A14| Thursday, March 19, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
so the kids could move around to
different activities and decided to
lean more on educational apps
such as Khan Academy Kids and
Endless Alphabet.
They had been remodeling their
basement to include an enclosed
home office so that Mr. Markev-
icius would have a better place to
work than the guest-room desk. It
was nearly completed when they
learned that one of their contrac-
tors had come into contact with
someone who tested positive for
coronavirus. The worker had to be
tested, too. While they were await-
ing his result, they disinfected theoffice and furnished it themselves.
(He turned out to be negative.)
Amy Kaske Berger, who runs her
own public-relations firm from
Northbrook, Ill., has seen numer-
ous sample schedules on social
media to help parents create rou-
tines for kids who are at home,
but said she is trying not to give
intothepressuretokeepher3-
and 5-year-olds academically stim-
ulated all of the time.
“I decided to give myself more
grace than to put together a rigid
program I would only feel disap-
pointed by,” she said. “I know kids
thrive on routine and structure,FAMILY & TECH| JULIE JARGON
When Take-Your-Kid-to-Work Is Every Day
Shared calendars, Pelotons and noise-canceling headphones help couples stay sane while working together at home
but I feel like putting too much
pressure on moms, especially,
right now to keep everything to-
gether throughout these difficult
days is just too much.”
She has put out crafts for her
kids and is trying to work during
times when her husband, a man-
ager at a pharmaceutical company,
is less busy. When they do have to
work at the same time, they do so
in their home office, which has
side-by-side desks. When he is on
calls, she can’t concentrate, so she
busted out her old Bose QuietCom-
fort noise-canceling headphones
and started listening to a SpotifyBROOKE MARKEVICIUSwasona
Zoom call with a potential busi-
ness partner last week when the
ultimate work-from-home embar-
rassment happened: Her husband
yelled to her for toilet paper.
Ms. Markevicius said her face
registered shock for a moment but
that no one on the
call seemed to notice
or hear anything. She
was wearing AirPods
and quickly shot her
husband a text mes-
sage to say that she
was on a call.
Luckily, he had his phone with
him in the bathroom. “I stopped
right away,” said Edgar Markevicius.
Scenes like this are playing out
in homes across the country as
couples confront the new reality of
working in close quarters due to
employers’ efforts to contain the
novel coronavirus. The added chal-
lenge of managing children at
home due to school closures is
throwing households into chaos.
The Markevicius family of Dur-
ham, N.C., lost their part-time
nanny, a student at the University
of North Carolina, when the col-
lege said it was switching to re-
mote instruction and she left for
home four hours away.
Mr. Markevicius, a se-
curity engineer at a
tech company, already
was working remotely,
but Ms. Markevicius,
founder and chief ex-
ecutive of MOMentum,
an online marketplace
of goods and services
run by moms, was
working out of a co-
working space until
last week. They began
taking turns working
from a desk in their
guest room.
On another day, it
was Mr. Markevicius’s
turn. While his wife
was putting their 2-
year-old down for a
nap, their half-naked
5-year-old daughter walked in on
him during a team video call. She
began talking to her dad’s co-
workers. “Luckily my team has lots
of dads with kids and everyone
laughed,” said Mr. Markevicius.
The events led the couple to de-
velop some tech solutions for their
new WFH situation: They began
sharing a Google calendar so they
would know when the other is
scheduled to be on calls, as well as
using Chore Pad, an app to track
the kids’ chores, and Timo, an app
that helps establish a schedule for
kids. They set up various Montes-
sori-style stations in their house
station called “Jazz for Study.”
“I want to be clear that it’s not
smooth jazz,” she said.
Sometimes her husband needs a
break from the home office and
pops in his AirPods to take calls
outside. “Our office window faces
the front of the house and I’ve seen
him walk by on phone calls,” she
said. “It’s funny, because we live in
the suburbs, so it’s not like every
person is out walking and talking.”
While they are trying to find
ways to work alongside each other
and manage their children, they
have come to rely on one very big
piece of equipment to save their
sanity: their Peloton machine.
Ms. Kaske Berger, who was in-
spired by a friend to get one in De-
cember, said the exercise bike has
become a source of escape from
the new isolation. She and her
husband both use it. “It’s nice to
feel connected to the world, even
if it’s a recording of a class from
October,” she said.
Hayley Nivelle, a lawyer who
runs her own practice advising
startups, lives 10 miles from New
Rochelle, N.Y., the site of a signifi-
cant coronavirus outbreak. She
and her husband, who works in fi-
nance, decided it was best not to
have their nanny
come for a while.
They began juggling
their jobs and their
two small children
while hunkering down
at home. They are
tag-teaming the child
care along with their
work schedules and,
like the Berger family,
have found an outlet
in their Peloton.
“We’ve decided it’s
important to get in
some exercise,” said
Ms. Nivelle. “We’re
giving each other an
hour every day.”
Because their chil-
dren are so young—
almost 2 and almost
4—one parent has to
be supervising them most of the
time. “When needed, I’m going to
turn to screen time, because that’s
what keeps their focus,” she said,
explaining that she likes ABC-
mouse, the Cosmic Kids app and
kids’ shows on Netflix.
Ms. Nivelle said the complexity
of working from home extends far
beyond work alone. “It’s the child-
care responsibilities, making three
meals a day at home and cleaning
up,” she said. “If it was just the
two of us working here remotely,
sure we might get on each other’s
nerves, but that sounds like sum-
mer camp.”Amy Kaske Berger in Illinois, Hayley Nivelle in New York and Brooke Markevicius in North Carolina, clockwise from top,
each are working from home with their spouses while juggling child-care and household duties with their partners.CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; AMY KASKE BERGER; HAYLEY NIVELLE; EDGAR MARKEVICIUSLIFE & ARTS
NY