I was talking to a mom the other day, she has a toddler. Her baby was born right in the middle of the pandemic. “I have so much grief about parenting I didn’t even know that I had,” she told me. “I am only just now realizing how much of my parenting experience was limited and shaped by the confines of the pandemic.”
For many parents who became first-time moms and dads in the days of social distancing and shut-downs, the resources to support parents completely disappeared. No baby groups, no new-parent meetups, no facilities like gym class or other spaces available—it all just disappeared.
This is a thread for you to share anything and everything that you want to when it comes to being a parent in the pandemic. What did you miss out on? What was your experience like? What was better than expected? Is there anything you’re grieving?
Our core community guideline for these threads is to share from your experience — “In my experience, the pandemic was…” Notice how that sentence is a very different sentence than, “The pandemic was not bad, parenting was easy, no one should be complaining.” When you write from your own experience, no one can take that away from you. If we write global statements, however, that can make it harder for us to empathize and see each other. There are thousands of stories of what parenting can look like and feel like.
I remember doing so much with so little, during the pandemic. My kids were 3 and 5 and I was their force field. My husband had to work; barely saw him he was working so much and I had total reliance on a higher power to get through each day I felt like I was on the verge of dying. I deepened my friendships because I called friends every day to keep sane. I made up games in the backyard because I couldn’t go to the gym. I did a lot with virtually nothing like coloring books with my kids. One neighbor is a doctor had to go to the hospital every day and she dropped off my groceries for a month. I did not have the courage to go to the grocery store because my spouse was sick with Covid and neighbor-friends stepped in. It was an extraordinary moment
I distinctly remember feeling safer about going outside and interacting with people again. I walked down my street, pushing my baby in the stroller and saw my neighbor in her front yard with her baby (6 months older than mine). I stopped to chat and ended up sitting in her yard for hours. I later sobbed to my husband that I had been so lonely and stressed in isolation and had no idea.
I remember doing so much with so little, during the pandemic. My kids were 3 and 5 and I was their force field. My husband had to work; barely saw him he was working so much and I had total reliance on a higher power to get through each day I felt like I was on the verge of dying. I deepened my friendships because I called friends every day to keep sane. I made up games in the backyard because I couldn’t go to the gym. I did a lot with virtually nothing like coloring books with my kids. One neighbor is a doctor had to go to the hospital every day and she dropped off my groceries for a month. I did not have the courage to go to the grocery store because my spouse was sick with Covid and neighbor-friends stepped in. It was an extraordinary moment
I distinctly remember feeling safer about going outside and interacting with people again. I walked down my street, pushing my baby in the stroller and saw my neighbor in her front yard with her baby (6 months older than mine). I stopped to chat and ended up sitting in her yard for hours. I later sobbed to my husband that I had been so lonely and stressed in isolation and had no idea.