Right now I'm a dad who works in a similar situation, with a few notable exceptions (my 'coworkers' are my dog and cat, and the person taking care of my daughter while I'm working is my wife).
In my opinion, one of the major advantages of working from home is that when I want to take a break, I get to go hang out with my daughter. I really wouldn't want to trade that for anything... The downside to our arrangement is that my wife is very limited in what she can do, career-wise. A space like this would open up a huge number of alternatives for us, with very few tradeoffs (aside from the cost, which is conspicuously absent from the article...)
Have your office in the second floor, with a trap door (at the entrance) that opens into a slide that delivers the child (or spouse) back to the first floor.
Heh, I'm hoping that by the time she has the strength and dexterity to open the gate at the bottom of the stairs that she'll also have the cognitive ability to understand "Daddy's working".
I get the knocking at the door plus "Daddy. Daddy." My wife taught our 18 month old to do just that. It's sweet, but completely distracting and disruptive to the point where on days I could have worked at home, I need to head into the office to get any flow going.
Your wife could work from home as well, or you could take part-time job.
Major reason for my start-up was to work from home. Sometimes when there is emergency meeting, outside of office hours, I have baby on my lap while video conferencing. Most people tolerate it if she is not crying.
> Your wife could work from home as well, or you could take part-time job.
My full time job is what brings enough money into the household to allow for us both to be home. She does work from home (she has a dozen or so piano and voice students in the evening when I'm available to watch our daughter), but it would be pretty tough for her to actually use her degree and teach full-time in a K-12 classroom.
In my opinion, one of the major advantages of working from home is that when I want to take a break, I get to go hang out with my daughter. I really wouldn't want to trade that for anything... The downside to our arrangement is that my wife is very limited in what she can do, career-wise. A space like this would open up a huge number of alternatives for us, with very few tradeoffs (aside from the cost, which is conspicuously absent from the article...)