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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK but another way we're not Denmark is that we dont have much of a safety net for parents who have to work during a year long pandemic - not for income, housing, health insurance, or childcare help. So distance learning for a year with full time adult supervision at home is not something most families have the flexibility or resources to provide. It's not that we don't WANT to, it's that working from home for a year and/or affording a nanny is just not the default situation for people. So what IS realistic? [/quote]
If you have two working parents then you’re going to need to pay for childcare. If you have to downsize then you have to downsize. Everyone is going to have to make sacrifices. Businesses are also going to have to expand work from home options, and onsite daycare. A half day or every other day schedule is going to present the same challenges as not opening up at all. This has nothing to do with what anyone WANTS. This is the hand we’ve been dealt. [/quote]

You're not hearing me. I'm saying WE DO NOT have a society set up for the average family to make this work AS INDIVIDUALS. That is the entore point of my saying we don't have a social support system. Saying every family will just have to have a parent home full time or pay an entire additional salary out of their net is INSANE. I agree that opening half time presents the same challenges but just saying "oh families will figure it out" is not a serious attempt to grapple with logistics.

Heres why:

1. Many, many families cannot afford full time childcare for school age kids - nor is it even available around here, in a place where there are multi year waiting lists for day cares. Do you know that a lot of parents with degrees do not make more, after tax, than it costs to employ a nanny? Because we've run those numbers.

2. Yes, i guess in SOME families one parent could drop out of the workforce, but that's a huge gamble as to whether they will ever get back in and a huge hit to financial security, not everyone can live on one income, and what about single parent homes?

3. People living in apartments can't "downsize." And people who bought small homes 5 years ago probably can't save by moving to an apartment.

4. I'd like to think businesses will adapt to help their employees at no profit, but that is not my general experience so far. It's a very optimistic hope.

If you're saying it's up to individual parents to just take their masses of extra space and money and either quit their jobs or employ household staff, you do not have a realistic idea of how others live. Parents should not be in the position of having to choose between the day to day safety of their children and their ability to hold a job to feed and shelter their children. I just would like people to admit that if we as a society insist it's parents' responsibility to give both employers and schools mutually exclusive amounts of time and energy in the absence of any social support system, we are CHOOSING to put people in an impossible position. 
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