[Closed] How are people juggling working from home and childcare?

A mess. Neither of us doing near our full hours despite starting early and finishing late. Just not enough hours in the day to cover it all and manage young children.

I have an 11 year old and a 12 year old. Wife is a teacher and having to go into school, reduced days though, so only in three days per week. My working week is still full time, I work for a US company, my hours are long as most of my US colleagues don’t come on line until 1 or 2pm.
I still have to feed the girls, home school and do my normal days work while the wife goes to school. The kids are not getting nearly enough of my time to help with their schooling.
The company are saying the usual, family first, but in reality, family first as long as deadlines are still met.

Hmmm, one child and one person working? Forgive me if I don't feeling too sympathetic 😉

Two young kids (3/6) and two people WFH full time here.

EDIT: Actually, lets go with a real image

6.30- until everyone else gets up. have breakfast.

finish about 3. do stuff as family.

one 8 yr old and a big-ish garden so a bit easier.

Mrs Monkey and I are both still working from home (she's on 4 days, I'm full time). MiniMonkey is nearly 15 months and obviously requires full time attention.

So at the moment we're taking it in turns to do 4hrs in the morning / afternoon, then getting a few hours in after littlun has gone to bed every other night. We're managing about one day off a week at the same time. It's not ideal, but it's manageable.

We're finding that the trick is to focus on the positives - more time with MiniMonkey, lots of walks etc and minimising the impact of the negative (not much free time = not much biking, so I'm squeezing in runs and BMX sprints more often).

Lucky that ours is now 11... Give him an x-box and a desk for school work... he barely exists.

Got a 6 year old. We are both trying to work from home.

We can let him play Minecraft or watch youtube and we could have the whole day to get on with work but it isn't the right thing to do so we try an minimise it. He is quite keen on learning so we have some activity packs he can get on with in the office with us whilst we are working but it is still a distraction.

I feel more guilty trying to fit everything in now than when I had less time at home but he got to play with friends, learn at school, go to beavers, swimming etc. So there were plenty of activities for him to do whereas now we have to be everything for him (friend, teacher, Mum and Dad)

We are really lucky for now, I'm furloughed and crankygirl goes into work 3 days a week. So as long as we stay well and my job stays funded with no need for me to actually do it then I am living the dream. We are both in public contacting key worker posts with PPE issues so things could be different at any point.

wifes still on maternity , due to go back end of next month - Teacher so fully expect she will catch the virus quick smart.

Im doing my 8hrs outside in the van , The little ones 9 months and just started standing/moving/destroying.

In reality this is no different that when i went to work other than me being around at lunch and breaks to give mum a break for a bit .

But getting out the house was important for stopping "can you just" requests and allowing me to get on.

and of course my little one exclaiming her glee at the safety valves being ready in a conference call may have been a driver

for all her age , she knows somethings different, Shes missing seeing other babies , she goes crazy when they come on tV or they have whatsapp calls with the yoga/antinatal group or the neighbours pass the end of the garden.

I'm supposedly working from home, but I'm achieving very little , were lucky that my wife has been housewifing, we have 7&9 yr olds so homeschooling is keeping her busy in morning while I try & get work done, but we also have 3.5yr old twins who are a handful , it's those last 2 who dictate how much I can get done. Usually do something with the kids in the afternoon then try & do some more work after they've gone to bed. For added stress my wife's dad has terminal cancer and she is managing well with it but feeling incredibly guilty that she's not looking after him (he's at her brothers) dealing with her own mum in tears on the phone every day & upset herself as unable to visit him.

I'm in a similar boat to you trying to work at home (plenty busy) but with 3 kids under 5 in the house.

Still a hard shift for my wife and our wee one is getting ridiculously, even hysterically clingy at times. I almost feel lucky that I’ve still got work to do which makes me think this is all a bit unfair on her.

You shouldn't feel guilty about doing your job. Having kids is bloody hard, do what your can but your partner needs to step up as well. Be flexible but there's only so much you can do.

One thing that I've found helps is you need to accept that little kids need an absolute metric shit load of attention. Some more than others and they don't call it the "terrible 2s" for nothing. It's normal. They also have no emotional filter - they just behave how the feel in that moment.

