It's May 12, full on the first lockdown. In my hand the phone; I am on the phone with a potential client. I've been working for months with this lady from a large and mostly posh law firm in the Zuidas.
We are in the middle of final negotiations to finally officially kick off our collaboration, when she asks if all is well on my end of the line. I nod and mutter in agreement, trying to pull myself together as best I can.
Meanwhile, my other hand is full in my two-year-old son's poopy diaper. He is screaming with laughter as I try to get him out of his diaper with one hand, my left one.
During the first lockdown, everyone was still sympathetic to the occasional hacking children during video meetings. American Robert Kelly even became world famous for it. During a live interview with the BBC, Kelly's children came sauntering in with in their wake their mother who had clearly wanted to avoid this.
By now, we've been in new lockdown for a few weeks. With the children at home. The holidays and the resulting lower workload (for many) still offered some relief. The chance, however, is high That the children will not be allowed back to daycare, school and BSO as of next week.
That means that now that the economy should just get back to normal, some **[two million](https://www.nji.nl/nl/Databank/Cijfers-over-Jeugd-en-Opvoeding/Cijfers-per-onderwerp/Cijfers-per-onderwerp-Gezinnen#:~:text=In 2019 there are,the number of single-parent families is steadily increasing.)** families (with children living at home) can run at no more than half strength. This benefits no one. Not the parent, who has to work overtime. Not the employer, who will really have to take this into account anyway. And also not the children who suddenly get a second-rate education. If they make it at all get already.
Everyone will agree that as a (working) parent, you are often not the most appropriate person to teach your children. Parents generally have less patience, less time, and less experience with their offspring's learning process than the specifically trained teacher.
Especially if that homeschooling has to be combined with work. Homeschooling is now different from telling your colleagues what to do. You have to be constantly on top of things. As a result, work shifts to the evenings.
Moreover, in addition to these "welfare problems," there are also serious challenges. The overall development of our youth continues to lag behind. The gap between children is growing and there is increasing child abuse, plausibly due to mounting stress at home. These are quite drastic consequences of what Minister Hugo de Jonge considers in part to be a lever to make people more compliant with the duty of working from home.
So for now, you will have to be inventive yourself to spare yourself, your work and your children. Fortunately, many parents know other parents who are in exactly the same situation. Share that burden. You may host two others at home. Parents in one home, children in the other.
Enterprising as the Netherlands is, there are even already inventive parties that are cleverly capitalizing on this. For example, Charly Cares, the Tinder of babysitting, now offers employers the opportunity to unburden employees through babysitters with homeschooling experience.
Babysitting youth happy that they can earn money again. Employer happy that you can just go back to work quietly. Kids happy that you don't have to teach them anymore. You happy, period.
