisory position in the government, which was becoming incredibly challenging. When I looked at our finances, I could have enrolled our son in a before/after school care program or hired a nanny, which would cost us roughly $2000/month. This would mean he is at school from 7 AM - 4PM to allow for commute times. My son struggled to adjust to a full-time Kindergarten schedule from 8:30 - 3 PM, and his teacher suggested half days. (He is in an affordable private school)

My manager wanted me to come into the office for 2 days/week. This would mean I leave the house at 6:45 AM to get to work on time by 7:45 for an 8AM start. I was in a supervisory role that required me to train my staff. But we couldn't leave the office once we were there. So that meant I was there for 2 days/week, with my butt in a seat, and then had to compress my staff's training schedule to 3 other days/week. I had five staff in training who all needed extensive support.

So, I quit. I took a significant pay cut and am now making $30/hr in the private sector. I now have fewer retirement contributions but plan to return to a full-time, salaried base position when my son is old enough to stay home alone for a few hours. However, my office is home-based, and I have 2-3 hours of work meetings with clients in the field. I also make my own schedule and work 30 hours/week. My take-home pay is significantly less, but my son is happy to have me drop him off, and I can always be there for sick days. Before, I was scrambling to get everything done.

I haven't looked through the responses here, but here's my perspective. My husband and I had to go to the office M-F when our kids were younger. This was pre-covid days. When my kids were toddlers, I traveled every other week to NYC for 2 days at a time. The way we handled it was daycare and my husband and I working out a schedule to figure out who does dropoffs/pickups. It was expensive, daycare was equivalent to our mortgage but I knew that I had to keep working for my career. We also realized that this was a short-term sacrifice. Kids would get older, and daycare would no longer be needed. My kids are in HS now. If I had quit my job years ago, I wouldn't be where I am with my career today; and honestly, I feel like the teen years is when being at home would really, really benefit.

I just want to say for those of your who found it hard 10-15-20 years ago that childcare costs have actually increased more than mortgages, cars, insurance, food, etc. It exceeds the price of COLLEGE TUITION. There's actual data on this.
So, I am glad you all made it work but it is untenable. It cannot continue to be an individual problem. The response will be either no children or no women in the workforce. Again, there is DATA on this. I dont care how many SAHDs you personally know.

Also, most of the 50 pages of posts are NOT about toddlers in the day care years, when care schedules are meant to support work schedules (even if some hours may not be enough). They're mostly about the challenges of filling the gaps for school aged kids.

I have teenage daughters who would be happy to meet elementary kids at the bus stop and babysit for a few hours before parents get home or after camp for a small amount of cash, but I don’t think parents these days are willing to make that type of arrangement.

I'm the PP you're responding to and I have actually hired a high school student for this kind of help this spring! It's a good solution for us and I'm super relieved.

But I exhausted our existing roster of sitters looking for someone who had availability in that window, asked around A LOT, and got lucky that I had a friend who knew this girl. It's not that easy to make these arrangements these days, plus even high schoolers make $20/hr so it may not be affordable for everyone.

In theory I get it. But how would something like this work in practice? I mean, how would the vetting process go?

What training do they have? And what about tax responsibilities (not to mention insurance?)