It's often better to invest 10-15 minutes when they want rather than try and fob them off. So my door is always open for them, and they'll get cuddles on demand unless I'm on a call.

Hmmm, one child and one person working? Forgive me if I don’t feeling too sympathetic

Christ, I can't imagine how this would work with more than one, I guess it would just mean working reduced hours and taking the financial hit. You have my sympathies!

The company are saying the usual, family first, but in reality, family first as long as deadlines are still met.

Yeah... our company is generously allowing us to use up all our annual leave, or accrue a vast debt of flexi-hours that we'll be working off until we retire, and it still wouldn't solve the problem of the missed deadlines and/or resentment from co-workers who are asked to shoulder the burden instead. Still, should be grateful I'm not furloughed!

Obvious solution is that wife looks after our 2.5yr old, I get work done upstairs, starting early AM so at least I can join them in PM.

why would you join them in the pm? Would you do that if you were in the office?

Why are you making life harder for yourself by getting up at 5am to go for a bike ride? Why not take the little one out (I’m assuming you have a kids seat on one of your bikes) for a brief bit of exercise, some daddy time and a break for your missus... even a half hour at lunch time might be a better way to break up your day.

Still a hard shift for my wife and our wee one is getting ridiculously, even hysterically clingy at times.

I’m not sure why looking after one child is a “hard shift”. Things are a bit stressful at the moment, kids pick up on that. Presumably the child is normally at a nursery?

I don't have kids myself but colleagues are working more flexible hours (e.g. a couple of hours working then an hour of childcare), still sounds tough especially for those with both parents trying to WFH. Productivity in the team has definitely dropped and unfortunately our client isn't reducing the project workload (and our management doesn't want the fall-out from pushing back to the client saying we need to reduce the workload).

My two are 9 and 11.

My wife is still working, but as she is NHS she is actually at work and I am wfh.

There have been 'moments' like last Tuesday when my son came running inside with his hand on his forehead and his face covered in blood. The cause being a nasty inch long gash that he'd done jumping off the swing and landing on a metal step ladder that they had put there. FFS.

But mostly, they have been great. A fair few issues with 'tech' whilst doing school work before the holidays, but that was unavoidable.

There is a part of me that actually feels quite guilty. The kids now know 'not to bother Daddy when he is working', so they are mostly amusing themselves. They are totally bored most of the time.

Accidents will happen and they will interrupt me from time to time, but all in all it is going ok. I'd much rather 'go' to work, though. It compartmentalises things much better.

Two boys here, 4 and 7. Both of us work from home, so we split the days - one of us works 4 hours in the morning, the other in the afternoon, with some alternation of who goes first according to meetings etc. I also work a bit in the eve to catch up but it’s still hard to get a full day in. I find it easier to keep the nicer tasks for the evening (= more likely to do them and be less grumpy about it). With the kids it’s helped to have a weekly routine pinned to the wall that includes some structured learning (maths and English mostly), some activity time, and some free time, even if we only stick to it loosely. We are fortunate to have a garden and have had nice weather.

I’m not sure why looking after one child is a “hard shift”.

I guess because, like me, she's not used to doing it 7 days on the trot, plus has had the added stress of trying to save her job or at least be put on furlough at the same time (MSPs, local councillors etc. all getting involved, her company acting totally unreasonably).

It's individual circumstances at the end of the day, it's just a bit of a gear change for her which she is obviously finding difficult.

Why are you making life harder for yourself by getting up at 5am to go for a bike ride? Why not take the little one out (I’m assuming you have a kids seat on one of your bikes)

You're right, I'm being too protective of getting 'quality' bike time, and churning along in a tiny gear with all 17kg of him swaying around behind me is at least good exercise. Maybe save the 5am efforts for once a week so I can get out on the road bike.

7 & 11 here.   My wife’s works Mon - Weds, so we juggle supervising homework between us.  We have lunch together and help the for 15 mins set up stuff in the garden or whatever on breaks.  We can ride around the local park pre 9am before it gets too busy to be comfortable.

We do let them have a little more ipad / tv time than usual but also set them incentive based chores such a room tidying etc.   I think the recent good weather has helped the variety of using the garden.

It’s hard work for sure, but we are where we are and you just have to deal with it.

