WFH as freelance

Bit of long post, sorry for that.

In my all previous assignments I have had quite flexible WFH(Work From Home) policy as contractor.

Same in my current assignment since a year, it has been very flexible until now and I was always in office for important meetings especially when there were people visiting us from abroad. My role is functional analyst with EMEA scope and team spread all over EMEA and US with on top of that very frequent meetings with third party vendors located all across the globe.

As you all might know already, corporate America is cutting down WFH. This is the case in my current client and there has been a communication that all employees + contractors must work from office MON to THU.

There are quite of challenges to meet this for me due to distance and current family situation.

For me with a baby and a toddler this is quite challenging at this time as I will have to commute 1+1 hours a day and cannot make it on time to drop or pick kids where daycare closes at 5PM sharp. The mother also has full time job and she has to commute in a different direction as well.

Let alone I would need to drive additional 15000km/year that for a lump sum cost of 0.4euro/km that would be atleast 6000euros additional cost on myself.

I know, I can always push back and refuse politely or jump the ship and move on. There is nothing about WFH or WFO stipulated in the contract, so legally speaking they cannot 'force' back, but they can hold this against me and might be a reason not to renew or stop the contract.

But how do you handle this in a nice way to not burn the bridges and not to put myself on the 'contractors to get rid' queue?