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.