I swear I was a good parent before all of this...
Sure, before the pandemic we had a new baby and I did spend a lot more time trying to keep our 4 year old from accidentally suffocating her sister. Our littlest Who was just 3 months old when we went into lockdown.
I am still laughing at myself that I tried, against my personality type and my own upbringing, to institute a schedule in those first few days and weeks, (what even is a day anymore?) Why I thought it would make things easier to force a routine on us rather than fall into one is still ridiculous.
So, if I had to label my particular brand of parenting style, it would probably be closest to "free-range". Other than having wake-up and bedtime routines and some meals, we have never really had a "schedule" so to speak on "home days". Our preschooler has always been really good at entertaining herself. She can find a bag of shells in the house and play with them for an hour unsupervised. Unfortunately, now the preschooler takes breaks from her activities to try to see if her sister's head will come off or what happens if she pokes her in the eyeballs. (Spoiler alert: she cries). So this somewhat laissez-faire mode of parenting has mostly been a boon to my parental leave schedule in that expectations can't easily be thwarted. Newborns don't care about your schedule. They will mess it up at every turn. Our second daughter's birth is a post perhaps for another time but this week, I want to talk about COVID-19. I mean, so does everyone, right? Lockdown became for us what it did for many parents. It exposed all the cracks in our current society's almost complete lack of a village. Suddenly, we were just home and even familial support was gone.
Now, every few months, when our first was younger, the husband would suggest that maybe we have more of a schedule for weekends etc., and I would say; "That sounds great! Why don't you come up with one?" because I have read a lot about mental load in the home disproportionately being carried by the mother and because well, I was raised sans schedule. I truly believe it crafted two very creative children. We were allowed to be bored and playful. Heck, I don't even remember mealtimes, specifically. I remember my mother's friend commenting years later that the funniest thing about my mother's parenting style was that she almost never offered us food. We had to come to her to ask for it. They owned a restaurant so they worked a lot in the evening and also, you know that thing that parents say: "This isn't a restaurant- you don't get choices for dinner"? Well, in our house with leftovers, it essentially was a restaurant.
Cheers to all the other parents, who are stunned, catatonic on the couch. Tip your local preschool teacher.
Now, every few months, when our first was younger, the husband would suggest that maybe we have more of a schedule for weekends etc., and I would say; "That sounds great! Why don't you come up with one?" because I have read a lot about mental load in the home disproportionately being carried by the mother and because well, I was raised sans schedule. I truly believe it crafted two very creative children. We were allowed to be bored and playful. Heck, I don't even remember mealtimes, specifically. I remember my mother's friend commenting years later that the funniest thing about my mother's parenting style was that she almost never offered us food. We had to come to her to ask for it. They owned a restaurant so they worked a lot in the evening and also, you know that thing that parents say: "This isn't a restaurant- you don't get choices for dinner"? Well, in our house with leftovers, it essentially was a restaurant.
So needless to say, as my husband once put it to our still-childless friends; "I haven't been doing this parenting thing that long, but I can tell you that it's very easy to just fall back on what your parents did". This is in part why it has been very easy for me to just let them play. But when lockdown hit, I absolutely panicked, scoured the internet for ideas, and banged out a list of activities for a schedule. It looked something like this:
COVID-19 Schedule Ideas:
-Wakeup/ 20 min TV show/ Breakfast
-Choose outfit, make bed
-Caffeine for M & D; Baby nurses
-"Academic time"
-tracing letters & numbers, Beads, math cards, craft, or "cooking class”
-Morning walk or indoor yoga (Cosmic Kids Yoga on youtube)
-Lunch
-Could be a picnic complete with picnic basket in office, living room, or deck
-Cleaning & misc chores
-Vinegar bottle & rag, duster, dustbuster
-Quiet time: Baby might rock in chair w/ Dad or nurse w/ Mom
-Reading/Journaling, Set up a tent/fort and have a campout;
-Creative time:
-Legos, Magnatiles, chalk on deck, dress-up, Calico Critters, playing mailbox
Snack (play restaurant?)
