DAY THIRTY-NINE - 17/04/2020
As tricky as the last six weeks or so have been, I am fully aware how lucky I am to be independent: that is, without dependents to care for. I can’t begin to imagine the strain on those with children or elderly relatives to look after, on top of all the other trials and tribulations that lockdown brings with it.
Speaking to friends with small children, they tell me that the first couple of weeks were spent planning fun activities such as drawing, baking and reading, to keep them entertained and give structure to the long days. Soon though, parents found themselves having to learn how to be a teacher as well as a caregiver, as children suddenly needed to be home-schooled. Now, several weeks in and with schools in Italy likely to remain closed until September, the pressure on parents and little ones alike is mounting: from petty arguments to full-blown tantrums, it seems that it’s not all glitter and cupcakes.
In fact, the effect of the lockdown on children in countries such as Spain, where measures are particularly strict, is becoming nigh-on unbearable for many families. The Guardian reports that concerns have been voiced by “more than 300 professionals who work with children – from psychologists to paediatricians – who signed an open letter to the socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.
“The results of this rigid confinement for children are beginning to show, particularly in urban areas with limited domestic spaces, with increased levels of stress and anxiety,” the letter read, urging that children be let out for at least one hour each day. Not doing so, it added, risks their “wellbeing, their health and their physical and mental development”.”
The mayor of Barcelona agrees, and has pledged her support to the growing movement among parents: “Wait no longer: Free our children!”, she wrote on social media last week. She is just one of many mothers worried that the vast amount of time Spain’s 7 million children are spending indoors - often in cramped apartments with no access to outdoor space - is causing them extra anxiety and stress.
The Madrid-based paediatrician Alici Arévalo confirmed that “we’re seeing more children with nervousness, more with insomnia, more with chest and stomach pains,” while psychologist Heike Freire went one step further, claiming that the Spanish government's measures are bordering on barbaric: “It's completely inhumane”, she said, adding that “by law, children have the right to fresh air, sunlight, movement, play and contact with other children.”
And it’s not just the children themselves suffering the consequences: many parents have been left with little or no childcare support, and no choice but to leave their children at home as they go to work. In Oregon, one single mother - who is also a key worker - is forced to leave her 9 and 12 year-olds at home alone every day. Journalist Jamie Goldberg writes in The Oregonian that Loferski’s children have “struggled to adapt to online learning since schools closed statewide due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even though [she] calls her children on her breaks to go over their schedules and spends every evening helping them with schoolwork, she knows that they would benefit from having a parent around during the day.” She told him: “I feel like there is a whole segment of society that is working harder than they’ve ever had to work now and isn’t getting the support that they need... I feel like I’m in this very much alone.”
This re-evaluation of work-life balance within the family unit is discussed in Erica Pandley’s article ‘Coronavirus reshapes American families’, in which historian and author Judith Flanders told her:
"In good family situations, this is fabulous. Then in bad family situations, the badness will be magnified."
Pandley goes on to explain that “forcing multiple generations to live in the same space can test our patience. People with young children struggle to balance caregiving with work, and adults who have moved back in with their parents are figuring out how to recalibrate the relationship.”
In more distressing news for families, the NHS has also just announced that the palliative care of elderly patients may have to be provided by relatives at home. The Guardian states that “according to the new standard operating procedure for community health services, families will be asked if they can provide care that until now has been provided by GPs, community services and specialist palliative care teams.
“During the coronavirus pandemic, there will be more people dying of coronavirus at home who will also require care and support at the end of their lives,” says the guidelines” (sic).
One thing is clear: whether young or old, families of all shapes and sizes are having to adapt to a new way of life during this pandemic, and many are unexpectedly facing additional burdens to carry. National Geographic recently published a series of photographs online, aiming to highlight this shift in the family dynamic, in households across the globe. “From Normandy to Moscow to Johannesburg,” they write, “illness and pandemic precautions are forcing families into intense intimacy or stark separation. There is no in-between. There are only the people you see every day, all day, and the people you can’t see, unless through a window or a video screen.”
But in the end, it might not be as gloomy a picture as we think. Pandley’s article concludes that “while cooped-up families may now be powerfully sick of day-to-day whining and bickering, sociologists say that — historically speaking — enduring hardship together builds stronger connections… Several families tell us they're growing closer as they're forced to ride out the pandemic as a clan.”
Either way, she says: “For better or worse, these months spent inside the home will have a lasting impact.”