[julianeon]

Lol, found the guy who doesn't have kids.

I don't want this to come across as overly harsh. But a helpful rule of thumb to understand what life is like after having kids, is: there is no free time. None! It's like being in the military, where you wake up at 6am, shower until 6:30am, do calisthenics until 9:30am... and so on, with every single hour occupied, until bedtime, promptly at 9:00pm.

If you tell a person like that 'just watch a movie during your free time,' they'll look at you blankly and say, 'I don't have free time, not on my schedule.'

Why are things so different? Because not only do you have another person(s) making messes who do like 0% of the cleanup, they require much more care than adults. So free time trends to 0%. There's no 'weekend' in the sense of no work (there's always housework), in a sense there's no 'after work.' There's only work, as far as the eye can see.

So for example, with commuting, I don't have enough time to do housecleaning, so the house stays in a permanent state of ugly messiness. Without it, I can apply that time to cleaning, so it becomes only moderately, to slightly, messy. There's no big block of free time - nowhere - where I can do stuff to bring back the time that's lost by commuting.

[cpach]

Thank you for telling it like it is. Some parents tend to always tell the “peachy keen” version of parenthood.

I love my kids of course, but taking care of small kids can be very exhausting.

[nucleardog]

Can you clarify what exactly it is you're disagreeing with him about?

From my read, he's saying "no commute is good because you can do a few chores during the week and not have as many to do on the weekends".

You're saying "no commute is good because you can apply that time to cleaning and the house is cleaner; but also kids are exhausting".

?

[julianeon]

I can clarify the disagreement.

He is saying:

> Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH

I am saying:

> If my commute time is removed, some amount of necessary chores cannot get done. I can't do chores in any time other than the commute time. There is no real 'weekend' or 'after work' time, when I can do them 'later'.

All time is accounted for, and removing time necessarily knocks some items (like 'morning/midday rooms cleaning') off the list permanently.

[kaishiro]

I'm now left even more confused. Are you saying that you do a certain number of chores during your commute, and that you wouldn't be able to do these chores if the commute time was removed?

[julianeon]

No, sorry.

What I mean is:

There is an hour of my morning and night, 2 hours a day, which I am calling 'commute time.'

I can commute during 'commute time'.

Or I can WFH and stay at home during 'commute time'.

If I don't commute, I can do chores during that time.

If I do commute, those chores are never done, and are permanently knocked off the to-do list. The house is just that much messier as a result.

I can clean during the weekend, but I would have cleaned during the weekend anyway.

During the week, the house looks trashed, because there isn't enough time for chores as it is; the time that is available will instead go to even higher-priority chores, like washing dishes and clothes.

Basically if 'commute time' goes towards trekking to the office and back, it comes out of the chore time budget, meaning a really, really messy house during the week.

I will just point out, in closing: 2 hours a day is a really big amount of time to subtract out of the time budget. It can't be recovered.

Even if I don't play games and don't do anything 'fun' - I don't, incidentally - there's no compensating for that loss.

[jayparth]

Just to clarify for you because you're not getting the point:

People are getting confused because your reply is structured like you disagree with him, because your comment is written like a rebuttal and your tone is derisive.

However, in your original reply, you're not disagreeing with the above commenter. You're agreeing with them, and ALSO, you take issue with another small thing they mentioned, the comment about how this person would do the cleaning on the weekend.

---------------------------

To your original point I say this- lots of parents have free time. My mother had hobbies in her free time. My aunt has hobbies has hobbies in her free time. I'm sorry you don't, but the fact that you don't does not mean much about young people that do.

[m3kw9]

Wait a sec, who takes care of your kid when you are away? Most ppl with kids would pay for day cares or they have school as well. I’m not understanding how your day can be occupied unless the kid is 0-1.

[sekai]

I mean kids do grow-up you know? Unless your 18 years olds still do nothing.