[tptacek]

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.

[advantager]

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 12 months, including sleeping for more than 10 minutes alone. I worked from home during this period and I cannot fathom having been at home alone with him and attending any meeting or focusing on a task in a realistically productive way.

[tptacek]

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 months, they're straightforward to work around.

I am stipulating a two-parent household (but stipulating both parents work). If your focus is especially fragile (and I've worked with and admire many people form whom that's the case), a sitter makes this even more tenable. And, again, we're talking about WFH; we're not even addressing commute issues.

[stdbrouw]

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.

[jeppester]

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.

[tptacek]

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.

[jeppester]

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.

[tptacek]

I think you are making a very bold assumption that my sample is two.

[zimzam]

Parental leave is definitionally not working.

[tptacek]

It's also temporary.

[quietbritishjim]

By the phrase "full time job", most people here seem to mean you can't do anything else substantial on a particular day that you're the main carer for a baby. Not that this necessarily takes up many years (as, indeed, not all full time jobs do). Unless I misunderstood, it seems you comment doesn't substantially disagree with the one you're replying to; it just quibbles pointlessly over definitions.

[tptacek]

Yes, we're not disagreeing about semantics, we're disagreeing in substance. You can provide excellent care for an infant and toddler while delivering knowledge work (including software development) at competitive levels while working from home.

[adastra22]

Taking care of a newborn baby is absolutely full-time job. I don't know how to interpret "we did it as two full-time tech workers" other than "we grifted our employers by getting paid full-time to work part-time as we juggled having a baby at home."

I'm as pro-natal as they come, but a newborn should have your full undivided attention.

[tptacek]

We raised two. They turned out great. It was not a full-time job.

[deltarholamda]

I took care of a newborn while working from home. It's quite doable. It helps to have long arms, but you can keep the infant in one of those baby slings while you tap away. They get all the attention they could need, especially if like me you tend to talk to yourself. With a baby you no longer seem like a crazy person.

When they get a bit older, you can put them in a Bumbo and have them on your desk, if you can do it safely.

It's harder to work from home when they get mobile to be honest.

[latkin]

It sounds like you are assuming work = solo work. My day is about 25% meetings, my wife's is about 90% meetings. We can't participate in meetings with a baby in the room (let alone strapped to our body!) who might start screaming at any moment. Sure, we could fake it -- camera off, muted, jump out periodically to tend to the baby -- but then we're not really fully engaged in work.

Even if I had no meetings, I can't concentrate on solo work with a wiggly/screamy thing on me or in the same room. One of the biggest benefits of WFH for me is avoiding the distractions of the office. Babies are FAR more distracting than anything at the office.

[deltarholamda]

Well, sure, specific cases are different. But, FWIW, I did it with regular conference calls.

Infants aren't much of a distraction IMO. My cats were more distracting, at least until the baby got mobile. That stage is certainly more challenging.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> I'm as pro-natal as they come, but a newborn should have your full undivided attention.

Exactly - the attention it takes has to come out of SOMETHING - whether it is your work or health or the child. You can see the difference between kids that have full undivided attention of someone who cares a lot about them (family members or a great paid caretaker) versus ones who are physically near parents but ignored (since the parent is looking at a screen focusing on work) versus ones who have been distracted by some electronic stimulant versus ones who have been outsourced to daycare where the caretaker ratio means babies don’t get full attention.

But even leaving aside what’s best for the child, I think it’s about getting the most out of your own parental experience. You only get so much time with your children. That time goes away in a blink. Be there for them as much as you can, and make the best of it. Making it “just work” with less than that may be something you end up regretting later.

[tptacek]

I think this is mostly just innuendo, and that there's very little empirical evidence to back up this assertion that there are observable deficits traceable to lack of "undivided attention" in early childhood. The parenting situations we're discussing here are drastically higher-attachment than was the norm for decades throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s.