What our kids think about having a parent who works from home

The quickest way to hear what our kids think about my working from home is to listen for what they assume. “You’re home, so you’re free,” one says. “You’re home, but you’re working,” another replies. Between those two statements is a whole lesson about modern parenting.

We started this arrangement because work, school runs and household admin kept colliding. Hybrid work is now ordinary in many Australian workplaces, so a laptop on the dining table can look like a reasonable compromise. The reality is messier: my laptop shares the kitchen with toast crumbs, and the family calendar often has more colour than the work one.

Months in, the children have formed clear opinions. They like that I can help with homework and still be nearby after the bell rings. They also notice every time a video call turns the dining room into an office. Their comments are sharp, often funny, and usually more accurate than mine.

The office that now lives with us

Our home office began with a secondhand desk from Bunnings and a monitor balanced on a stack of books from the local council library book sale. It looks professional only when nobody opens the door. Otherwise, the children see Mum fighting a spreadsheet while lunch burns.

The office has its own soundtrack: a keyboard clatter, the soft ping of a Teams message, and my repeated “can’t you hear me?” when the neighbours’ mower starts. I wear headphones and keep a red “busy” card beside the fruit bowl. To the kids, the card has more authority than any adult conversation.

The perks they defend loudly

The biggest advantage, according to them, is having no commute. After the 8:05 school run, I can start before the traffic settles and still collect everyone from after-school care. The trade-off is that my day no longer has a clear break. We often eat lunch together, which they rate highly, even when I am answering emails between bites.

On deadline days, a couple of hours at our favourite local kids art studio gives them proper creative time and gives me an uninterrupted work block. Later, we walk to Coles or Woolworths and let them choose dinner, which makes the schedule feel less rigid. Even the quick trip to the local servo becomes part of the working day.

The interruptions they see coming

Interruptions are the part they understand least. A colleague says my name, a child needs a signed form, or lunch turns into a crisis because someone wants the blue bowl. I used to promise that I would be “properly” finished by three, but the children now judge me by the calendar. They see the promise disappear when another meeting lands.

For relatives managing newborns, I keep easy homemade baby food bookmarked for my sister, whose baby is under one. The older children can see that feeding a baby can happen alongside a workday, and that a lunch break can include helping someone else. It is a useful lesson in flexible work, although it also makes my lunch interruptions much less predictable.

The family rules we now keep

The children have become surprisingly good at drafting a household agreement. Their demands are practical, mostly:

What they want me to keep

A protected quiet period before lunch.
Lunch together without Teams messages.
Help with spelling before the school run.

What they want changed

Fewer surprise video calls.
Clearer signals when I am unavailable.
Less work happening at the kitchen bench.

These requests reveal the balance they have reached. They value my presence but do not want my attention every minute, and they are comfortable with me working nearby as long as the boundaries remain obvious. The red card, the closed door and the shared lunch have become more important than the promise of an uninterrupted day.

Finding a balance that works

Working from home saved us travel time and gave me more chances to support the kids, but it also made me their default source of childcare, information and snacks. The arrangement works best when I treat availability as something I offer deliberately, not something they should be able to claim at any moment.

Our current routine is deliberately ordinary. Meetings stay between 9:00 and 11:30, lunch belongs to the family, and school holidays require care and activities booked well ahead. The difference shows clearly in an ordinary day:

Part of the day	Working from an office	Working from home
Morning	A commute followed by desk work	School run followed immediately by calls
Lunch	Usually eaten alone at work	Shared with the children, often interrupted
Interruptions	Rare and handled at work	Frequent and divided between work and care
Costs	More petrol, coffee and work clothes	More snacks, home energy and shared spaces
End of the day	A natural break between work and home	A boundary I have to create myself

The children still want me close by, yet they also appreciate knowing when I am unavailable. Their ideal arrangement is not unlimited access to Mum. It is the reassurance that she is in the next room, working, but available when the school bell rings or lunch is ready.

If your family has learned to live with a working parent at home, share the version that keeps everyone happiest in the comments and subscribe for more practical family stories from Country Girl City Life.