Working from home allowed him to be a more engaged dad. Now it’s over

Remote work was a pipe dream until it became the new normal

For Andrew DiDonato, who reviews residential building permits for Philadelphia’s Licenses and Inspections Department, the commute is 45 minutes to an hour each way, depending on train delays.

He’d been doing that two days a week until last month. The other three days, DiDonato worked from home.

It was a schedule he never would have thought possible before the pandemic, when remote work was something people would joke about.

“Like the pipe dream of flying cars,” he says.

As luck would have it, his department was ready to go fully online when the pandemic hit. Just two days before COVID briefly shuttered its offices in March 2020, the city rolled out a new online permitting system, which had been in the works for years. Instead of having to come in to apply for permits, residents could now do everything online.

The timing couldn’t have been better for him and for the city’s residents, all stuck in their homes.

“Within months, everyone was using it,” says DiDonato.

He quickly found he could do his job just fine on a hybrid schedule.

What he discovered he was doing better was parenting. It was a revelation.

Freed from the daily commute, DiDonato no longer had to leave the house every morning before the kids were awake.

That opened up more options for his wife Ashley, who’d stayed home since their third child was born. She got a part-time job working early mornings at a fitness center.

“It was one of those moments where something perfect falls in your lap,” she says. “It was exactly what I needed.”

Being around for breakfast, homework, afterschool clubs

Now it was Dad who got the mornings going, getting the kids up, feeding them breakfast and talking about the day ahead.

“All those extra conversations I get to have with my kids during those little moments I was gone for,” says DiDonato. “I’m hearing about what they’re concerned with about school, what they’re excited for.”

At the end of the work day, instead of the tiresome train ride home, he was helping with homework and volunteering with after-school clubs. His oldest, 10-year-old Rosalie, joined the school play, the musical Moana Junior.

Drawing on his years in construction, DiDonato built Moana’s boat for the set.

“It was a real life-sized boat,” says Rosalie, beaming at her dad.

The family got used to this more balanced life.

“It wasn’t something we had for a couple weeks or a couple months,” says DiDonato. “It was four years.”

And now, it’s gone. With DiDonato back in the office full-time, Ashley has had to cut back her hours at the fitness center and pick up a Sunday shift.

“We’re forced back into these systems that are no longer working for us,” she says. “It feels like it’s taking a step backwards.”