We were coping OK because although my Wife was 'working from home' they'd given her no laptop & there was nothing really for her to be getting on with. Her job involves working on large bits of electronics, so not something that can easily be done from home anyway.
Her place were pretty much saying that they know she's not working, but until they could sort something out it was fine & to just stay at home.

She's now got a laptop & is supposed to be working on procedures etc. She only works 3 days a week, so split it over the week & it's 4.5hrs a day. I'm supposed to be doing almost 8hrs a day.
So, between us, we need to fit in over 12hrs of work a day, including the time taken to entertain our 4 year old without ignoring her completely...
Today we are trying a new timetable to see how it goes, but it's really just a case of doing what you can & playing it by ear a bit.

It is a nightmare in our house. 2 boys, 3 and 5 next month who are going stir crazy generally demolishing the house and winding each other up. Wife working 4 days and me 5. Login as soon as I wake, try to get a hour or two in before the screaming and fighting starts. Eldest is ok when we set him some school work, but its impossible to keep the youngest occupied. Generally any activity is discarded within 15mins, and then you are asked what next. You cannot even go for a shit.

My hours exercise is generally used up towing the kids about the local woods - thank god the weather is ok.

Boss has a thin veneer of understanding, was being quite pushy - calls first thing in the morning, short notice meetings, calls close of play for the first week or so. Adding to the stress until a company message came out about family first. Now I'm being encouraged to use leave to cover the period (I did last week, wife this week). Problem is, if we burn all our leave we will be stuffed later in the year, plus we won't actually get a break which I imagine we (and most others) will need more than ever when we are on the other side.

May have to consider reducing hours, but feasible we can't do that by much as our outgoings haven't dropped significantly, and I'm nervous about how long this may go on for.

All in recipe for mental breakdown - I reckon we can stick out another month.

@timmys love that gif.

Definitely feels like our house. I'm doing OK productivity wise though, getting some quality blocks of time here and there.

Have to say I thought we were would be pretty typical (2 x FT jobs = 15 h per day, 2 x kids - that are not old enough not to need pretty much full time attention).

I guess not :cries:

I’m afraid there is no sympathy from me either. We have a 7 month and 3.5 year old.

I got furloughed a few weeks back, but my wife is a nurse and has just finished maternity leave so is returning to work. However she’s just been ill for the past 2/3 weeks, likely with COVID. So she’s been out of the mix.

That means I’ve been taking care of 95% of all the childcare at home, with a baby who’s still breastfed, and refuses to take a bottle! And looking after my wife.

Count your blessings with one child who you can tag team between, and you can still get out for a ride!

A mess. Neither of us doing near our full hours despite starting early and finishing late. Just not enough hours in the day to cover it all and manage young children.

That's about the size of it. Quite a few people in my team are in the same boat... I've reassured them that I just expect them to do their best and no-one will be scrutinizing time-sheets too closely. All I ask is that my staff keep their diaries up to date so I know if they're doing childcare, and that they leave their work mobiles on.

I have two teenagers, so the care side is ok.

However as a homeworker normally, I find having them both at home fighting with each other, baiting the dog, slamming doors and generally being excessively loud is absolutely nerfing my productivity.

I'd love the chance to try but in between my shifts and the wife getting dragged from ward to ward we barely see each other or have time to try teach the kids anything

5 and a 8 year old here.

I'm full time WFH 9:00-5:30, I had to work from home for 5 months a few years back after an injury meant I couldn't drive so I've basically ressurected that set-up. Lucky enough to have an upstairs 'study' where I can hide away and use headphones to isolate myself.

My wife's work basically dried up completely the minute the lockdown started so she's doing the vast majority of the childcare but without school, days out, playdates or indeed any other options to take them off her hands or even give them a change in scenery it's not easy and the minute I'm downstairs I'm trying to get the house back together and attempting to give my wife 5 minutes of precious peace.

I fully appreciate that we are far from having the toughest time ATM but all those smug childless types posting how they've completely rennovated their houses, learnt 3 languages, started a business and and written a novel since the lockdown began can get in the damn sea!

Problem is, if we burn all our leave we will be stuffed later in the year, plus we won’t actually get a break which I imagine we (and most others) will need more than ever when we are on the other side.

