As a parent I’m not sure how I feel about going back to the office once lockdown ends

It looks like we could soon be getting back to normal.

For the last year anyone who could work from home has worked from home but that could all soon change. With talk of more and more businesses reopening and things going back to how they were before the first lockdown, many of us will be returning to our work places. But do we all want to? I know as a parent there are many reservations I have about going back to the office versus working from home. While working from home with two children, who were homeschool for most of last year and the beginning of this year, there are a lot of factors that make me want to continue working from home. The biggest one being the cost of childcare. If both my husband and I go back to our offices that means we'll have to arrange for our children to go to a childcare facility after they've finish preschool and school. Childcare in Ireland as all parents know is far from affordable and if we had to go down that route it would make my earnings almost redundant. Before lockdown I would try to arrange for different family members to collect the kids from school but even that was incredibly stressful and honestly I hated having to constantly ask for favours from family members. Another big factor is having time to spend with the kids. I think any working parent will tell you how guilty they feel about having to be away from their children all day. Ok, when I'm working from home I am working so we're not playing together the whole time I'm home but because I'm not commuting it changes our family day. I can spend time outdoors with them on my lunch break and we have more time as a family in the evening together because rather than spending ages waiting for a bus I'm already home. I won't lie I do miss the office chats and being able to have meetings in person (Zoom meetings just aren't the same). I also miss being able to go on the occasional work night out and it would be nice to meet my colleagues who joined the team during lockdown in person. Still, I'm apprehensive about going back to office once it opens again. Recently new legislation has been brought in which allows employees to have more work from home rights and it will be interesting to see how this will play out in the near future. For me, I'll just have to see how I feel once the time comes, but at the moment I feel when it comes to working from home the benefits out weigh the negatives.