Towels need to be washed.
Of course, the wet towel is on the floor again.
Do I bother to go get him to pick it up this time? I don’t feel like it, I’ll just hang it. Ugh, the bathroom.
I should wash the dishes first.
Coffee.
“MOM I CAN’T FIND THE ANSWER TO NUMBER NINE!”
Coffee.
Zoom meeting at 3:15.
I should set an alarm. So we aren’t late.
“Jamie, get down please.”
I still need to scan yesterday’s assignments. And email them.
Maybe naptime.
“Jamie, get down.”
He’s so bored.
Email advisor by Monday.
I need to finish going through the edits first. Maybe Saturday.
Where is the other sock that was just in my hand?
“Mom?”
Coffee.
During the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, I was unemployed at home with two children, while my partner was an essential worker and continued working full time. The last four months have been incredibly difficult. I thought I was so prepared in the beginning, equipped for the schools’ closings with my whiteboard and daily schedule. I envisioned my second grader working diligently at his corner desk, ready with posters and supplies, while I flipped through board books with my toddler, sprawled across the carpet.
I should mention that I was also in school. In my final semester of graduate school, working on a thesis about invisible labor and motherhood. My thesis certainly got laid on the back-burner as the labor in my household multiplied intensely. Oh, the irony.
It is not as if I hadn’t been home with my kids before, obviously. I already spent weekdays with my toddler while my eldest was at school. Although it wasn’t much, at least then I could rely on nap time for a small window of productivity. Again, I had a dissertation to write. We had a routine that got completely swallowed by the second-grade curriculum as soon as schools closed, and my older son joined us for full days. It was no longer a simple day with the kids, as it was before. There were immense amounts of schoolwork to be done (mine and my son’s), deadlines to follow, and normalcy to attempt to uphold. My role was almost as an interpreter, exchanging, and relaying messages between my son and his teacher. He is not old enough to manage the technology required on his own. I became the hand at the mouse, the curator of the day’s assignments, the coveter of correct answers. I used to call this ‘homeschooling’—as many people do. I try not to call it that anymore. It is not homeschooling. It is social distance learning and it is a ship that nobody is really sure how to navigate. I do not dictate the curriculum or the due dates, the way a true homeschooling parent would. And I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes, I was just as confused as my son was. I often wondered about people that had, could you imagine it, four kids. Five even.
Meanwhile, my tiny tornado of toddler was so stir-crazy, he was quite literally bouncing off the walls. He managed a few injuries during our time shut-in, the worst of which warranted a trip to the emergency room after a bad face-first fall slammed his bottom teeth right through his lip.
The novelty of doing schoolwork at home wore off quickly with my second grader, understandably. He is eight and this is not what he is used to either. I am not his teacher, I’m Mom. No matter how much I try to mimic his classroom with a child-sized desk, bright posters, colorful maps, and bins of school supplies—there is no doubt that his mind has separated the two. This is home and there is a hollering toddler in the background and distractions in every room.
It felt as if the chaos inside my household paralleled the chaos existing outside of it. Through the first few months of the pandemic it felt irresponsible to not watch the news daily (which I would later adjust for the sake of my sanity). The NH.gov/covid webpage became the most visited site on my browser as I checked the death toll daily. In retrospect, I don’t know why I put myself through such torture. Stories from trembling masked healthcare workers and news reports of people dying over FaceTime calls with family would haunt me for days on end. Sometimes I would hide tears from my children behind the closed bathroom door.
At one point I noticed pains in my chest. I worried I had contracted the virus and found myself frantically Googling (of course) symptoms. I checked my temperature constantly through the day and it consistently turned up normal. Still, the pains in my chest were driving me mad. The awareness of this foreign feeling in my chest hijacked my train of thought. It was always on my mind. This went on for about three weeks. My mother came to drop off a care package for us one day and I said to her in distress, “This feeling in my chest is driving me crazy. It almost feels like I just went on a run, but I didn’t just go on a run.” I didn’t know how else to describe it. “It sounds like anxiety.” She informed me. The anxiety had gotten so bad that its physical manifestation caused me to have more anxiety about my anxiety.
Snack cup.
Where is the snack cup?
This is why we have ants.
I should include a section of my thesis about how much time mothers spend looking for things. Kidding.
Maybe not.
“Mom I don’t know what this word means.”
Ignore him.
Make him walk down the hallway to you this time.
“MOM?!”
Ok.
“Let’s go check on your brother.”
“Mum?”
“MUUUMMMAAAAA!”
Fine, I’ll carry you.
Coffee.
Is five cups too many?
8:30 pm Zoom meeting.
I’ll never make it.
I felt not only caged in but as if my identity had evaporated. I longed to return to a job I wasn’t fond of for the sake of adult interaction. The perpetual task load, the nonstop emotional labor, the battle with fragility in the face of an existential crisis, and constant fear of the unknown took an emotional toll. I would see memes on social media mocking parents with “How hard is it to hang out with your own kids?” I’d want to scream, “The person who wrote this can’t possibly have children!” Which isn’t necessarily true. I just want to hear that this person pandemic parented through 86 days in isolation while navigating social distance learning before making such a comment.
With the heat of summer came the re-openings. We could finally spend a lot more time outside, now that the rainy days of spring have passed. School for my son had come to an end, and after too many sleepless nights and mental breakdowns, I completed my thesis and finished school as well. It felt as if we came through to some other side. As the weeks of summer passed, I realized how much mental load had been lifted. Each morning I woke up I felt more refreshed than the day before. I learned to limit my media intake. I learned that next time, it’s ok to let the dishes sit dirty in the sink during a school day, and an hour-long TV break to chill your nerves isn’t going to turn your kid’s brains to complete mush. I have learned not to try to mimic his school day and play the teacher role. Just be Mom. I wish I hadn’t put so much pressure on myself. There is still anxiety that exists, but with each day the ‘new normal’ becomes, well, more normal.
As hard as the last five months have been, there has been tremendous growth. That is the silver lining. It almost feels as if I’ve been on some hero’s quest, and I’ve returned with new perceptions. I’ve learned so much about myself during this period of strictly staying at home. As humans we are constantly growing and changing. The last five months felt like an accelerated, intensive transformation program. What has changed? Too much to list in a blog post. But I feel confident saying that for the first time ever, I literally feel like a new person.
Candid 35 mm photograph of my toddler and I taken by my eight-year-old with a disposable camera during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.
If you enjoyed this piece, please check out Michelle Peterson on Instagram @miche_nicole or at mpetersonart.com.