Yep, our annual leave is being hoarded like a precious resource, will be using to visit grandparents etc. once this blows over. Am pinning my hopes on late June...

May have to consider reducing hours, but feasible we can’t do that by much as our outgoings haven’t dropped significantly, and I’m nervous about how long this may go on for.

Yeah, our outgoings seem to have gone up, apart from no nursery to pay for which negates some of the loss of my wife's salary, benefits make up a small amount too.

Its a right pita, 3 yo twin boys at home, wifes a teacher wfh 99% of the time. I’m working full time (unable to wfh unless I can fit a train on the drive) if I’m on lates I get up at 6am with the boys and sort out breakfast, break up fights, play, phonics etc and then do lunch while my wife works upstairs, then I go to work at half 1 til 11. Wife puts the boys to bed and does a bit more work.

If I’m on earlies I start at 5am until half 2 so my wife deals with childcare and works until late in the evening.

fighting with each other, baiting the dog, slamming doors and generally being excessively loud

Swap dog for cat and we have similar issues that get progressively worse through the day. Later in the afternoon TV provides a temporary solution until the CBeebies vs CBBC debate erupts (first world problem, I know). The other problem is the continuous demands for food - possibly a response to (perceived) boredom. They ate through a 1 kg box of corn flakes in 5 days.

5 and almost 3 here. They play well together for 20 mins or so before squabbling starts or the youngest gets bored and disruptive.

Wife is an early riser so usually up before 6 and works through to 10 while I get the kids up. I often have calls around 10 or 11 so I do them while wife covers, have lunch together then depending on work I might get another hour or two in the afternoon. Then often a few more hours in the evening if I need to get something done. Prioritising her work time really - she changed jobs in January, is super busy (and lots of calls with other people) and roughly back to the level she was pre maternity leave. I’ve done 7 years at the same place.

I’ve cut my workload as much as possible to only the things I really need to do. Was upfront with my boss about what would be achievable. Work have so far been OK, short days I log time to a special leave time code. Not sure how tenable all this is if we’re in for many more months of it.

I was considering dropping hours anyway this year (youngest would start at school nursery, on school hours) and I might still go for that. Not going to be furloughed and the only options besides that are using up leave then going on unpaid carers leave. Work still seem keen to have me working even if it is some of the time so just doing what I can for now.

Wifes working from home but we've been lucky so far that I'm off so have been dealing with them. Tomorrow though I go back offshore and the kids will be back to home schooling from Monday, no idea how that's going to go but the boss is a very organized person so I think she'll manage but be done in by the Time I get back.

You cannot even go for a shit.

A remarkably reliable way of finding our children - the second you sit down on the loo one always appears at the door desperate for a wee (edit: accompanied by the special ‘I really need a wee’ dance).

Wife and I both WfH; me at five days, and her at four. One kid is a bolshie GCSE student, and one 13 year old. One complaining about the lack of social life, and the other just being a boy.

Wife on the phone permanently for her job; I'm not, but I'm constantly glued to monitoring software.

The kids are being very good; doing a bit of work, doing stuff, watching vast amounts of netflix, playing vast amounts of xbox. They go out for walks together. They run

i've curtailed the cycling for the duration. Even getting up at 5am for a cycle would make me too grumpy to deal with the family. So a quick run a few times a week to keep fit.

I appreciate we're luckier than most, but we have still changed our lifestyle to try and do more together. What used to be acceptable 2 months ago, isn't now

Similar situation to a few above, our youngest similar age to the OP's would ordinarily be in nursery for 2 or 3 days a week, then looked after by one of us and grandparents the remainder of the week. The eldest is P1 age. My OH ordinarily works a compressed week and 3/5 of it from home. Working from home is difficult/impossible beyond basic admin for me due to nature of work. Essentially we try to have my OH working from 8-12:30 (obviously all from home, in the bedroom), have a decent long lunch break all together, then one of us work for a few hours more in the afternoon and evening only if absolutely necessary. I get as much work done as I can on site at weekends and every other day as an extended afternoon/evening, making use of longer daylight, which is fortunate. All in all, I've reduced my working hours by about 50% and the OH is about normal averaged over the week. Given that there's an understanding from both sides that things can't be 100% normal it seems to work OK for the most part.

