Think of the most annoying co-worker you've dealt with constantly coming up to you and asking the least relevant question you could imagine. Multiply that by infinity and you might get close to having small kids at home.
Can this be dealt with, of course. But it takes time to get your kids to adjust to this. If you're kids are not used to you working from home, you can't just expect them to be okay with it.
We have a small house, which is fine because I work at the office, they're out at school, it's big enough for the times we need to be there ... oh wait.
Our upstairs is big enough for the beds, and a narrow space around each. Downstairs has no dividing walls/doors.
Now work expect equal output from me and I'm working in the kitchen with a just a gap between me and the room a toddler and 2 other children are occupying.
Perhaps if they weren't my kids, particularly my brain interrupts every time the toddler speaks, because that's how we're wired for young voices.
Now add in that the kids are used to running around screaming, literally screaming, to burn off energy .. it's not going well.
Meanwhile the bosses in their massive home offices, think everything is perfect and don't see why we shouldn't be _more_ productive than normal.
I'm waiting for when we go back wondering how their argument for why we're not allowed to home-work is going to go ...
Of course, people who were not already setup for working remotely may not have a door they can lock and partner who can reassure.
Kids have routines, and having work-from-home parents can become part of that routine. It's not a light switch though, so training has to be given time to take hold. Probably about the time the seclusion orders are lifted if not longer.
> I think you are greatly ignoring employees with children.
I think you missed something.
The grandparent is happy working from home with their 1-year old. However, they don't consider that other people's situation might be very different. For example, the 4 year old can actively try to find you.
Plus not all house layouts are the same. I've got a secluded space on a higher floor, however there are no doors and the floors/walls are paper thin, so I still hear everything that happens in the house unless I permanently use noise-cancelling headphones+music (which doesn't work that well for me).
At home I wake up and log on at 8am. In the office, my 1.5 hour commute puts me in the office at 10am on a decent day. Because I have a kid and a pregnant wife, I cut out of the office around 4 every day because that's the only reasonable way I can get home and eat dinner with my family before my kid goes to bed... but when I'm WFH, I'm often staying online past 5 and sometimes 6. To me, the difference is literally more time spent working and more time spent seeing my child vs. spending 3-4 hours commuting daily and going day-long stretches without my one year old seeing me with her own two eyes.
Working from home, I can stay productive during meetings without bothering anyone -- I can mute myself, if it's one of those meetings, and keep working.
I think anyone who fails to be as productive, or more productive, from home is someone that doesn't like their job very much. I'm lucky that I enjoy the product I work on, and I enjoy dressing comfortably and eating lunch with my wife, and drinking my own coffee, and instantly joining/disconnecting from meetings, and physically distancing myself from "drive-bys" that my production is up.