This is going to be quite the year for unique childcare solutions as our kids spend most (or all) of their time learning outside of the classroom, even as parents continue to try to work and we all attempt to stay isolated to protect each other. Parents need help, but sometimes getting help doesn’t feel safe.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution here; not even close. But if you’re still trying to figure out how on Earth you’re going to make it through this school year with your employment (and/or sanity) intact, and maybe even with your kids having learned a thing or two, something here might help.
I asked our Offspring Facebook Group: How are you handling childcare arrangements when your kids aren’t in school and/or are virtually learning? And here’s what they said (some responses may be edited slightly for spelling, grammar or clarity):
‘What I like to call ‘managing at home’”
That’s how group member Carrie is labeling her situation:
My husband and I were told we are both working from home until September 2021 at the earliest. I know he will only help if I ask for specific things, so I will be primarily managing kinder distance-learning, after care, extra activities, cooking, pickup and lunches for my other child in preschool. I don’t want to do a pod for kinder because it seems like a lot of extra work for kinder.
Jamie’s family has a similar plan, although she more bluntly puts it this way: “as of now, it’s 1950 over here where I’m bearing the load”:
I do the cooking, cleaning and childcare (education, exercise, playtime) due to my partner’s increasingly demanding job. He works in streaming, which is as popular as ever now that we’re all stuck at home. We’re supposed to start kinder in two weeks, but L.A. is not opening schools for now so we are trying to find kids to form a pod. But as they’re incoming kinder, no one knows each other and it’s near impossible to locate risk-averse kinder families in our district.
I left out all three of us have specific Covid risks that make us more fearful than the average house, so locating trustworthy people who are risk-averse has been impossible. I’m burned out, but when we do our emotional check-ins, she still reports back that she’s happy, which is my singular goal.
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The “cobbled-together” plan
This is among the most popular of plans, which is really less of a plan and more of an exercise in attempting to get each hour of the day covered by someone. Take, for instance, Joshua, whose about-to-be-first-grader will be attending a cyber charter school:
We’re fortunate that my mother is available to assist us during the day, and my wife works for a nearby church. The church has given her permission to bring him in with the computer in the morning and will set aside a room for him. At lunch, my mom will pick him up, and make sure he “attends” his afternoon class(es).
There is perhaps even more cobbling together happening over in Jenn’s home this fall:
We are lucky to have two parents working from home and able to support our kindergartener. Virtual class in the morning with parent supporting, hired help for the middle chunk of the day (10 a.m.—1 p.m.) with one other child, focused on play. In the afternoon, more virtual class with alternating parents supporting, “after school” outdoor playground time (parent masked, kids not) with other children from the class.
Whenever one parent schedules a meeting for work, the other tries to immediately block it as “work not meeting” time to be the on-call parent. Hopefully the on-call parent can still do work during the child’s virtual lessons, just not meetings. Extra catch-up work done by parents in the evening with the TV on for the kids, because pandemic.
And Sarah and her partner’s flexible work schedules mean that basically everyone is always either working or schooling or child-caring:
My husband and I both have jobs that require us to be in the office at least part of the time. I work 4 a.m.—10 a.m. MWF ... so my husband can go into work those [other] mornings, as well as various odd hours on the weekend. I am picking up the majority of childcare and schooling duties and may be going down to part-time moving into the school year, depending on how things go.
Ah, yes, that brings me to the unfortunate choice many have had to make:
The “give up your job” solution
That was the option that worked best for Mark and his wife:
My wife, a medical assistant, is not working and staying home with the kids. I’m working. We made that decision because I make a higher salary, otherwise we’d swap places.
There was also, blessedly, one parent of a high-schooler in the group who is not working and whose son requires little help from her. Depending on her district’s final plan, she may be able to help tutor a pod of five children in her area, which is a great way for adults with fewer responsibilities to help other families right now.
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