Like most parenting issues, advice from others about what to do is usually pretty much useless. But as a few people above have suggested, trying not to be too precious about things helps. Make use of whatever crutch you need to get through the day/keep the wee one entertained, especially by tea time. I did quite a bit of parental leave with our first up until 2 years old, but for various reasons not the second. I'm enjoying doing stupid stuff with them both, and schooling is actually pretty enjoyable (having previously only taught undergrads, I think the enthusiasm is probably the main factor). And if 2 year olds aren't being fun they are often a massive pain in the arse, so nothing unusual there. Basically we're trying not to stress about the bigger picture and just dealing with one day at a time, make it as good as we can under the circumstances each day brings.

I've also had an attempted bit of point-scoring from a work colleague who I get on well with most of the time.

She has a husband at home to look after her kids (he is a teacher on full pay but not needed to go in).

She sat on a request until 4:50pm in the first week of wfh, then forwarded it in the hope I might have logged off early. Sorted that one with a group wide message about people playing games etc. I worded it so everyone else would assume it was about another team we have a lot of issues with, but I think she got the message.

Also, I have started visibly ticking off a tally chart on conference calls whenever she drops the 'well the system was working fine at 11pm when I was logged in' at least once on every call involving our boss. From the smirks on screen I think a few people have picked up on that.

Single parent to 9 & 12 year old girls, I think I have it sorted. It was difficult at first but by day 2 of lockdown we started settling into a routine. The days began with tantrums and homeschooling was quickly abandoned, until the teachers turned to TikTok with new videos going live at about 5pm, now they're rapping science formulas; at what was bedtime. They're now falling asleep after me which gives me until lunchtime to get stuff done. We then spend the afternoon together, well awake at the same time.
I'm lucky they go to their dad's for 2 nights a fortnight, my friend is trying to look after her little one whilst wfh full time; the dad chose to move in with his girlfriend's family during lockdown

It's not working at all for us (3 and 6 year old, both working full time although not really). I'm going to the doctor's today and hopefully get signed off. My back is ****ed and I didn't eat or drink anything for 30 hours during Easter which suggests to me I'm on the edge of completely cracking up.

TBH, everyone is different and has their own battles and I know there are people in far worse situations than me but if we only had one kid and one of us could look after them full time this would be a doddle. But like I said, I have no idea about your situation.

2 and 4 year old boys here. both batsh$t crazy/hyper. wife and i are both WFH in stressful jobs. finding it very challenging to get the work done similar to a couple of other above.

i'm not proud of it byt our two ipads have been doing sterling service the last couple of weeks. sometimes it is the only way to get them to sit still for more than 1 minute...

A day at a time really.

It's been me with a 5 year old Daughter and 14 year old son, but we're now back on day 4 of our second 14 day self-isolation period because FIL has tested positive. So Wife is home from work which is good/bad, good as in youngest has more attention whilst I'm working, bad as in it's another body in a small house (seems it now anyway).

5 year old is doing okay, she's been waking with nightmares which for her usually means she's feeling the stress. We've had to get a lot better at being careful what we talk about when he's awake, it's all too easy to talk about the Virus, cancelling holidays and lock downs because she's in another room watching TV, only for her to break down crying about it hours later.

14 year old has been locked away in his room lying to us about doing school work whilst playing online. Same most Summer Breaks really.

This is my 5th week at home now, 4th with the Kids. I've stuck to the same kind of routine, we all (not teenager) get up at the usual time, we have breakfast, I start work. 5 year old does her online workout thing if she wants, some arts and crafts etc. We have lunch as late as I can possibly make it to make the afternoon shorter. As soon as we've eaten we go out around the block on our bikes it's about 4k in total with a few changes of route for her. It's the highlight of her day, when we get back it's hand-washing and she's happy to chill out until I finish at 5, by then it's a normal day for us, I make dinner, wife comes home, Bed at 7pm for her.

