> but the lack of uninterrupted quiet time is real.

Do you have dedicated office space in your home? This is crucial.

Additionally, once the kids go to school the house gets very, very quiet for most of the day.

I do. But not like its sound proof. And sometimes your partner just needs help. And other times your kids stop by and ask for something. You can say you’re “at work” as much as you want, but you’re still at home.

And yes, I am sure once everyone is at school for a big chunk of the day it all gets much easier.

Exactly my experience and what I came here to say.

Locking myself in my home office during work hours isn't a solution to this problem. I have to use the bathroom, get water, coffee, eat lunch, take walks, etc. The kids see me and want to play, want to hang out, want to tell me about everything that happened since the last time they saw me. They might come to the office door and start pounding on it, yelling out for Mom or Dad, depending on who's in the office working. At that point one of us has to physically respond to the situation. There's also the simple fact that sometimes only Mom or Dad can truly manage the situation at hand. I've had to go break up fights outside in the back yard after I realized the background noise I was hearing was an exasperated grandparent who couldn't get them to stop.

We have 3 kids, a set of twins and a singleton, whose average age is still under 3 years. It's a very challenging situation and work generally takes a back seat when the kids are in the house.

Thank you! Reading WFH threads always contradicts my lived experience. I am happy to hear that someone else has the same problem and I am not alone.

> But not like its sound proof. And sometimes your partner just needs help. And other times your kids stop by and ask for something. You can say you’re “at work” as much as you want, but you’re still at home.

Sounds exactly like issues at our open offices too?

The difference is, at the office it's part of your job, at home it is not. Helping your teammates is part of your job, helping your wife is not. And I bet you don't clock out to make a quick 5-minute break to help your wife 10 times a day ;)

If you are on salary - who cares? We aren't paid by the hour.

but that's working on work stuff, not personal stuff. You could make the 'but not my work' argument, but that's disingenuous I think.

Indeed. We have a 5 month old and a 4 year old, and my wife broke her leg with a compound spiral fracture two months ago then subsequently developed vertigo and hearing loss from unexplainable inner ear damage. I can't say preschool has helped us out much, either. After the whole family became violently ill from a preschool norovirus, I've now been plagued with an upper respiratory infection going on 20 days or so. I've lost and regained my voice twice, and of course I've had to conduct highly technical collaborative remote interviews every day this week. I do have a dedicated office space with a door I can close, and statistically there's still a 1 in 3 chance of an interview candidate overhearing my daughter shouting a critical analysis of the color, consistency and scent of her bowel movements.

This week I've just given up on sleep completely, and accepted that I have already gone insane. I got 2 hours last night. After managing to pass out from exhaustion between coughing fits at 3AM, I was called back from the Ethereal Realm to this land of the damned by a mysteriously sweet voice in the dark, asking me for "a piece of cheese", and "bread, the round kind like for feeding a duck". To aid in my quest, I was hastily thrown the plastic base of a holy cheese grater from the land of Ikea; no more questions. Since then I've fed a baby about 5 oz of formula and coughed up about 2 oz of mucus. Like my daughter, it's been sort of fun to observe the change in consistency, color and flavor from day to day.

Overall things have been going well, though. No complaints. There's some clear benefits to operating at my physical and mental limit. I've lost some weight from all the involuntary vomiting and appetite loss. I abandoned my futile attempt to be delicate dealing with our difficult and jaded next door neighbors, and am instead stomping on egg shells calling them out on their unintentional but very rude behavior. I also feel like I've had a lot of really creative and productive, impactful breakthroughs at work lately. My only real disappointment is that I have absolutely no energy left to pick up my Steam Deck, and when I force myself to anyway, I get simulation sickness after 5 minutes.

This sounds more like a problem of your country culture of not encouraging to take sick days. I would have been on sick leave for all the time needed to not have sleeping problems anymore

It is inevitable if you send your toddlers to daycare. They pick up ~20 or so viruses in a year for the first couple years (roughly every other week), and some will be new to you.

The noro/rota/adeno/entero viruses are terrible, they tear through the whole class and family leaving a trail of vomit and diarrhea…and usually hit once or twice per year. Majority are just corona/rhino/influenza which are not as bad since they just usually just cause congestion and the kids can play through it.

I notice that my daughter stopped getting sick between 3 and 4 though, so I guess that is how long it takes to build up immunity to most.

On a whim I scheduled a last minute video doctor appointment today to get some antibiotics to try and knock out this infection. The doctor asked if I was able to take time off work, and I told her that I had an incredibly supportive workplace, but stretches of time off weren't my issue. My lack of sleep is due to my inability to go more than 5 minutes without having a violent coughing fit, a sick 5 month old baby, a 4 year old daughter that likes to test limits, and an exhausted wife with a broken leg and vertigo.

