Mastering #wfh with kids: my top 8 pieces of advice
Many of you have young children at home. I know how challenging that is.
For a couple of years, my wife and I worked demanding jobs during a period where I worked from home quite a lot. Without grandparents or any other family nearby, without maternity or paternity leave, and at times with only part-time child-care or no child-care at all, with D and H, our two young children (one of which didn’t sleep well at night), those were… well… challenging times! Those were also some of the best times of my life. :-)
I want to share with you some tips about how to juggle parenting and work from my personal experience. This might be obvious for you, and your mileage might vary, but here are 8 things that worked for me:
1) When I am with my kids, I am focused on the kids
This seems obvious in retrospect but, initially for a few days, I was trying to work on my code and play with D at the same time. I.e., I would code something for a few minutes, then would try to entertain him, then would run back to the laptop, and so on. I was not being a good parent nor a good professional. I quickly learned that if I was the parent taking care of the kids, I should be focused on the kids. It helped if I could coordinate with my wife and allocate time in bigger slots.
2) I was easy on myself: taking care of young children is hard
It is easy to feel overwhelmed or that we are doing everything wrong, or that it is never enough. While it is good to push yourself, this is the time to be easy on yourself. Look at the glass half-full and celebrate any small victories: “the diaper is not falling down!” or “today there are no crayon marks on the walls!” or “no phone found in the toilet!”. You got the picture! And, if there is nothing to celebrate that day, heck, tomorrow is another day!
3) Replacing guilt with pride
I always worked to be very good at what I was doing. And when I was not good, I was working on getting better. But sometimes, with parenting, I just had to do things a little less perfectly. Others, I just couldn’t do some tasks at all. For a while, I was feeling very guilty, but permanent guilt can lead to very negative feelings, anxiety, and worse. Instead, I would choose to be proud of learning to be a father, of watching and helping my kids grow and seeing them do new stuff every day.
4) Reframing my mind and finding joy in shit, literally
Oh, the chores, so many chores! So much cleaning and wiping and caring. If I thought of the task as “changing a diaper” then it was a chore. But if I framed the task as “helping my baby get clean”, then it was something good to do! Finding the right framing would make the task more meaningful, and would make me — and babies and wife — happier.
5) Compartmentalizing
I don’t advocate having a “work face” and a “home face”, but being able to put the pressure from work on hold when entering my home was very valuable. I first started compartmentalizing when I realized that if I was under pressure at work, then I would be a bit more cranky at home. I felt that it would not be fair to my family to have to deal with cranky me.
6) Making the limitations work in my favor
As a young parent juggling work and family, I always had much less time than what I wanted or than what I was used to having before. Eventually, I came to the realization that I really had to be able to work with less time. This led me to be much more conscious of where I was spending my time (no more time spent watching bad movies, no more bad books!), or what work was really important. In the end, accepting that I had less time led me to make better choices, more intentional choices, be more focused at work, and be more efficient.
7) Finding time for the small things
Richard Branson once said that “If you don’t have time for the small things, you won’t have time for the big things”. It can be tempting to sacrifice “small” things, such as breakfast with the family, or walks in the park, or picnics and BBQs. And yes, many times I have sacrificed time with family. However, I am certain that I owe my happiness and wellbeing to the very many small rituals that we have in the family, the breakfasts and meals together, the sports together, the games together. Those small things with my family are my emotional rock. They make me feel recharged, balanced, and complete.
8) It is all temporary, enjoy it while it lasts!
Sometimes the weeks feel like years, but the decades feel like a blink. Savor those moments, make memories, share adventures — even if pretend-adventures — , with the people you love and that love you back. You might just look back and ask yourself, where did the last sixteen years go?
I am also tremendously fortunate: Ana is a fantastic mother and wife and she made everything so much more magical and sweet and lovely and I have learned more from her on how to be a good person and parent than she will ever realize.
Happy parenting, and enjoy the bumpy ride! ;-)
PS: like many things in parenting, it took more time than I thought to write this message! :)
