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<\/p>\nBeing a working parent means having to juggle a lot of responsibilities, which can be challenging in the best of times let alone during a worldwide pandemic. Parents quarantining at home with their kids can feel overwhelmed by having to be \u201calways-on\u201d and wear multiple hats ranging from teacher to chef to mentor plus being an employee\u2013all in one day.<\/p>\n
Adjusting to this new normal has a steep learning curve with no clear right or wrong answer. Many parents who are working from home, even those doing it long before COVID-19, are experimenting to find solutions that work for their families, even if it changes day by day.<\/p>\n
Mozilla has been one of the forerunners of remote work with \u201cremotees\u201d making up just under half of our employees. However, even the most seasoned remote worker can be new to the experience of working from home with kids. Here\u2019s what some of our very own Mozillians are doing to make it work.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dave Townsend: <\/b>I’m married with one five year old and another due in August.<\/p>\n
Venetia Tay:<\/b> My partner and I have a 2 year old. I\u2019m lucky that I have a partner that does his equal part in childcare (less so in the other household duties though \ud83d\ude1c).<\/p>\n
Emma Irwin:<\/b> I\u2019m a widow with three children: ages 16, 14 and 9. We have a dog and a cat as well.<\/p>\n
Eddie Ibarra:<\/b> It\u2019s just my wife, daughter and me. We also have two dogs if we\u2019re counting fur babies (though I kind of hate that term, haha).<\/p>\n
Mark Weaver:<\/b> My wife and I have been married for 13 years and we have two children. My daughter is 9 and my son is 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve worked at home with kids for years, my manager joked that I\u2019ve been training for this, but I never actually trained for <\/i>this<\/i><\/b>.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
How do you structure your schedule so you can balance your work and family life?<\/b><\/p>\n
Dave:<\/b> I try to be careful about maintaining start and stop times. I get up, have a cup of tea and then start work. Then I finish at the end of the day and don’t look at work for the evening. This was somewhat easier when I was in SoCal as I had a dedicated office. Now my desk is in the TV room and so it is much harder to enforce that separation.<\/p>\n
Venetia:<\/b> We have a Google Sheet where we both fill in our meetings schedules for the week and we triage every Sunday. If there is a conflict, whoever has the \u201cleast important\u201d morning is on childcare duty.<\/p>\n
Mark: <\/b>I try to keep my work schedule consistent by starting and ending my day around the same time. I also find that having a dedicated space for work is helpful to maintain that balance.<\/p>\n
Emma: <\/b>I\u2019ve worked at home with kids for years, my manager joked that I\u2019ve been training for this, but I never actually trained for this<\/i>. So i think it’s good to call out this is different, this is not just working from home. There\u2019s a lot of stress, anxiety and uncertainty. Then there\u2019s dealing with your kids emotions, especially teenagers. I just try to have a normality to their schedule as best as I can.<\/p>\n
Eddie:<\/b> We\u2019re taking an iterative approach. We tried one thing one week and that didn’t work so we tried another thing another week. We keep refining. Mondays are a little more difficult because we typically have a lot of meetings so we let our daughter ease into the week, which means she probably watches a bit more tv than normal. We downloaded age appropriate apps that she can self-navigate pretty easily. They\u2019re educational and fun which is great because then she wants to keep going. The rest of the week we split the day, one of us gets mornings and the other gets afternoons and then at night we try to get things done around the house like cooking and cleaning.<\/p>\nAre there any apps you\u2019re using to help manage your work\/family life?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
Eddie:<\/b> We\u2019re old school meets new school. My wife and I both live and die by calendars, so we have a shared family calendar that we use. We also have shared notes where we write down ideas for our daughter, like things we want to do with her or interactive sites, etc.<\/p>\n
Dave:<\/b> I use Microsoft To-Do to try to keep track of the main things I have to get done at work. At home we use Google Keep to build up a shopping list for when we want to venture to the grocery store, Google Sheets for tracking our finances and Google Calendar for a few things.<\/p>\n
Emma:<\/b> I\u2019ve tried putting blocks in my calendar, but they seem more symbolic. I\u2019m not actually breaking at those times, but they\u2019re there if I need them. On YouTube there\u2019s some great channels that do storytelling and my youngest daughter really loves that. There\u2019s also the Royal BC museum<\/a> in Victoria. They\u2019ve been doing some live programming which is really nice.<\/p>\n What are some new things you’ve been trying with your family since the quarantine began?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Venetia:<\/b> Books and toys. We used to be a pretty minimalistic household, but since the quarantine has begun, we have gotten many supplies to keep our daughter entertained.<\/p>\n Mark:<\/b> A new thing we tried was cooking a family recipe together over Zoom<\/a> with my parents and siblings who all live in different parts of the world.<\/p>\n Eddie:<\/b> We both have been pretty diligent about doing school work with our daughter, which has had a very positive effect on her. I hope my wife and I continue to keep practicing with our daughter. On the other hand, I\u2019m definitely looking forward to the help again [from school].<\/p>\n Venetia:<\/b> \u201cWe\u201d are enough for the little one. She is just happy hanging with us. My partner mentioned that, while it is challenging, he enjoys being able to spend every day with her and being able to see her throughout the day.<\/p>\n Dave:<\/b> That teachers are amazing and homeschooling is most definitely not for us.<\/p>\n Mark:<\/b> It\u2019s been a good reminder for us to not take things for granted.<\/p>\n Emma:<\/b>\u00a0 Everyone is being really good to one another. I thought there would be a lot more arguing and disagreements, so that surprised me. For me, it\u2019s strengthened my will to garden. We\u2019re growing food, learning new skills and connecting with the planet.<\/p>\n Eddie:<\/b> It’s given us more of an appreciation to visit family a bit more or carve out more time for them because you kind of take that stuff for granted.<\/p>\n Venetia: <\/b>You are enough. Don\u2019t worry about if your child will fall behind others, or if you are providing them the right activities. They are just enjoying all the time they have with you now. The kids will be alright.<\/p>\n Dave:<\/b> I think we’re trying very hard to focus on the now rather than thinking much about how long this may last. We can’t control that, might as well spend your energy worrying about things that are under your control.<\/p>\n Mark: <\/b>Doing something simple like going for a walk or a hike has been huge for our mental health.<\/p>\n Eddie:<\/b> From a mental wellness perspective I\u2019m probably just giving myself permission to be ok with not being so hard on myself. Which is one of the hardest things for me to do. So I pride myself on just saying \u201chey that was the best I could do” and move on whereas normally I\u2019m the type to dwell on the things I didn\u2019t get done. So I\u2019m just being more forgiving [to myself] than usual.<\/p>\n Emma:<\/b> Getting outside if you can and doing some form of exercise\u2026 and gardening. [laughs]<\/p>\n Looking for more tips? <\/i>Check out these Firefox resources<\/i><\/a> to make working at home with kids a little easier.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Being a working parent means having to juggle a lot of responsibilities, which can be challenging in the best of times let alone during a worldwide pandemic. Parents quarantining at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1794,"featured_media":344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,318942],"tags":[],"coauthors":[451107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What has being in a quarantine with your family illuminated for you?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
What are some mental wellness tips you could offer other parents?<\/b><\/h2>\n