How Two Working Parents Are Working From Home With Two Toddlers During a Pandemic
If you’re reading this post, you have internet access. If you have internet access, you are likely familiar with COVID-19 and everything that goes with it.
Part of that, for our family, is closed daycare. Everything in Atlanta is shutting down for the most part (schools, church, museums, raves, etc) in the name of social distancing. While the risks of serious illness are relatively low for the age/health of Megan and I, and the fact that this virus appears to be leaving small kids alone, we’re still very much on board for doing our part to help '“flatten the curve.”
Sometimes loving your neighbor as yourself means staying away from them.
Staying home for (at least) two weeks with the kids isn’t a built-in vacation. We’re fortunate to have jobs that allow for remote work. We can still get earn a paycheck during this pandemic. But we still have to actually work to get paid.
Working from home is typically fine. Both of us working from home with a three-year-old, an 18-month-old boy whose personality is reminiscent of Jack Jack from the Incredibles, a dog and a cat all in tow and getting cabin fever is another trick.
One of our new coworkers for the next few weeks.
Yesterday afternoon we were having a particularly chaotic moment in the kids’ play area that we were mitigating. I looked at Megan and said “okay, imagine this…but with a laptop. That’s our next few weeks.”
I fully realize this is a challenge a lot of our friends and colleagues are also going to be facing. Our situation is far from unique.
Here are a few things we’re planning on doing to not just survive but thrive. We’ll see how it plays out.
Keep a Modest News Diet
Staying informed is a responsible thing for any citizen to do during a pandemic. Like anything, it’s also best done in moderation.
We’re limiting our news intake to just first thing in the morning and in the evening while prepping dinner. Anything beyond that has the potential to take us down anxiety-inducing media rabbit holes and turn us from informed citizens to overly-paranoid citizens (which is almost worse than being uninformed). We have breaking news on our phones for anything urgent if something truly absurd happens.
We’re also taking a closer look at local news and less at national news. Keeping an eye on national/international news helps us anticipate what may happen locally. However, local journalism tells us how our communities are being impacted, what’s closed, places to avoid and potentially ways we can help those in need.
Time Box Our Actual Work Time
Megan and I both have full-time corporate jobs. Which take place during the same times of day. Which also happens to be when our kids are the most active and awake. How will we do double duty?
Short answer, we won’t. Multitaksing doesn’t do anyone any favors.
We’re going to trade off work times. Each night we’re going to look at the next day’s schedule and coordinate who can cover the kids during certain hours while the other one cranks out work, sits on a call, etc. Our plan is to take advantage of getting up super early in the morning or working at night while the kids are in bed to make the most of that quiet, uninterrupted time and catch up.
Our coworkers may get emails from us at odd times of day…but these are odd times.
Stay Active
We’re both going to swap mornings going on early AM jogs. One, it will help us keep our sanity and prevent cabin fever. Second, it’ll keep us healthy. Staying active and healthy is a great way to help fight the virus should one of us get it. It’s a win-win routine.
Prioritize Wind Down Time
Megan and I also discussed prioritizing time to wind down. We’ve been using the evenings to quietly read instead of watch TV lately and want to maintain that even now. No matter where we are in our work schedules or house chores, we need to prioritize that wind down time.
It’s going to be a much more stressful few weeks than normal for us (as it is for a lot of folks). Having that “me” time helps us reset and turn our brains off. That wind down time also helps us sleep better, which helps us be better rested and be better engaged the next day. Better rest also helps boost our immune systems.
We realize that we could be in this situation for the long haul and need to pace ourselves as much as we can. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
What Recommendations Do You Have?
Those are a few things we’ve planned to balance both work and taking care of the kids. I’ll update this along the way and share any funny stories from our increased family time.
What ideas do you have? Anything you’re doing differently routine-wise the next few weeks?