Data scientist here. It is 100% possible to do things with kids, but you really have to be motivated to do it, AND it really helps if you have a support system of other people to help take care of your child. I wrote about the dangerous deception we have in American culture, and particularly tech culture, of people who "have it all," but in reality have a bunch of help in the background here[1] and here[2].

If you work full-time and you want to go above and beyond, you're essentially working three days: work, before school + after school, and then your third day is learning or development.

Whatever that means for you in terms of reshuffling energy and other commitments will vary on your personality, energy level, etc, etc.

When you have a small child, it is extremely hard to multitask. So I wait until she is asleep. All after work time and weekends are for her.

Here is the way my schedule works: I pick her up from daycare, do dinner, playing, and then she goes to bed. I then take half an hour break, and delve into whatever I have going on, for about three hours.

I'm currently taking a Java class, writing technical blogs, and working out some Python. So I'll usually do an hour of reading/Java homework, then start a blog post, then finish off with whatever else I was working on.

Over the past three weeks, I developed this talk on big data[3]. That was probably the hardest because I needed a lot of time to write the code, test the code and concentrate, and all of my energy was just sapped.

All of this is to say that you can do it. For me personally it takes a lot of reshuffling and work and giving up things, but that's how kids work.

[1]http://blog.vickiboykis.com/2015/09/we-are-not-getting-the-f... [2]http://blog.vickiboykis.com/2012/07/sheryl-anne-marie-and-ma... [3]https://veekaybee.github.io/data-lake-talk/#/