Reply to How will you juggle full time telework and preschool/young elementary kids w/out nanny/family?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have friends in a similar place and have decided to work together.  In both families one spouse has to physically be at work and the other can work from home flexibly.  Kids are similar ages.

So e.g., Martin Smith goes to an office, Mary Smith teleworks for now, George Jones in the office and Gina Jones teleworks

Monday and Tuesday: Martin Smith drops the Smith kids at the Jones house on his way to work and picks them up on the way home (8:30-5:30).  Mary Smith tries to get as much work done as possible. Gina Jones watches 4 kids for the day. George Jones works in the office.

Wednesday and Thursday: George Jones drops the Jones kids at the Smith’s house and picks up (8:30-5:30).  Mary Smith watches 4 kids.  Gina Jones works from home, Martin Smith goes in to work.

Fridays Martin and George alternate taking sick or vacation days and watching all 4 kids, Mary and Gina put in as many hours as they can.

Saturdays Martin and George deal with kids the whole day so Mary and Gina can catch up.

Sundays the kids become tv zombies and the parents all collapse from exhaustion and stress.  :D

Not perfect but we hope it will work for a while before anyone gets sick.

[/quote]

I don't think this is a good idea.  Reports are now suggesting that the disease is transmitted for some time by people who are not showing any symptoms, and that people who are not showing symptoms are actually far more infections than those who are not.  That means that you have broadened out your infection circle beyond your own family and into that of five other families -- if even one of those people becomes infectious, all of your are susceptible.

[url]https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html[/url]

Not what I would do.[/quote]

Funny, I was going to say that might not work but for a completely different reason.  How will the person watching four kids get them to do their school work?  I have a hard enough time with just my kids.  Otherwise, I would have gone this route, too (i.e., sharing responsibility with a neighbor).

I'm willing to expand my contact with people to include a few people from another family if that's what I have to do to get paid and keep life going.  Those of you who are saying things like this, are you going to the store?  Do you wear gloves when you go get gasoline for your car?  Are you stopping work altogether?  I'm really trying to understand what's going on in your lives.  No one I have spoken with at my large office or in our neighborhood is hunkering down like that.  Subject to change, of course, but for now some small contact is still happening with healthy people who are practicing reasonable social distancing in their lives.[/quote]

We’re lucky in that our twins are in K and therefore pretty self-sufficient during the day. They’re supposed to do school via their laptops from 9-12, so I’m sure we’ll have to help some with that, and then we have an afternoon schedule that does include some TV, which is out of the norm for us. My husband works from home all the time and I’m working from home now (he has a dedicated office, I took over the formal dining room, which we never use anyway). We can work before the kids get up and after they go to bed if needed and we’re also aware that we may need to take some leave every day. But we’re not leaving the house other than to play outside and our nanny is no longer coming. Between her husband, who still has to go to work, plus whatever activities she decides to engage in (which are not our business), we’d rather not have her bring whatever she’s being exposed to every day into our house. We’re still paying her what she would have normally earned. Who knows how long this will last and how long we can keep this up (we have several weeks worth of groceries but at some point we’d have to get food) so we’ll reevaluate as needed. Oh, and we’re not doing play dates or going to playgrounds. My husband has predicated almost every step of this so far and since we are able to effectively quarantine ourselves we figured we ought to do so, for ourselves but also for the community. We realize we’re fortunate to be in this position so we thought we should do everything we could. Our friends who are a doctor and a nurse have hired a full-time nanny to live in their house for the time being - they are keeping their kids secluded at home and they are taking extreme measures to disinfect themselves before coming home and are considering staying elsewhere if more cases pop up. [/quote]

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