Single Parenting and Software Development: Making It Work

Three kids. Ages 10, 9, and 5. A job as an Enterprise Architect that requires deep focus and complex problem-solving. No partner to hand things off to when both worlds collide.

You figure it out as you go. There's no playbook.

The Self-Consciousness I Didn't Need

Early on, I was self-conscious about being a single parent in professional settings. Kids interrupting meetings. Having to move things around. The chaos bleeding into work time.

I wish someone had told me earlier: people are usually understanding.

The distinction that matters is between explanations and excuses. Not "I couldn't get that report done because I had to pick up my kid." Instead: "I'm getting that report to you now. Sorry it wasn't earlier, I had to pick up my kid." Not "We can't do the release tonight because of my kid's dance class." Instead: "We'll do the release after dance class. I'll be home at 8:30, so we can start at 9."

The work still gets done. The responsibilities are still met. It's just not as clean or "professional" as you might think it should be. And when you're still taking care of what needs to be taken care of, people are pretty understanding about the messiness.

With new clients, I still feel it a little. I'm not sure how they'll react. But I haven't had anyone respond terribly. I spent a lot of time early on being more worried about this than I needed to be.

The Weekend Line

Remote work blurs boundaries. The flexibility is genuinely useful, but it can become problematic if you let it.

I enjoy what I do, so spending some evening time on work doesn't bother me. What I protect is weekends. I have my kids every weekend. That time belongs to them, maybe some hobbies if there's room, but they're the priority.

The tradeoff is that weekday evenings flex. When the kids are attention-heavy during the day, I work later to make sure everything gets done. There's no clean cutoff at five o'clock. The boundary shifts based on what the day demanded.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Physical setup matters more than I expected.

In my old house, I worked from a corner of an open-concept living room. Dad visible all day meant constant interaction attempts. Sometimes it would get loud and I'd forget to mute my mic on calls.

Now I'm in a separate room off the kitchen. No doors, just open portals, but there's real separation. The kids don't see me constantly, so they're not constantly reminded I'm available. I get longer stretches between interruptions.

It was intentional. When I was thinking about the new setup, I wanted that separation. It's working.

The Shape of a Day

Mornings have a rhythm. Up early to work out with a buddy before the kids wake up. Then dad mode: breakfast, getting everyone settled, figuring out what they need. Morning meetings. And finally, sometime after all that, the actual technical work begins.

It sounds orderly written out. It rarely feels that way in the moment.

The thing about children is that their intensity fluctuates. Sometimes they're self-sufficient, doing their own thing, barely aware you exist. Other times they need constant attention, constant care, constant presence. Work operates the same way. Routine maintenance one week, complex architectural problems requiring deep focus the next.

The hard days are when both peak simultaneously.

When Both Worlds Collide

Hour by hour, those days look like a slow descent into madness.

I pride myself on patience. People generally think of me as calm, easy to work with, understanding. But there's a finite amount of cognitive and emotional load anyone can take before cracks start to appear.

Context-switching every few minutes doesn't work. You can't do meaningful technical work that way. So when things get intense, I've learned to sit my kids down.

"Listen, I need to focus for 30 minutes to an hour. What do I need to get you right now to make that happen?"

My 10-year-old responds well to this. Usually it's something simple: food, a drink, help with one specific thing. Get them sorted, then get back to work.

My 5-year-old? That negotiation doesn't exist. The five-year-old is a wild card. You take what you can get.

My kids experience my work as "dad looking at computers and typing." They don't understand what software development actually is. And they have this habit of interrupting right in the middle of a thought.

It's so obvious when I'm trying to get something out. I'm looking at the screen, typing, code appearing. Clearly in the middle of something. And they'll just walk up and start talking.

I've explained it multiple times. If you say my name, I've registered it. Let me finish the thought, and then I'll give you my full attention. It's still a struggle. Children aren't patient people. Patience is learned.

On those high-intensity days, I catch myself being brusque with my kids when they don't deserve it. I've been shorter than I should be with my PO when he's focused on details that feel nitpicky in the moment but are obviously important. You work with someone long enough, these things happen. You recognize it. You circle back and repair it.

Both domains draw from the same finite well of capacity. Some days they're both drawing hard. You try to repair those moments. You recognize when you've been short and you come back to it.

The saving grace is that the overlap isn't constant. Most of the time, one domain or the other is relatively low-intensity. You focus on whichever needs attention right then.

What It Actually Looks Like

There's no optimization here. No life hack. No secret formula.

You get up. You work out because you've made it a priority. You make breakfast. You get the kids settled. You do the meetings. You do the work. You have heart-to-hearts when you need focused time. You work evenings when the days were chaotic. You protect weekends.

You try to be patient. You fail sometimes. You try again.

The work gets done, even when it's messier than you'd like. Your kids don't understand what you do, but they know you're there in the next room, available when they need you.

Not elegant. Not optimized. Just honest effort, day after day, navigating two demanding roles that don't naturally fit together.

Most days, it works.