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How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

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Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#41

Post by tptacek »

the_mar wrote: post #38
tptacek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's been true in the United States for a very long time. In fact, multigenerational households are at a high now , from a low over 50 years ago.

in the 1990s ~50% of women were in the workforce. in 1970 it was 40%, married women with children having to work is a recent phenomenon.

Standards of parental attachment, caregiving intensity, early childhood enrichment, and quality time with parents outside of working hours are radically different today than they were in the 1980s or the 1970s. The 1970s were not a golden era of intensive mothering; in fact, in a lot of ways, the norms of early childhood parenting we know now are reactions to 1970s parenting.

At any rate, I was just making a comment about the prevalence of multigenerational caregiving. I would contend: it was also not a major thing in '70s and '80s America (though it probably was much earlier in the 20th century, and in other countries).

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#42

Post by tptacek »

paxys wrote: post #37

Why is this even a question? WFH doesn't mean "work from home while simultaneously doing household tasks, meal prep, laundry, and childcare". If you aren't able to do your job for 8 hours a day without distractions – whether from home or the office – then you should be taking a leave of absence or coming up with an alternate arrangement with your employer. Articles like these are exactly why companies are reconsideri…

In 29 years of working with software development teams of varying sizes I'm not sure I have ever worked with a team in which a reliable, contiguous, distraction-free 8 hours of work was a norm across every team member. In fact, if there's one through-line I've seen in every working environment I've been in, it's that there are always a couple high-performing team members who get their real work done after dinner.

If you're older than I am, maybe you're familiar with cubicle culture norms I just didn't get exposed to in the late 90s, but from my perspective flexible schedules and evaluation by completed work has always been one of the perks of this field.

I can't speak to other fields where people commonly work from home, but ours is marked by a particular reverence for focus and flow, so I'm not inclined to expect the situations are much more difficult.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#43

Post by jeppester »

tptacek wrote: post #10
tobinfricke wrote: post #3

I'm sure that some people are able to make it work, but in general the answer is: you don't. Taking care of a baby is a full time job in and of itself, associated with frequent interruptions and sleep deprivation.

People do it all the time. We did it. In our industry, in two-tech-worker families, there's a norm of staggered parental leave. Contrary to a lot of popular opinion, taking care of an infants or toddler isn't a full time job. In fact, even if you're especially attentive, there are long, long stretches of downtime.

I do not doubt that this was possible for you, or that your kids turned out fine.

But I think you are making a very bold assumption based on a sample of two, and also being quite dismissive of the challenges that other parents are facing.

Personally I believe I would have broken down mentally had I not spent the vast majority of the downtime on getting sleep myself.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#44

Post by stdbrouw »

tptacek wrote: post #34
advantager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not your infant, but this is certainly not any sort of universal truth. Possibly you could argue that physically attending to the infant themselves is not a full time job, but all of the associated tasks in maintaining any sort of functional environment (food, dishes, laundry, etc. etc.) is, at least to me, at least a 9-5 job. Our son demanded by wailing or screaming to be held during all waking until at least…

Most infants and toddlers make sporadic (and, increasingly, predictable ) demands throughout the day, and yes, they do so by screaming. I'd respectfully suggest that it's more about the parent's ability to metabolize those demands and the discipline to get back into flow than anything about handling those interrupts being a "9-5 job". For the first several months, infants aren't even especially interactive; by 6 mont…

I am really happy for you if that has been your experience, and I fully acknowledge that the fact that the extremely neurotic style of modern parenting so many people seem to practice is incompatible with pretty much anything does not imply that all kids and all kinds of parenting leave no room for anything else... still, please, recognize that there is an enormous amount of variance in what kids are like and that some things just cannot be "metabolized" that easily. I might have written something like what you wrote if we had only had our second kid, also given my experience with how wildly effective certain interventions (e.g. sleep training) can be. Knowing what our first is like, who by the way has no medical issues but just happens to be a pain in the ass, your remarks instead sound completely ridiculous.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#45

Post by hug »

tptacek wrote: post #28
hug wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that people are trying to make is that if you are busy taking care of a baby at home you are not working, or at least not working at the same level of capacity or in the same fashion as as you would if you were not looking after a baby... And if you're not working when you're at home, you're not working from home. You're just home. Most countries in the world would call that parental leave. Is it possible t…

I am responding to a comment pointing out the untenability of going to a workplace while also taking care of a kid, which is specifically not what the article is about.

Of course, but the subtext of that comment is that working anywhere while taking care of a baby is untenable, and the fact that you're working from a home office does not change the fundamental calculus of current work expectations.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#46

Post by adamrezich »

ipaddr wrote: post #16

You take parental leave or your wife/husband does. How do you go into work and manage a baby at home. You don't.

What do you do after the leave is over though? This is what my wife and I are trying to figure out right now, as we plan to have a child sometime in the next year or so. Both of our jobs offer decent maternity/paternity leave, but then after that... what? Do we try to alternate days of working from home?

It's as though society has become disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood. My wife and I need both of our incomes to support ourselves and our future child, and neither of our jobs pay terribly! (Neither is a Bay Area tech salary by any means—but we also don't live in the Bay Area.)

