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Comment by ryanSrich | Hacker News Reader

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ryanSrich·

Kids are a spectrum. The lockdown is so different depending on how old your kids are:

Infant = stressed, but manageable

Toddler = worst case scenario

Young child = second worst case scenario

Teen = enjoyable

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As someone with an infant and a toddler, working from home, this hits the nail on the head. I have been working remotely my whole career, and I love it, but working at home _with_ children there is about 5x harder.

I have four kids under age 8, including a two-year-old.

Brutal doesn’t begin to describe it.

I've got an 11 year old and a 5 year old. Sometimes I tell the oldest to go play with his brother, so they both won't bother us.

This tends to work very well for about 30 minutes, and then they're in a fight.

So essentially: Kids are annoying. Babies are sweet though.

More or less. Young kids want your attention and don't have the capacity to understand why you can't give it and have to focus on something else for 8 hours, so they'll just keep interrupting you. Babies require your attention periodically for basic-life needs or general fussiness but nothing beyond that (which is stressful, but not intellectually taxing). Teenagers are likely a bag of contradictions, but at least they understand the concept of working all day and needing space to concentrate. You can reason with a 15 year old, but not a 5 year old.

I'm mostly solving this issue with my 3-year old by playing with her all day (save for an hour or two of meetings) and then catching up on work at night, at the expense of a bunch of sleep.

I'm lucky that my software job is mostly conducive to this...

Twin three year olds and a seven year old here...

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