[dustinbrownman]

Do you feel like your colleagues secretly look down on you because of this? I work with all single, younger folks, and while they're always supportive, I can't help but feel like I'm seen as not pulling my wait. Almost certainly a projection on my part, but I'm curious if others with strong family priorities feel the same.

[Loughla]

I'll answer with a question; does that matter?

When I had a kid, I worried what the other individuals at my level would think when I started taking vacation regularly, and paired my work day down to 8-5. I know that one, who I used to work incredibly closely with, looks down on my hours now, and believes that there is no way that I can still be productive in 8 hours instead of the 12 he pulls every day.

After a bit, though, I realized that co-workers' opinions only matters as long as I'm at my current job, and that I can replace them at a moments notice, whereas it's harder (and costlier) to replace my partner and kids.

Priorities realigned, I know my work output, my superiors know my work output, the rest be damned.

[npizzolato]

Very well said. Realizing you can't please everyone has been very freeing. You have to decide who's opinions matter to you and who's, frankly, just don't. If your co-workers are going to be bitter that you don't constantly put in absurd hours, maybe their opinion shouldn't be important to you.

[bentcorner]

I think it depends on where you work. I work for a large corporation and don't find it troubling even to leave around 4:30, although I'm known to be the first in the office usually around 7.

I do sometimes feel the pressure to get stuff done so I work from home after the kids are asleep, but it's difficult (and hard on a marital relationship) to get in more than an hour of extra time for this every evening.

I've come to the conclusion that:

a) When I go home, I go home. I try very hard to drop everything at work and not worry about it until the morning.

b) I love having the time with my family. I want more of it, and want to eliminate my commute. I'm looking into freelancing and remote work as a possible route, although competition is fierce and I need to put food on the table. My research is telling me that I need to bolster my resume with skills (from what I've seen, bigco work doesn't align well with freelancing & remote work teams, although I would be ecstatic to be wrong), and I don't know if I have the time to do this. It's a chicken & egg problem, and I may not solve this without herculean effort.

[josefresco]

I own my own business, and work with my wife who also shares the same feelings about work/life balance. I work for other business owners and while many boast/brag about the hours they work, the wise ones who have kids tend to agree with me (even if they don't practice it themselves).

I rarely have a client demand my time in the evening/night or weekend. If I do I usually try to accommodate (the life of client work!) but don't make it a habit.

I do think you are projecting, although if you co-workers have issues with you clocking out "early" it's completely on their end. If you spend the day chit-chatting and clock out early, you may not be leaving the right impression. But if you clock in, kick ass and go home at a reasonable time I can't see anyone having issues. It's also good to explain to people why you have to leave at 5 or earlier, so they know you're not just looking to skip out, but rather you value your home life enough that you don't want it compromised by your work.

[VLM]

Not being at work is understandable and mentally filtered out. Nobody really cares if you're sick or your kid is sick, or you're on vacation, either way you're not there.

When you're present, people DO notice who spends two hours a day talking about golf or football or facebook or talking on the phone. Don't be that guy. Work at work, play at home, and you'll appear (and be) much more productive for 8 hours than the guy who works 6 hours and plays 6 hours while physically in the office for 12 each day.

Abstractly, someone home with a sick kid is probably sitting in the same room with the kid and occasionally nursing the kid while spending most of the time playing minecraft or Eve or posting on HN or whatever. But what people actually remember is the guy who spent his entire afternoon birthday party shopping on amazon, or the guy who spent 2 hours talking about the superbowl or game of thrones, because they saw that with their own eyes.

A secret "hack" I've done over a decade is when the kids are playing at the playground by themselves and most of the parents are looking at twitter on their phones or reading romance novels, I have some pragprog or oreilly book either dead tree or ebook form. From the kids point of view "Dad took us to chuck e cheese" or whatever, but out of an hours time I get 15 or more minutes of serious study. I'm taking off and going to a little league game on friday afternoon/evening, and I'll pay attention while he's in the field or at bat, but when he's merely sitting on the bench waiting, rather than checking out some of the moms or staring off into space or whatever, I'll read or study something "useful". There's a lot of downtime during "family time". If we're driving somewhere to do something as a family, and my wife is driving, I'll read something.