Last summer I gave birth to a baby girl who will turn 8 months old during the pandemic. Living through this crisis as a parent is completely different than it would have been if I was still looking forward to motherhood. There are so many layers of responsibilities and emotions for parents as we cope with this new reality of the world. My child is definitely too young to understand what is going on and certainly won’t remember this, but it’s an even more complex situation for parents with older kids who don’t understand why they aren’t in school and why they can’t go to their friends birthday parties anymore. I’ve been reflecting on how the crisis impacts my new identity as a parent.
The Protector
The primary way that I am approaching this situation differently is that I am now a protector. I work in the field of emergency management and my job for the last 3 years has been focused on response, so in this situation I theoretically should be going out into the world to help manage this crisis in any way I can. But in my new role as a mom I am the protector of an infant who is just learning to wobble on her own two feet. It has spurred me to seek opportunities to support my agency’s mission remotely so that I can keep my daughter home from daycare and self isolate the both of us as much as possible.
There is nothing more important to me than her safety so I will have to make difficult choices while navigating the career path that I loved so much before. While I retain the ambition and drive for my career and remain passionate about crisis management and disaster relief, I am finding myself needing to rethink my approach. How can I best apply myself professionally while prioritizing my role as a protector for Scarlett, especially in the era of the pandemic? I am challenging myself to find new, creative ways to remain productive and to thrive professionally while working from home and entertaining my daughter. I think many parents may be grappling with similar choices and exploring new productivity strategies, especially those who have careers that could put them in harm’s way during the outbreak.
The Curator of their Universe
Especially now that so many of us are home with kids who would normally be in school, we are more responsible for crafting our children’s worlds than we ever were before. Shaping each day is now solely within our control, we can’t rely on teachers and strict school schedules to guide their days. It is up to parents to design the pace of day and find a good balance of playtime and learning, breaks for snacks and exercise, and the ratio of time spent indoors vs outdoors. Scarlett and I have settled into a good schedule–I have set up a couple different play areas that I rotate her between while I fire off emails and enter resource requests in the system. For conference calls, there are a few safe places I can use to keep her entertained and contained while mama moves to the office for the call. Her morning and afternoon naps provide an opportunity for me to catch up on the bigger projects that require utilization of my double screen set up in the office.
While the work that I’m engaged in deals directly with the impacts of the pandemic and how we move resources to assist local government with their response, I know that I need to also be mindful of the atmosphere in the household. The tone of my voice when I’m speaking, my body language as I react to new urgent tasks, will all have an effect on my daughter. While Scarlett is too young to remember this time, it’s especially important for parents of older children to be purposeful in the atmosphere that they create. The situation is grim in many regards but within your own household you are the curator of their universe. You can shape this memory into a deeply meaningful, positive era when the family got to spend more time together and take a break from the hurried American lifestyle. They can learn to cook dinners or experiment with baking, perhaps learn to garden, change the oil in the car, learn to scrapbook or engage in other crafts that they wouldn’t normally have time to do in school. This is a great time to learn extracurricular skills and if we create a world where the quarantine is actually a fun vacation rather than a prison sentence our children may look back on this time fondly.
The Student
While many of us are taking on the role of teacher whether or not we like it, I think we should also try to take on the role of the student. Our kids for the most part are blissfully unaware of the greater world and the threat of the pandemic. They aren’t worrying about transmission and mortality rates or the status of the economy. They are waking up each day ready to experience life, explore new things, grow, and learn. Their outlooks are inherently positive because they have so much life to live and so much to look forward to. My daughter has been babbling excitedly at us and is so thrilled to be able to stand now. She loves to practice curling her toes under and elevating herself. The house is a brand new place to explore for her as she can now see and touch things that she never could before when she was limited to army crawling. She starts each day with a smile. Teenagers may not have the blissful naivety of Scarlett, but are probably at least thankful for some extra time to sleep in and access to household snacks all day.
When I feel myself getting overwhelmed with the devastation and isolation of COVID-19, I try to focus on Scarlett’s face, her attitude and the smile she gives me when I make a silly face and just absorb the small moments of mother-daughter bonding. We may be newly minted teachers but our kids actually have a lot they can teach us about focusing on simple moments of bliss throughout the day and the uncomplicated joy of smiling and laughing in the sun. Give yourself this opportunity to recapture the innocence of childhood and allow them to share with you their hope for the future.
