Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kid has been working from home since well before Covid. When she and her husband decided to have kids they lined up child care first - the grandparents when the kids were babies and a preschool/daycare once they were toddlers. It never occurred to her for a second that she could watch her kids at home herself and work at the same time. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

Time to return to reality, ladies.

Why are you only putting the onus on the ladies? 🙄

And plenty of us paid for high quality infant care. We didn’t foist it on grandparents with outdated notions of gender roles. But moochers gonna mooch.

I say “ladies” because we all know there are no men on this thread. And in my post I made clear that THEY - not “she” - made arrangements for childcare when THEY decided to have kids.

I’m also sorry that you don’t have a more helpful mother. Sucks for you.

Anonymous wrote:Are a lot of women employed FT in professional careers really saying they have no childcare? That's not what I've seen on DCUM. People are often talking about the extra time for commuting and difference of being out of the house. So like a 10yp may come home from school and not have childcare from 4-5pm because they can entertain themselves while parent works. But the parent may not want them actually alone in the house. It's a childcare gap. Same with the mornings before school opens - I would need beforecare to RTO and it might not be available this school year (already full). Or preschool may close at 5pm but with commute I'd get home later than that, etc.

WFH necessitates childcare if you have a real job but can be for fewer hours, or you cover the occasional days off and breaks without always taking PTO etc

I’d say telework saved me about 3-4 years of aftercare. But that’s for an older kid - he didn’t need any hands-on care while I was working.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

Why do you have to work 10 hours in office?? Most work is 8-4 or 9-5.

I do think we need stricter hour protections to make sure employers aren’t demanding 50 hour weeks while paying 40 hour week wages

You're not a teacher, are you?

lol. Why stop at 8-6? Why not 6 to 6? Or 4am to 8 pm?

Again, any RTO mandate will have so many loopholes and exceptions, it’ll look like Swiss cheese — Ad hoc telework, medical exceptions, etc etc. And in the end, things won’t be much different than now.

But DOGE can claim victory and move on. And the maga public won’t know the difference.

Do you know who’s really screwed? MANAGERS and HR staff, who will spend 90 pct of their day addressing requests and reviewing badge data, etc.

What a stupid policy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Please use adult language. Did you even graduate from high school?

And stop having children if you can't afford to raise them. Are you a teen mom? You sound like it.

Lol. You missed by a mile. Keep playing.

Anonymous wrote:Our kid has been working from home since well before Covid. When she and her husband decided to have kids they lined up child care first - the grandparents when the kids were babies and a preschool/daycare once they were toddlers. It never occurred to her for a second that she could watch her kids at home herself and work at the same time. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

Time to return to reality, ladies.

Why are you only putting the onus on the ladies? 🙄

And plenty of us paid for high quality infant care. We didn’t foist it on grandparents with outdated notions of gender roles. But moochers gonna mooch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

Plenty of white women worked too

Anonymous wrote:Our kid has been working from home since well before Covid. When she and her husband decided to have kids they lined up child care first - the grandparents when the kids were babies and a preschool/daycare once they were toddlers. It never occurred to her for a second that she could watch her kids at home herself and work at the same time. It’s not fair to anyone involved.

Time to return to reality, ladies.

Hilarious. One of the grandparents this woman was fortunate and privileged enough to have available for child care has this admonition for those who do not have that option: “return to reality, ladies.”

Lol—you don’t know what reality is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue for me is the 8-6 in office requirement. Right now, I work 8-5, pick up my kids, and then work a few more hours at home in the evening. Daycare closes at 6 and I have a 45 minute commute, so I'm not sure what I will go if the 8-6 requirement goes into effect.

A mandate that people now have to be in the office for 10 hours a day is not happening.

Given that my office is 2 hours away (my job was advertised, and I was hired, fully remote), this actually would make me quit. I'd try to stick out a full RTO with flexible hours.

And yes, OP, for me it's the aftercare. My kids were in day care until elementary and now we just have an after school sitter the one day a week neither of us can make school pickup (husband works in person locally and has a lot of flexibility, I am remote and start my day early). It costs us $200/month. Putting both of my kids in daily aftercare would be over $1200, plus getting to the office costs me $26/day, of which I think commuter benefits would only offset about $130. So we're talking about $1600/month higher cost of RTO. My take home is only about $4000.

Unfortunately I'm the higher earner, so I couldn't quit unless I found a job locally near my MUCH smaller town, or my husband changed to a higher paying career. But yeah, while i paid for 10 years of full time day care, my current life IS set up around being remote, just as my job offer said. This would be a big impact.

Anonymous wrote:I love in a wealthy area (not dc) and there are no busses to activities, no full day options for schools out days. I have elem age kids and always had full day childcare when they were little, but if I had to work in an office I would really struggle with finding coverage during the commute and days off, and it would likely necessitate a full time nanny.

What you’re describing late precovid problems. Parents always had to use leave for random school closures and sick kids. Vacation time for actual vacations was limited due to how much time you used for these things. Activities started later in the evenings or you found a HS kid with a driver’s license to drive your kid. Many people who could afford it hired nannies. The rest of us used our leave and had our kids in evening activities.

Np, and I told a coworker last week that I suspected lack of childcare as the real reason many are flipping out over RTO. I also suspect some are working two jobs.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a lack of childcare that’s the problem; it’s that these women want to have it both ways. They don’t want to pay anyone else to watch their children, they prefer to fleece their employers.

+1

There are plenty of before and after care options. People just don’t want to pay. Though it’s the responsibility of mom and dad, not just mom, in ideal circumstances.

-A single mom breadwinner with sole custody who pays for child care and full time summer camp

I'm a bit of an outlier here in that our only kid still at home is a middle schooler so I fully remember the pre-Covid times of paying for aftercare at the parochial school our kid attends. We'll make RTO work but it comes with logistical challenges and financial tradeoffs.

For neighborhood families with younger kids in public school, there are very limited after-school options even at the beginning of the school year. Incoming kindergarten parents are often scrambling and being wait listed at places.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another reason why 1950s America was better.

For white mothers.
Black mothers didn’t have that privilege

So now everything sucks for all mothers. Progress!

Please use adult language. Did you even graduate from high school?

And stop having children if you can't afford to raise them. Are you a teen mom? You sound like it.