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"I'm bored!" - daycare child in the home office
Photo: Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty Images
I'm currently working on our balcony table, which I open every morning between the double bed and the wardrobe in the bedroom.
In the background screeching children's voices from the Zoom school conference of my nine-year-olds, below me a creaky wooden balcony chair.
My child will soon come in and explain to me in detail who was particularly stupid in the confi today.
And I won't have the heart to tell her that I can't listen to this because the next conference is urgent for me.
I wouldn't have thought that you could work like this, but it works.
I say that lightly today, my wife probably thinks differently about it: She is on “school duty”, so she sits directly opposite the child with her work computer and does care and work in parallel.
That'll bloom again next week.
But still, others are certainly far worse off.
However, this improvised routine is also shakier than expected.
From Monday, Hamburg will return to the daycare emergency care, and then the relative calm could be over.
Then maybe a six-year-old is romping through the apartment and she needs a completely different level of care (her favorite phrase at the moment: "I'm bored").
How is that supposed to be?
No Hamburg politician has officially answered this question to the point.
Parents should, if at all possible, work from their home office and at the same time, if at all possible, look after their daycare children.
These are two things that are diametrically opposed, that are simply incompatible.
The head smokes.
It tugs at the nerve cords.
I want answers now.
Call the Hamburg Corona hotline.
After the second ring someone picks up, who would have thought?
"How is that supposed to work?" I ask.
"Well - you can work when the children are in bed."
After this cheek, I can yell at the lady, finally someone with whom I can dump my frustration.
But she's already talking in a friendly, eager voice.
“To be honest - the parents are out in the rain again, I can't say otherwise.
I don't want to trade with you.
I've talked to parents who seriously work from eight in the evening until three in the morning. ”That doesn't help me now, and I already know that other parents face the same problems.
At least I feel understood in my need.
"You can take your child with grandma and grandpa," says the friendly lady next.
"I'm a journalist, but I write about series and films, does that make me systemically relevant?" - Hesitantly: "I'm not sure, you have to clarify that with the Kita management." “My template says something about parents who work in professions that are important for the general public.
But it is not defined what services of general interest include.
Well. ”I imagine her shrugging her shoulders empathetically.
"You can take your child with grandma and grandpa," says the friendly lady next.
Seconds of shocked silence on the line.
Then: "Oh God, you quickly forget that I just said that, right?"
I'm starting to find this conversation really entertaining.
The woman does not give up either, although she has clearly expressed her helplessness enough.
She can't change it either.
Nevertheless, she scans regulations on child sickness benefits, reads resolutions on private childcare, and repeatedly assures me that I can call again next week if the information from the Senate should become clearer.
The friendly woman says about the shot: “But now I was able to help you, right?
Well, maybe not specifically, but at least… ”She's not trying to get a compliment, she means the question seriously, she wants to help in all her helplessness.
Is it so that more is not possible in this confused time?
How it should go on from Monday - I don't know.
It will have to work somehow.
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