[julianlam]

Agreed. In my situation it's an hour long train ride that I use to do email catch up and general community engagement, so by the time I'm at the office, I'm ready to work.

Whereas at home I have a toddler and a newborn climbing on me.

[sarchertech]

If you were considering 2 equal job offers, one that was 5 minutes away, and one that was an hour away, you'd take the farther offer?

>Whereas at home I have a toddler and a newborn climbing on me.

You could always find a co-working space.

[julianlam]

No, I'm not insane, all things being equal of course I would take the closer job :)

A co-working space was considered (and is still being considered), though we find our current strategy of 4 days wfh and one in-office day to be a good mix. Additional considerations involve the geographic make-up of our staff. This context, of course, wasn't in my original reply up above.

My main point in my previous reply was to provide a counterpoint to the argument that a commute is completely wasted time, in specific situations, it can be very useful, and not wasted at all.

[GekkePrutser]

Where I live in a busy city these are also ubiquitous. But many people live in small towns where people have never heard of those. Just saying :)

[sarchertech]

The small town where I grew up in has one now.

Also if you’re in a small town without a co-working space, there probably aren’t many software employers either. So you’re either working from home, commuting to an office, or commuting to a co-working space.

[Apocryphon]

I understand kids can be a big distraction during the work day, but isn’t a good thing to have more time with them after work, without the hour lost to the commute? Isn’t it desirable to be nearby during their formative years?

[julianlam]

No. On the train ride home I sleep, because without it I am a literal zombie and one could make the argument that I am a worse parent.

As is typical, another drive-by HN commenter will now say I should plan my day better, but without knowing my day, how can one judge?

[Apocryphon]

I don’t know anything about you, nor am I saying anything about you. I am simply speculating that parents would seek to maximize time with their children, having seen my share of poor WLB that keep parents at the office and away from their children.

[julianlam]

Yes, I know. I'm just being rather cynical at the moment.

Given I'm at 50% work capacity right now, I actually do spend many hours of most days of the week with my children.

I'm not saying there's a recommended maximum of time to spend (24 hours a day seems to be the ideal number recommended by mommy blogs), but after a certain point, I am out of energy to thoughtfully and meaningfully engage with my children.

It really puts into perspective the work childhood educators do on a daily basis, actually.

[Apocryphon]

That’s fair. Perhaps there’s a tendency to lionize the preindustrial era, paleo parenting, that emphasizes maximum amount of time spent.