I know we're not doing a great job with the Teenager, but it's the same battle we have every Xmas, Easter and Summer Hols. Given no encouragement he'll vegetate in his room playing on this PC with his mates and lord knows whatever else 14 year olds do online, I've waved the white flag with trying to monitor / restrict, it became an escalating Cold War I didn't have the time to win short of installing an Enterprise grade firewall and internet filtering. (it came close) but even then, there are endless groups online who know which VPN you can install without admin rights, how to shorten web addresses etc. I wasn't protecting him, I was fighting the law of unintended consequences and creating a better monster. Anyway, if hes in his room, home life is tolerable when you're trying to work. If he's out of it, it's constant fighting between them and it's hell.

We can get places in school for both of them as essential workers, but I've resisted up to now as I'm mostly working from home, even if that meant taking my daughter to the car-park of a methadone clinic to drop off kit. (Didn't enjoy that).

The difference now is we've all been exposed to Covid, Wife will likely be tested at home point this week, if it's positive and we're lucky enough to be non-symptomatic or very mild (son has a slight temp of 37.9c but is otherwise completely normal and I has a very, very mild cough) once we're recovered I'll book them into school being as there's a far, far lower chance of them catching or spreading it for their mental health.

i’m not proud of it byt our two ipads have been doing sterling service the last couple of weeks. sometimes it is the only way to get them to sit still for more than 1 minute…

Yeah, most normal rules don't apply at the moment. Screentime limits? Sod that.

I've accepted there will be a lot of work needing to be done after this is over, but I'll fight that battle when it comes. My Daughter will be just happy to see her friends again, my Son will be a real fight I think.

I'm currently signed off work with a head injury, and wife works 4/7 as a doctor. Son is 2 years old and needs more or less constant attention.

I do the lion share of childcare during the day and my wife takes up the slack to let me take the odd nap or go for a bike ride. I'm really lucky in that respect.

I have my 'return to work' meeting next week and am hoping to make *some* contribution to the running of my department, but realistically work is going to be pretty limited. I've already done a couple of video meetings with work while balancing the wee guy and that was OK but I certainly couldn't chair an online tutorial or set/mark any work at the mo.

I really feel for those of you whose employers want a normal workload on top of your extra parenting responsibilities. It seems like a very shortsighted way of operating - you're all going to be too burned out to go back to work. If any of you are part of a union then please email your union rep to see if your employer can come up with a more equitable arrangement for you.

@BruceWee. I know how you feel, I was close to throwing the towel in after week2. Taking some holiday, and the bank holidays has massively helped the last 2 weeks. I think end of next week will see if we can make it much longer. We may have to just burn the holiday to survive and worry about the impacts later when hopefully everything is returning to normal.

We only have one other person with young kids in our extended team, so very few understand the challenge. Boss doesn't have kids, and is female. From my experience they are often the worst with tolerating family issues. Things have improved since the central messaging came out - until that point I was being told to go into the office, against government mandate...

Thankfully my wife's work is being much more supportive.

IOther thing that pisses me off about smug child free people on calls - all the talk of saving the time commuting. Yes, I am not spending hours a week in the car, it has been swapped with three times as many hours tidying up my house

I’m afraid there is no sympathy from me either. We have a 7 month and 3.5 year old.

and

I’m not sure why looking after one child is a “hard shift”.

It’s not a competition, different people find different things hard. You can always find someone worse off than yourself or whoever you’re putting down.

Anyone that has any number of kids to look after is doing well, I wouldn’t want to do it in any normal circumstances, let alone when my whole routine has been turned upside down.

We’re both lucky, no kids (because they look like ****ing hard work 😉) and are both going to work as usual, so yes we’re missing getting out and about a bit but but still have some semblance of normal life.

Good luck everyone, keeping the kids alive and not hating each other by the end of all this is probably a win.

16 and 13 here and so pretty much self sufficient - as long as they don't wind each other up. I'm full time, Mrs OTS 4 days per week. It's actually been better than I was expecting; although I've not quite got to full fluency in Portuguese. I've got 4 hours of my day back through not commuting, which is enough to keep the place in a reasonable state. I don't envy you lot with younger kids though. At. All!

1 kid, 1 adult working... obvious solution in that you work, your wife does the child care and you give her a break over lunch and take the kido out for a bike ride or something, then parent 50/50 in the evenings and weekends to ensure you both get some time as a family but also you both get some some non-work / non-kido time?

