I haven't heard kids in the background since COVID lockdown. The only frequent background noise I hear on Teams are from the trashy people letting their untrained dogs bark when their mic is on.

Ain’t nobody is working from home. They are eating, watching, Netflix, shopping online, laundry, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I know zero parents who WFH without childcare. Zero. Even parents of older kids (10+) have childcare. If one of their kids is home while they’re working, it 100% was not intentional.

Most parents of kids ages 2+ don’t want their kids home. They want socialization and enrichment. I would feel guilty as heck keeping my kids home all day so I could ignore them and sit on my computer, just to save $.

In the summers, I pay more than I earn to put my 3 kids in high quality camps. They love it and it makes me feel good knowing they’re having fun with friends and learning new things while I’m working.

Who the heck is getting childcare for kids over 10? Kids over 10 are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves safely, particularly with a parent in the same house.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not 2020 anymore, if this is happening it’s because the kids are sick, the normal childcare fell through or some other unexpected thing happened. As others have said, no one I know WFH without childcare.

Pretty much this. Except that plenty of professionals I know do, for example, have the kid come home on the bus an hour before their end time, or do drop-off after checking morning e-mails, or have the kid home for a week during the summer, etc. AND... I think that's fine as long as there's clear communication and expectations.

Having lived through the hell of WFH/COVID daycare closures with a 3-year-old (at the time), I barely bat an eye when I see someone's kid coming home from school or hear someone take a call from the bus stop. That's no more of an interruption than Rebecca from HR stopping by to remind you to sign up for the cookie swap.

Hopefully we've all learned that a little grace (in either direction) goes a long way. I know my family is much more understanding of the occasional last-minute late day at work when my work is also understanding of the occasional kid home early from school.

It’s not 2020 anymore, if this is happening it’s because the kids are sick, the normal childcare fell through or some other unexpected thing happened. As others have said, no one I know WFH without childcare.

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree op it's very unprofessional as well and managers really need to start putting their foot down here. Wfh doesn't mean you get to forgo daycare, nannies, babysitters...it's cheap and unprofessional.

The managers will then

1. Be explaining why the team is picking up the slack from a ton of vacancies when people leave

And

2. Start having people call out sick rather than WFH when their kids are home.

So, bitter employee, do you want to have a 25-30% vacancy rate, do you want to have a bunch of major disruptions when people call in sick, or do you want to cope with the enormous inconvenience of hearing a child on a zoom call?

I totally agree op it's very unprofessional as well and managers really need to start putting their foot down here. Wfh doesn't mean you get to forgo daycare, nannies, babysitters...it's cheap and unprofessional.

Anonymous wrote:I have lots of leave, but I usually still work when my kids are sick. Otherwise I just come back to mountains of work. Better to answer questions quickly before they become larger issues at work.

Yeah. By nature sick days are unexpected so there are no contingencies in place. If I can do a call from home while my sick kid is watching TV or napping, it makes sense to do it. Otherwise it has to get rescheduled, or someone covers but maybe doesn't have all the background, or other sub-optimal results. Most professionals I know would prefer to do that than disappear on a sick day and risk things going sideways.

I will say, I think that is fundamentally different from having kids at home full-time without childcare while you WFH, which I don't think should be allowed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I WFH sometimes and believe me, I never WANT my toddler to be home from daycare.

Agree the norm should be to have childcare coverage during working hours.

When there are multiple young children in daycare just please be aware that sick days are frequent, especially if one kid is an infant getting illnesses for the first time. So the employee in question may not have much choice, and you may actually be getting more work out of them if the choice is WFH day vs. sick day with no work.

I’d rather they take a sick day.

Yeah, you say that until you have a time sensitive project with an inflexible deadline that they're supposed to be on.

OP you sound like a jerk. And I'm someone who doesn't generally like kids or have patience for kids.

Well I have three siblings and somehow my Dad made it raising 4 kids without us bothering him on a workday once.

Oh, please. My sister & I were 70s/80s kids and we remember calling my mom at work to tell her my sister ate a pickle.

I have lots of leave, but I usually still work when my kids are sick. Otherwise I just come back to mountains of work. Better to answer questions quickly before they become larger issues at work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree 100 percent with the OP. It’s not possible or fair either to your children or your employer. One or the other is getting the shaft - probably both.

