Childcare pre Covid!

I would genuinely love to know the experience of anyone who had a primary school aged child before Covid? How did you manage to balance school drop offs and your career. Even the thought of it now is giving me anxiety and I work from home 3 days a week, but I don’t know how I’ll do it on the days I am in the office? Do you just have to take a pay cut and go part time? I know when I was growing up (I’m now 29) most families could survive on one income and mums of school aged children could afford part time but there’s no way that’s affordable now. What if you’re a single mother? The system is crazy

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Not sure how much help this is but...... It will be/is a requirement for schools to provide wraparound care (so from 7.30 am until 6pm) which is also covered by the new childcare hours given and the tax free account

@Laura oh wow, I didn’t know that! Thanks for the info, is that coming into effect soon do you know?

I can't remember the exact date (my husband works in schools and does this so I only retained so much information 😂😂) but I want to say by 2025 or 2026 it has to be in place by so many schools are getting it sorted now

I will be doing before and after school clubs, I can’t see another way around it. My work are flexible but when my boy does go to school i can pop out to get him but he won’t be at an age where i can leave him to play for a couple of hours ….

I do also gasp in horror when I think about what those covid parents went through. I can do absolutely no work (I teach at the university and research) when my son is in the house. Not getting any breaks must have been traumatic. Plus the stress levels of having to figure out how to tend to your child while working... Oof. I love my job and income, so going part-time or being a SAHM would defo not be for me. As others above, I will use after school clubs. At least is gonna be soooo much cheaper than nursery.

I have a school-age child now plus Jan 2023 babies. I work 0.8FTE so I can finish early and collect my children. My partner does drop off as school starts at 8.50 and he wfh from 9am.

I absolutely dread trying to work this out. I think nursery will be really difficult as it's only for a couple of hours a day. I'm just trying not to think about it too much until I have to as it stresses me out so much. There's no way I could afford to go part time so will have to do a lot of research!

@Carla yeah I cannot imagine what they had to go through 😭😭😭

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