I don't want this to come across as overly harsh. But a helpful rule of thumb to understand what life is like after having kids, is: there is no free time. None! It's like being in the military, where you wake up at 6am, shower until 6:30am, do calisthenics until 9:30am... and so on, with every single hour occupied, until bedtime, promptly at 9:00pm.
If you tell a person like that 'just watch a movie during your free time,' they'll look at you blankly and say, 'I don't have free time, not on my schedule.'
Why are things so different? Because not only do you have another person(s) making messes who do like 0% of the cleanup, they require much more care than adults. So free time trends to 0%. There's no 'weekend' in the sense of no work (there's always housework), in a sense there's no 'after work.' There's only work, as far as the eye can see.
So for example, with commuting, I don't have enough time to do housecleaning, so the house stays in a permanent state of ugly messiness. Without it, I can apply that time to cleaning, so it becomes only moderately, to slightly, messy. There's no big block of free time - nowhere - where I can do stuff to bring back the time that's lost by commuting.
I love my kids of course, but taking care of small kids can be very exhausting.
From my read, he's saying "no commute is good because you can do a few chores during the week and not have as many to do on the weekends".
You're saying "no commute is good because you can apply that time to cleaning and the house is cleaner; but also kids are exhausting".
?
He is saying:
> Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH
I am saying:
> If my commute time is removed, some amount of necessary chores cannot get done. I can't do chores in any time other than the commute time. There is no real 'weekend' or 'after work' time, when I can do them 'later'.
All time is accounted for, and removing time necessarily knocks some items (like 'morning/midday rooms cleaning') off the list permanently.
When I'm in the office, I often take breaks - 20-30 mins. Sometimes a longer walk during lunch time. I'm simply doing the same here but instead of being on my phone I'm maybe doing a quick vacuum sweep, trip to the bodega for some hand soap, or dropping off my laundry somewhere.
I do have friends that work for companies that expect them to be "online" all the time so this may not work for them.
I think that working from home will stay and that some kind of work discipline will be a skill people are just required to have. You know, like being able to communicate professionally and to keep promises.