I'm really feeling for my colleagues who have 2+ little ones and 2 parents working. Nightmare. They are all working early mornings/late nights to try and balance childcare and work. Knock in impact on everyone else with your emails going from 5am through to midnight and feeling like you need to respond and working more to take the pressure off them as far as possible. Couple of people have 1 parent WFH and their partner has to work out of the home, even worse.

Work say family first... but the deadlines and pressure don't go away so not sure what they are expected to do.

Work say family first

They all say that. They never mean it.

Which leads to......

the deadlines and pressure don’t go away

Every place I have ever worked have said they value 'family' and then expect you to drop everything, stay late, get in early etc at the first opportunity.

As far as meaningless phrases go it's right up there with, 'There has to be give and take'.

Yes, we give and you take.

****s.

I’m embracing the chaos. Teams video meetings with my two year old sat on the desk and waving at people. Trading meetings with a six year old playing with a lightsaber in the background. Not had complaints from my bosses or customers/suppliers yet. To be perfectly honest if they did I’d laugh and ignore them.

Our house is very small and semi open plan downstairs. I can’t work upstairs as there simply isn’t room. Mrs F is a stay at home mum with our daughter normally, but adding an energetic six year old in to the mix has livened things up. It’s a confusing time for the little guys. The way I see it the disruption is easier for me to understand and cope with. I quite like having calls with very serious individuals and then having to ask them to hang on whilst I stop my daughter from climbing the shoe cupboard again.

I don’t care if work say family first or not. Quite simply it’s just family first, end of. I’m still doing my job to the best of my ability under the circumstances.

As far as meaningless phrases go it’s right up there with, ‘There has to be give and take’.

Yes, we give and you take.

It's all about mind over matter.

They don't mind and you don't matter.

Every place I have ever worked have said they value ‘family’ and then expect you to drop everything, stay late, get in early etc at the first opportunity.

This attitude is sometimes reinforced by colleagues/peers too, even when it contradicts policy. Some (a minority, thankfully) of the older staff in my workplace were fortunate to have partners who gave up careers in the 80s/90s to raise children (so that they could continue theirs). Roll forward 30 years to the current era and they think that requests for flexible working to help manage childcare are a travesty and will openly say so.

This attitude is sometimes reinforced by colleagues/peers too, even when it contradicts policy. Some (a minority, thankfully) of the older staff in my workplace were fortunate to have partners who gave up careers in the 80s/90s to raise children (so that they could continue theirs). Roll forward 30 years to the current era and they think that requests for flexible working to help manage childcare are a travesty and will openly say so.

Pull the ladder up, cos I'm alright Jack?

I don't have too much of that at my place, my problems are just ass kissers who try to score points.

Pull the ladder up, cos I’m alright Jack?

Indeed... In a funny way, covid-19 WFH has neutered their stance somewhat, as it’s now impossible to work without flexibility. It helps that our HoD has kids. My wife has more of an issue with the ass licking/virtue signalling than I do because she works in a big office as part of a large team. Fortunately, her boss is good at picking it up and dealing with it.

In our bigger dept meetings (30+) on MS Teams it’s been de facto to turn off video and microphones to save bandwidth and background distractions, which means you can disappear off for a bit to deal with kids etc. One of my colleagues posted a PM to the meeting host that he had a family matter to deal with, shagged his wife, then rejoined the meeting.

This was me working through breakfast yesterday...

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Wife and I both work full time normally, 40 hours a week. Both WFH full-time now, basically business as usual except for also looking after a 4yo and 8yo. As mentioned above, the maths doesn't add up in terms of hours available in the week.

My wife's job is more demanding so she spends most of her time in the spare bedroom, now 'the office' and probably does more like 45 hours now as she is a team leader and also project manager/director on a couple of big jobs so has to do a lot of ringing around coordinating. Meanwhile, I work from the dining room table and also do the childcare. I'm lucky in that while I'm officially still full-time my workload has dropped to maybe 70% of normal as a lot of my work is driven by the public - since they're stuck at home, they have less to complain about (at least in terms of things that affect my job). Also, while we have had similar messages to those above from 'the management', I'm inclined to believe they mean it. They have said outright that if you have kids/dependents at home you might not be able to fit in a full working week and that's fine, just let people know so that any work can be redistributed. In team meetings there's there's a mutually-agreed-despite-not-having-discussed-it ask-no-questions policy on how many hours people are actually doing, as long as things are getting done. Seems to be working for now.