WFH is a scam.

at Freddie Mac, all the Indian moms would do this. have children in the background. it was part of Freddie Mac culture.

I don’t much care for the racism in this post but it’s all just so very DCUM to throw that in the mix of comment like it’s not a racist thing to point out. I work with plenty of Moms from India and this does not happen. It does happen with white women and white men (I am a white woman). One woman has many kids and there is often a child on her lap. I don’t mind it because I barely interact with her but, while I do think she has a spouse who’s watching the kids while she works, there are just so many small children that they are consistently interrupting. I do think she gets her work done. She is just always exhausted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know zero parents who WFH without childcare. Zero. Even parents of older kids (10+) have childcare. If one of their kids is home while they’re working, it 100% was not intentional.

Most parents of kids ages 2+ don’t want their kids home. They want socialization and enrichment. I would feel guilty as heck keeping my kids home all day so I could ignore them and sit on my computer, just to save $.

In the summers, I pay more than I earn to put my 3 kids in high quality camps. They love it and it makes me feel good knowing they’re having fun with friends and learning new things while I’m working.

+1 I'm not believing this is happening at any legit employer

But they are home sick a lot. Don't want to see my kids on calls? Give me more sick days and let me actually take them!

I actually have the sick days (250 hours accured so far...) but I don't think it would be better for my job if I took them whenever my kids were sick, instead of trying to split the day with my husband and flex hours to make up time later. Less work would definitely get done, I'd miss more meetings, it would be much more noticeable.

I guess this is something employers will have to deal with when they make us RTO 3-4 days a week since we won't be able to flex in their favor anymore. Sure hope they don't penalize us for it.

I'm that PP and I totally agree. I'm a former fed who used to have a lot of sick leave (I mention bc I wonder if you are) and when I worked with my kid home sick, it was to my employer's benefit! So some tings could keep moving forward.

I have a lot less sick leave now and that's hard as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know zero parents who WFH without childcare. Zero. Even parents of older kids (10+) have childcare. If one of their kids is home while they’re working, it 100% was not intentional.

Most parents of kids ages 2+ don’t want their kids home. They want socialization and enrichment. I would feel guilty as heck keeping my kids home all day so I could ignore them and sit on my computer, just to save $.

In the summers, I pay more than I earn to put my 3 kids in high quality camps. They love it and it makes me feel good knowing they’re having fun with friends and learning new things while I’m working.

+1 I'm not believing this is happening at any legit employer

But they are home sick a lot. Don't want to see my kids on calls? Give me more sick days and let me actually take them!

I actually have the sick days (250 hours accured so far...) but I don't think it would be better for my job if I took them whenever my kids were sick, instead of trying to split the day with my husband and flex hours to make up time later. Less work would definitely get done, I'd miss more meetings, it would be much more noticeable.

I guess this is something employers will have to deal with when they make us RTO 3-4 days a week since we won't be able to flex in their favor anymore. Sure hope they don't penalize us for it.

Anonymous wrote:I know zero parents who WFH without childcare. Zero. Even parents of older kids (10+) have childcare. If one of their kids is home while they’re working, it 100% was not intentional.

Most parents of kids ages 2+ don’t want their kids home. They want socialization and enrichment. I would feel guilty as heck keeping my kids home all day so I could ignore them and sit on my computer, just to save $.

In the summers, I pay more than I earn to put my 3 kids in high quality camps. They love it and it makes me feel good knowing they’re having fun with friends and learning new things while I’m working.

+1 I'm not believing this is happening at any legit employer

But they are home sick a lot. Don't want to see my kids on calls? Give me more sick days and let me actually take them!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree 100 percent with the OP. It’s not possible or fair either to your children or your employer. One or the other is getting the shaft - probably both.

WFH is a scam.

at Freddie Mac, all the Indian moms would do this. have children in the background. it was part of Freddie Mac culture.

If pressed, grandma or another auntie is probably technically there.

I have a nanny, therefore my kids are technically home when I'm working from home. We don't interact during my work day though and they certainly aren't sitting on my lap.