This, so, much. Working from home with a young kid around, it always feels like something's gonna fall, the cat is gonna fight back, mom is gonna get mad at him for some reason, or simply he needs me to go play with him. I never know if I have 5 minutes or 3 hours.
Nowadays I tend to not work so much during the day as I don't have the means to focus, then work into the night.
I've worked at home for about 17 years now. I have a 6 year old, two 3 year olds, and my wife is a stay at home mom. I don't get interrupted, and there's never been an age range where I would regularly get interrupted. At the most frequent, maybe once per week. Definitely not even once per day though.
When I read your statement it feels like you're saying you think the OP is just throwing proclamations over the wall rather than sitting down and having a family discussion about how to ensure the day is arranged in everyone's best interest.
What happens if both work during regular office hours (as in my marriage)?
If you have very young kids, it's impossible to have a distraction free work environment at home unless you find someone to take care of the kids and enforce the no distractions rule.
People often assume, somewhat unfairly, that this person should be the mother. But what if mommy also has a professional career and ambitions?
During the pandemic, people who found working from home enjoyable tend to
a- not have very young children of an age they need constant watching or get bored if left to play alone, or
b- someone in the couple is a stay at home parent (usually the mother) who watches the children.
We have both simply adapted and now do our concentration-related tasks when our child is asleep.
My child sleeps maybe 1 hour in the afternoon and then during the night. Do you mean you can only concentrate then? What about coworkers who, quite reasonably, expect you to work with them and collaborate with projects during their work hours? What about meetings? What about emergencies in production, which never choose the most comfortable time to happen?
> no commuting
Agreed, this is the best of WFH, hands down.
OP specifically mentioned this is not the scenario we are discussing.
"If you have very young kids, it's impossible to have a distraction free work environment at home unless you find someone to take care of the kids and enforce the no distractions rule."
Again, neither OP or I are arguing against this.
"Both parents are caregivers in a marriage, there's no single caregiver."
Again, this feels like an uncharitable reading of my statement. Of course there are two caregivers but often there is one person in charge of the kids, hence my caregiver (singular) statement. Which partner it is, is irrelevant.
"People often assume, somewhat unfairly, that this person should be the mother."
How is this relevant to this post?
Also, these comments about "mother" are irksome to me since it feels like you're accusing me (or OP) of implying something I'm not. Not that it really matters but my wife and I (a father) work full time and during the pandemic I was the caregiver during normal business hours while my wife retained a normal working hours schedule.
- This is NOT the norm. This matters because what's more interesting is the general case, not the exceptions.
- It affected your work, in this case of a man instead of a woman, so the point remains: WFH is very hard for working couples with young children.
As for the relevance of the impact on mothers: it is VERY relevant and highlights the inequality that still remains in Western society. People by default assume the mother will take care, it's happened in every situation and every couple I talked with, and it's my own experience as well.
I'm not accusing you of anything, and if you feel personally addressed, that's on you.
That may be true, but in this case we were specifically discussing an exception where gender was not relevant.
But many people I met seem sold on the dream they can 'have it all' without thinking about the price
Another caregiver is a viable option, but then again the pandemic hit and in some countries, for a while, it was forbidden to have strangers at home and daycare was closed.
Many people simply assume the woman must be the caregiver. This assumption by default will affect you even in workplaces which pay lip service to equality. Source: me.
During the stay home period it meant for us that everyday we scheduled who does 100% work at what time, and who takes care of the rest in the meantime (might mean light work while looking after things)
That meant switching back and forth the roles about once or twice everyday, including when the other needs to cook or go to groceries.
In this respect, I think there is just no way to have both parents 100% working at home with a kid needing attention, and trying to reach that will only make everyone miserable.
We were able to achieve this during covid with two kids doing distance learning as well. However, we were extremely fortunate that we were able to do shifts where my wife worked 7-3ish and I worked 3-midnight.
There is no manual on how to be a parent. Don't tell our kids that we're making it up as we go.
Establishing boundaries like "don't interrupt the person who's working" needs to be a discussion that happens between the whole family. Of course, the caregiver will be responsible for the physical enforcement but the caregiver should understand that it is in the long-term best interest of the whole family that the worker is able to have uninterrupted work time.
Also, by the age of 4 most kids are capable of understanding and learning to respect boundaries.
I don't think they're implying that. In fact they said "It can be impossible if both of you work" which you can extrapolate to "It can be impossible if you're the sole caregiver".
Of course if you are the only person home, you can't expect a 4 year old to let you work uninterrupted for long stretches of time. I don't see anyone trying to argue that point of view though (certainly I would never say that).
It’s that as a parent it’s hard not to just have some part of your brain constantly scanning for any sign of your 4 year old trying to get themselves hurt or break something (as 4 year olds naturally do).
In other words, the boundary crossing is done by the adult and is really hard to turn off if you have any interest in your kid staying safe, fed, and entertained throughout the day.
I’m not good at this, I certainly don’t think I have the answer, that’s just the current thinking in our context.
I know, I'm doing it wrong, but my position wasn't remote before the start of the pandemic.
And be nevertheless woken up early in the morning by your toddlers ...