-Backyard play or indoor exercise like:
-Dance party, freeze game, Hip hip hooray, parade
-Screentime
-5:30: Dinner
-Facetime with family/friends
-6:30: Bath/bedtime
-BED 7pm
In reality, it went something like this:
COVID-19 Schedule Ideas:
-Wakeup/ 20 min TV show/ Breakfast -
-Choose outfit, make bed
-Caffeine for M & D; Baby nurses
[Try to get 4 year-old to eat anything on her plate]
-"Academic time" - [4 year old says she would rather read books, so fine.
Dad makes banana bread alone]
-tracing letters & numbers, Beads, math cards, craft, "cooking class”
-Morning walk or indoor yoga (Cosmic Kids Yoga on youtube)
[Try to convince 4 year old to put on clothes for approx. an hour.
Give up and decide we're now all too hungry for a morning walk]
-Lunch
-Could be a picnic complete with picnic basket in office, living room, or deck
[Lunch is none of these things and 4 year old will only eat pretzel sticks and
milk]
-Cleaning & misc chores
-Vinegar bottle & rag, duster, dustbuster
[This lasts about 5 minutes and is met with zero enthusiasm.
4 year old suggests we have a tea party, so we do that]
-Quiet time: Baby might rock in chair w/ Dad or nurse w/ Mom
-Reading/Journaling, or set up a tent/fort and have a campout;
[4 year old is not too keen on Mom not helping with fort and so tries to climb
onto her lap while the baby is being nursed, pinching Mom, and trying to see
if the baby's head can be removed.]
-Creative time:
-Legos, Magnatiles, chalk on deck, dress-up, doll dress-up, Calico Critters, playing
mailbox
[4 year old whines about wanting to watch something & rolls around on
the couch before she can be convinced that Magnatiles might be fun]
Snack (play restaurant? [Nope])
Parents discuss just how long it will take for their 4 year old to develop
scurvy because she refuses to eat anything other than pretzel sticks]
-Backyard play or indoor exercise like:
-Dance party, freeze game, parade
[We're so behind on schedule that we just skip to screentime and watch
another 20 minute show.
Parents decide on more caffeine after briefly considering booze.]
-Screentime
-5:30: Dinner [This one goes basically to plan because we are all famished]
-Facetime with family/friends [We call Grandma & Grandpa while the baby
screams because we won't let her hold the phone]
[Wait for what seems an interminable amount of time for it to be a
reasonable point to begin bedtime. Preschooler lolls about, playing with
toys until we start a dance party with our traditional kick-off, the UMass
fight song]
-6:30: Bath/bedtime
-BED 7pm [7pm... hilarious.]
-Next Day: Get up and do it all again in this weird Groundhog Day with no end in sight
So at least I can say we are not bored. We would actually take some boredom right about now!
Please note: this was all when I was still on parental leave and before I had to return to working from home and all that that entailed. We are extremely fortunate to both still have jobs, but the truth is that this is a moment when we all can take a good hard look at how society still expects families to just handle everything. The majority of households today have to be dual income or they could not afford the cost of living as it currently is in this country. Yes, we have public schools, but have to pay out of pocket for after-school care. The majority of parents work until 5pm and schools end their days much sooner. How would those days look if fewer people had to commute an hour or more each day? Or if we could forgo sick time and just work from home when a child is home for the day? More than ever, families need flexibility. We leave it to the private sector to decide sick and family leave with no government support to either families or small businesses. We treat families like they are a needy niche group, instead of our neighbors and an investment in our economy and our future. It's time for a change, and I for one, plan to seek out ways to be a part of that when this is all over. I just might need a spa day or at least a quiet shower all to myself first.
Cheers to all the other parents, who are stunned, catatonic on the couch. Tip your local preschool teacher.
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