[sgtnoodle]

My wife and I were in a bind last year, and a younger friend from work watched our toddler for about 5 hours. It was his first time taking care of a small child, and it was eye-opening for him to say the least! It gave him some perspective as a manager as to why folk with kids are always so tired.

[Joeri]

I always suspect those people who brag they do 60+ hour weeks continuously without a problem of not being responsible for the care of their kids or their household.

In my view all of the work in our life piles up, whether it is actual work, or driving through traffic, or cleaning the windows or the floors, or preparing the evening meal, or entertaining a toddler. I feel like we have about 80 hours of “work” we can spend in a week without reaching exhaustion, and the more of the non-work “work” we can shift into someone else’s lap, the more of those 80 hours can be dedicated to actual work. Hiring a cleaner, ordering food, taking an uber, hiring a nanny, or just letting a significant other take up the workload, these are all ways to get more actual work done. It is not just about the saved time, it is about the avoided fatigue.

And of course, when you have a household with young children, you quickly come to realize that it is not possible for both parents to have full time jobs and also run the entire household and take care of the kids, and have a personal life on top of that. The only way as a two-income household to avoid exhaustion and losing touch with friends while the kids are young is to have others pick up the chores, whether free (friends and family) or paid. It can be difficult for people that don’t have children to appreciate what a taxing time that is.

[fartcannon]

My team lead, my manager and their manager are all childless. It's actually been kind of an issue. Maybe I should ask them to take care of my kid for a day or two. As a team building exercise.