I don't think this is actually a good anecdote in support of your stereotype? Let me tell you more about my recent personal work experiences. After taking 3 months of paid paternity leave, I eased back in by working a few 10-20 hour weeks, then my wife broke her leg while we were out of town helping her mother who herself had broken her shoulder. The CTO of my company immediately called just to say not to worry at all about the company, and to focus 100% on taking care of my wife and daughters. I worked a few 5 hour weeks, mainly just asynchronously answering people's technical questions to keep the cogs of progress turning. There was a re-org while I was on paternity leave, and my new manager who was also a new hire was getting worried that maybe I should take some sort of formal leave. To be honest it sounded pretty good at the time, since I was stressed out to the point of having abdominal pain; 3 month old, post-partum wife bedridden in extreme agony, unable to breastfeed, young daughter bouncing off the walls. I called the CTO just to mull over with, then called my former manager who himself had just gotten back from a several month leave that he spent doing yoga on an island off Portugal. He had me fully convinced to just take the next 4 months off, abandon my family and zip off to Portugal; just kidding. The CTO called me back to say that he talked to the head of engineering and the HR rep, and they all agreed that it seemed silly to take leave. They all agreed that I should continue not worrying at all about the company and focus 100% on my family, at least for another month or two. "You've always gone the extra mile for the company, so let the company do the same for you." He suggested that I should only consider taking leave once my wife's leg is better, if I felt burnt out and I thought it would make be happier. He also offered to go check in with my new manager, just to make sure he himself wasn't stressing out about the situation. Then the HR rep called, and clarified that there's no company policy or legal reason why I would need to take leave. She preferred the zero paperwork option of just calling it paid-time-off (the company has an unlimited vacation policy.) I've been gradually ramping up my hours since then, and I would describe my current situation as a positive feedback loop between productivity and sleep deprived euphoria. My work is a lot of fun and very rewarding, and it's easy for me to get sucked into it. https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU

Thank you for this. Similar situation here, 2.5 year old and a newborn, and I have been having serious trouble keeping my head on straight.

I've had so many viruses since the older one started preschool 8 months ago, I can't remember what feeling good feels like.

The lack of sleep from trying to help my wife feed the newborn on top of keeping a norovirus-infected toddler away from said newborn in-between my own trips to the bathroom has been.....not fun.

I honestly cannot describe how much better I suddenly feel knowing I'm not the only one in that boat. I was totally unable to remember that this is temporary, we will stop getting sick, and I will feel good again until I read this.

I just smiled at the toddler for the first time in a week.

Have an internet hug! I'm not afraid of your germs, and I take immunosuppressants. I have heard that a 2.5 year sibling delta is the toughest with a newborn. Hold in there! We've been fortunate that our first daughter absolutely loves having a little sister, and she's old enough to mostly understand that babies are precious and fragile.

Our older daughter got hit with the norovirus a couple days before we did, so by the time it took us down she was over it. We didn't take any special precautions to isolate the baby, given that she most definitely got exposed the same time we did. Luckily the baby never developed any major symptoms. My wife was totally screwed with her broken leg. New lifetime achievement personal low. I had a 60 minute window between when she became violently ill and I did, which I used to build her an elevated makeshift bed close enough to the toilet that she could stand up and pivot on one leg. It was luxuriously memory foam padded. Our older daughter had the opportunity of her lifetime: camped out in the living room with the TV remote, Disney + button, no bed time. She's was so sweet and concerned though, that she kept checking in on her mom every half an hour until she passed out from exhaustion. I myself had a relatively tame night; all of my indignities could be kept between me and the washing machine.

A couple weeks ago our dog started vomiting on the mat by the back door of our kitchen. My wife started urgently shouting at me to do something. I kept doing whatever I was doing at a snails pace, probably staring at the hot water kettle or something. She got progressively more frustrated with me, "what are you doing?! Vomit! Hurry!" I turned to her and said, why are you shouting at me? Do you want me to feel stressed out about it? My sole purpose in life right now is to clean up vomit, wipe butts, and be spat up on. Of course Ollie's throwing up right now, it's the perfect compliment to my morning coffee. Just look how masterful he is, our entire house is hardwood and he intentionally walked over to that absorbent floor mat. Let me brew my coffee and enjoy a few sips. Then I'll grab some paper towel and the folex, the trash can, gag two or three times, and then it will be all fixed. I'm an expert at this.

I don't really know what I'm rambling on about anymore, but I was quite amused by the fact that I happened to throw up twice from coughing fits while typing out this post.

Yep, that's how it is :)

It gets better!

> Additionally, once the kids go to school the house gets very, very quiet for most of the day.

