This, so much.

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 ...

The best and most effective way I've found to do this is to have a door that you can lock and a partner who can reassure the kids that dad/mom still cares but is just busy when the door is locked.

Of course, people who were not already setup for working remotely may not have a door they can lock and partner who can reassure.

Sure, now what about when both parents are attempting to work from home. It takes a lot more effort to coordinate when both parents need to be on a conference call to attempt to wrangle the kids away/keep quiet enough for the other to make that call.

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.

When both parents work, it’s going to take a toll on productivity. One of the other or both parents will have to deal with all kinds of issues with small children up to maybe tweens. But even then unless they had home office setups there will be competition for space and resources —kids could be hogging the b/w and if you throttle it, whoever gets throttled is going to be unhappy with their telework or distance learning.

> Because I have a kid...

> I think you are greatly ignoring employees with children.

I think you missed something.

The parent comment could have phrased it better, but still made a good point. The grandparent comment dismissed any tricky situation with children, blaming lack of motivation to the person rather than the situation, so I think the sentiment of the parent still stands.

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).