Like is it just a given these days that you have a child, take maternity/paternity leave, and then put the child in a daycare? We would like to avoid that if at all possible.

A friend of mine made things work by having his wife quit her job and start her own small daycare at home, such that she could care for a couple of other children in addition to their own. But is something like that necessary for median-income families to support their children while avoiding daycare, these days? It certainly feels like it is, at least...

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#47

Post by jeppester »

tptacek wrote: post #34
advantager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not your infant, but this is certainly not any sort of universal truth. Possibly you could argue that physically attending to the infant themselves is not a full time job, but all of the associated tasks in maintaining any sort of functional environment (food, dishes, laundry, etc. etc.) is, at least to me, at least a 9-5 job. Our son demanded by wailing or screaming to be held during all waking until at least…

Most infants and toddlers make sporadic (and, increasingly, predictable ) demands throughout the day, and yes, they do so by screaming. I'd respectfully suggest that it's more about the parent's ability to metabolize those demands and the discipline to get back into flow than anything about handling those interrupts being a "9-5 job". For the first several months, infants aren't even especially interactive; by 6 mont…

Do you realize that while you are using words as "respectfully" and "admire", you are being quite condescending towards those who do not have it as easy as you did?

They lack the ability to metabolize their toddlers demands and the discipline to get into flow. Or maybe it's because their focus is especially fragile.

What would it take for you to not be able to work full time? Personally it was enough that I didn't get to sleep more than 4-5 hours every night, and I don't think a more "robust" focus would have helped in any way.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#48

Post by tptacek »

jeppester wrote: post #47
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most infants and toddlers make sporadic (and, increasingly, predictable ) demands throughout the day, and yes, they do so by screaming. I'd respectfully suggest that it's more about the parent's ability to metabolize those demands and the discipline to get back into flow than anything about handling those interrupts being a "9-5 job". For the first several months, infants aren't even especially interactive; by 6 mont…

Do you realize that while you are using words as "respectfully" and "admire", you are being quite condescending towards those who do not have it as easy as you did? They lack the ability to metabolize their toddlers demands and the discipline to get into flow. Or maybe it's because their focus is especially fragile. What would it take for you to not be able to work full time? Personally it was enough that I didn't ge…

If you can't work from home full time while caring for a child, don't, that's fine. The premise of the comments I'm responding to are that (a) it's impossible (several comments state that outright) or (b) that it's harmful to the children involved. Those statements are false.

I am sure there are software development jobs I am not well suited for, and should not take. In fact, I can think of a bunch of them. That doesn't make them impossible jobs; just not good fits for me. Lots of parents handle this problem just fine. If you can't, make other plans, that's fine too.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#49

Post by _yb2s »

ipaddr wrote: post #16

You take parental leave or your wife/husband does. How do you go into work and manage a baby at home. You don't.

Many people do not have this luxury. My ex-wife became aggressive and abusive, and refused to co-parent, and I needed to keep my job somehow to support my son. My son is also special needs, and has been kicked out of numerous daycares and schools. I also had no family or friends nearby that would help.

I spent 110% of my take home salary for a nanny, and burned through my savings to get through the first few years without losing my job. I could not initially find any open spots in a daycare, except some that were so awful they seemed unsafe. It was a bit demoralizing having a doctorate in the sciences and realizing childcare costs over my full salary at that stage of my career.

Now he is old enough to be in public school, but public school is only a half day and closed about 4 months a year, so I still need to work from home half the day while parenting at the same time. It has been extremely difficult, but I have managed to do it.

One thing that has helped is to be ruthlessly focused on work during the few hours I have alone, so I can work less the rest of the time. Most people don't really do 100% focused work for their entire work hours... so the truth is you can do what is expected or more at a full time job in less than full time if you are good at what you do, and really focus.

I also re-married, and my new wife is awesome, and does some of the parenting, but is also a busy professional with a demanding job.

What else could I do? Quit my job and raise my son as a homeless person? Give him up for adoption? No- I was going to fight with everything I had, and try to succeed at both my career and as a parent. I think I am doing pretty well at both- I am an academic scientist and was able to publish useful research and earn tenure during the middle of all of these hard times when I was working reduced hours.

Re: How do you juggle WFH with a baby?

#50

Post by _yb2s »

adamrezich wrote: post #46
ipaddr wrote: post #16

You take parental leave or your wife/husband does. How do you go into work and manage a baby at home. You don't.

What do you do after the leave is over though? This is what my wife and I are trying to figure out right now, as we plan to have a child sometime in the next year or so. Both of our jobs offer decent maternity/paternity leave, but then after that... what? Do we try to alternate days of working from home? It's as though society has become disinterested in supporting stay-at-home parenthood. My wife and I need both of…

See my other post on this thread- this is a legitimately really hard thing to do. You almost certainly will need to use daycare and nannys/babysitters, but that still isn't nearly enough- it is very expensive, open short hours and limited days, and daycares often go out of business, kick children out, have no open spots, etc.

The main thing you can do, in my opinion, is be ruthlessly efficient at work, and find a way to deliver full time value with less than full time hours while working from home. Also squeeze in work at night, weekends, etc.

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