Sounds glorious.

If you need some daytime distraction get a cat or dog. Taking the house-beast for a stroll around the neighborhood is good for my mental health, gets me away from work, and keeps the pooch happy. Kids make having a dog easier too -- he can bug them to play while I finish reports.

> Sounds glorious.

It is, but also I really miss having lunch with them. And definitely get a little stir crazy if I forget to go outside now, so I usually take a 20-30 minute walk around lunch time.

You really need to have your own office space, and treat it like you are "going to work now" and working in your office. That space needs a door you can close.

I know it sounds hard to do if your family is used to you 'floating around', but I can tell you with 100% certainty it will just not work out long term any other way.

I notice it depends on the task. For some things 50% work 50% recreation works great for me (specially at the end of my energy)

Add someone navigating this after an overly productive decade of remote work, but not one that is healthy or sustainable to be well rounded to access the next level of growth in all fronts, I’m beginning to wonder if having a separate space on the property might be something to try out. Those pre made work pods look more and more interesting.

A lot of them were surprisingly expensive, I really hope someone like Home Depot comes out with something really cheap like their sheds but with some cheap interior

Sure maybe having kids around might sometimes affect your productivity, but how is that any different than being in an open office?

Phone calls, people talking around you, movement everywhere, unwanted taps on your shoulder and a lot more.

Unless your job provides you with a closed office where you can actually focus on, it's pretty much the same as having kids around.

When I worked in an office I remember the most productive hour I had was right after I got there, because I arrived ~1h early (due to commuting BS) and was basically alone.

Once teammates arrive, it's chaos. No matter how good your headphones are, something will interrupt you at random times just like your kids. Except if you do have an office in your house, you can actually close the door and have uninterrupted time, even if it's in small chunks.

I’ve worked at an open office and its nothing alike, at least with young kids.

There’s screaming and crying, if your help is needed, it needs to be right now, kids wont take no for an answer, etc.

When I was in an open office, people generally kept a reasonable background volume my brain could tune out. As adults, they respected my answers the first time, and certainly no one screamed at me.

My kids didn't scream at me more regularly than coworkers tapped me in the shoulder to talk about random shit or ask questions that could be answered with a single search.

Of course everyone's experience will vary, which kind of invalidates the idea that all of this is because of WFH. It depends on your kids, your home/office, your work office, teammates, commute time and so on.

My point is that blanket statements like "WFH with kids ruins productivity" don't accurately portray the reality and helps bad managers justify unjustifiable RTO policies with anecdotes.

I know you didn't use a blanket statement though. But when I read your comment I could almost feel a bad manager reading it and using it to ruin more people's lives. Sorry about the rant.

I remember the most frustrating usually was coming in extra early so I can get some deep work done and suddenly the whole open office space fills up. People are laughing and trying to get your opinion on the latest Netflix show or worse, something actually interesting.

In-person interaction can be fun and is important for team bonding and meta work communication but it would be so much better to facilitate that explicitly, outside of the work space.

Optimally this would mean 95% remote plus cool getaways together (at minimum, actually fun evenings out).

It’s like with conferences, the most important learning usually happens outside of the premises.

Why not be smart about that fact?

I've definitely worked in small open offices or team rooms that were a lot more productive than being at home with a kid.

But the one most-of-a-floor-of-a-highrise open office I worked in, for a "more mature" company than the little startups I usually work for... that was a whole lot worse then even at-home-with-kids (and, not coincidentally, was the least "mature"/professional place I've ever worked, despite on-paper looking far more serious than other places I've worked).

I don't know how anyone got any work done there. I suspect their handful of fully-remote senior devs were doing most of the actual work. WFH with small kids would have been a big improvement.

Kids are different. I didn't have any of the above issues. Once kids get older it's even easier.

Kids are way more disruptive than open space. Depending of the age they are dependent for simple thing like getting a cup of water. Then the list grow fast to get snack or to go to the bathroom. Then it continues by being bored after 10 minutes. I would say that any kid under 10 years old require some supervision. Of course, some children are more independent and trustworthy. However, 8 hours of work with a child or 8 hours in an open space is very different for most parent.

Assuming there is only one parent available to look after them.

Do you have kids?

Depends on your workplace culture. Big companies always seem to have the social butterflies, but a lot of smaller places I've been at are almost always "put your head down and get to work".

Also went through this a few years ago. Instead of being able to end my work day at a reasonable time, I made up for the "inefficiency" by working all sorts of hours.

The tradeoff is being away from the people I love for 8-10 hours a day, and even just being present in a baby's/toddler's life is huge. I'd still stay home again.

I recommend finding a nearby coworking space. Spend 2-4 hours of the house if the chaos is too much.