It's bloody exhausting, but I'm very much aware that we're in a much better situation than a lot of others, so trying not to complain.

****ing hectic. It's been alright since the Easter "holidays" but I'm not looking forward to next week when I need to try to school my two as well.

Single Dad of a 4 and 8 year old. I'd hoped to be able to school both at the same time for a few hours then go back to work, but that didn't go to plan. I'm just sitting one on my desk beside me while I try to do their schoolwork and keep an eye on my email at the same time.

Their Mum isn't much use as she only takes them for a few hours in the evening during the working week (and the kids also have homework and dinner to do when they are with her - yes, they have been set daywork as well as homework!)

It'll be good once it's all over. I'm busier than ever 🙁

5 and 8 year old girls here ... my wife works for the NHS, and is luckily taking some of her holiday at the moment (for some odd reason they wouldn't let her cancel it even though she asked!) - so I can crack on with work.

But when she has been at work she's on a 12 hour shift starting at 8.30, so the kids are mine all day. It's tough going trying to keep them entertained, getting them exercised, sorting them with an endless supply of snacks, giving them school activities to work on plus the one on one time with the youngest for her reading. This is all on top of trying to get some work output done, which on most days is almost non-existant.

I work in software development for a large insurance company - and luckily they're really understanding. I've been told that they'll support my wife as a front line worker by allowing me to look after the kids - and just to do work as and when I can. Things could be much, much worse for us.

I’m embracing the chaos. Teams video meetings with my two year old sat on the desk and waving at people. Trading meetings with a six year old playing with a lightsaber in the background. Not had complaints from my bosses or customers/suppliers yet. To be perfectly honest if they did I’d laugh and ignore them.

Oh this too.

Frankly all I've heard off clients for the last 4.5 weeks has been "Are you working from home as well?" In fact my Daughters rendition of "Mary had a little Lamb" brought a Lady who was missing her Grand Kids to tears.

Things I've come to accept:

Just let it happen, yes the youngest will build a house out of the sofa, yes there will be chalk and crayons everywhere and the Teenager will wreck the kitchen making lunch. I just deal with it at 5, trying to keep on top of it during the day was a fools errand.

Don't try to pretend to people that you're suited and booted in the office, it's madness, everyone's in the same boat. My Mate works for HSBC Customer Service, he's sat on his bed with a laptop and headset trying to sound professional whilst his wife tries to keep a couple of 10 year olds quiet downstairs, sod that, it's just going to stress you into illness.

After the initial chaos, my workload is way, way down. I can't give into fear that I'm going to be furloughed because I haven't got as much work as I had 6 weeks ago and I'm not pretending I've "flat out" because very few people are.

I cancelled Leave days I was due to take last week, I was actually pretty busy and it wasn't logistically possible to hand it over to anyone else, well unless I wanted to drive around with kit to give to my colleagues which certainly isn't in the spirit of the rules, I can understand why people are, but I found when I did have time off it wasn't a lot better, we were still all stuck in the house and the days were longer.

One of my colleagues posted a PM to the meeting host that he had a family matter to deal with, shagged his wife, then rejoined the meeting.

On the job whilst on the job.

And they say men can't multitask....

Two teenagers, 19 and 16. One is supposed to be doing some college work, the other is actually working from home, but we have to kick him out of bed to get him to log in at 9am (shouldn't have too but he is a nightmare at getting up, and always has been)

Wife currently on a month's 'leave' as company making them take either April or May off, but she's only on a contract until August.

I've just used a week's leave, and have more to take next week. Working from home, currently out in the summer house as Mrs F is busy sewing and turning the house upside down - it's a tip with her crap. Teens doing sweet FA around the house, and it just ends up in arguements if you ask, so they get told tea is ready, and if they don't get it, it is cold.

Just glad mine aren't young, must be a nightmare. Colleagues are trying to juggle it all.

We are very fortunate in the roles we have.
gota 4yr old at home and both of us are doing 2 days on site per week (lab based on secure sites) but outside of that the company is understanding in terms of what gets completed.
very fortunate compared to some sadly