Parenting Professionals in the Pandemic
Here we are in week 5,462 of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Wait, what’s that you say?!?! We’re only in week 8 of our shelter-in-place order? This is gonna be a long season, and everything is starting to run together for most of us. The memes are getting old and many of us are wearing thin in our resolve. I have had many a parent share various flavors of the following storyline with me:
“I woke up this morning and helped Johnny with school for two hours, checked and responded to work emails for an hour, had three meetings and two clients, and then spent three hours on paperwork. I finished at 8:00pm, read each of my 4 children a book and then sent them to bed. You know how much schoolwork my other three kiddos got done? None. Alice got online with Mrs. Fisher but that was the extent of her efforts. Suzy did her own thing (I hope). Who knows what Alex accomplished!?!? On days that I try to salvage what is left of my job, my kids don’t complete any of their necessary schoolwork.
Today, 6 weeks into this shelter in place/work from home hell, I got put on a PIP (performance improvement plan) by my boss for not completing 40 hours of work a week. They have no compassion for parents working from home, trying to get it all done.”
Sound familiar? If you are a working parent during the pandemic, I am certain some version of this might resonate with you. Some days, we parents are killing it, am I right? Everyone is fed, educated, and connected to the world. And then there are the days like the above scenario when we are hanging on by a thread, hitting the pillow exhausted, and possibly feeling a little defeated trying to lean into this whole scenario. And our employers, their storm is almost certainly as chaotic albeit different from ours.
You’re not alone. And while we may “all be in the same storm”, each of us has a different boat. (You can read more about my thoughts on that in last week’s post: Grab an Oar). My kids are all college-age. My youngest is missing his graduation, but he is one of the few that is actually elated to avoid the hours-long celebration that is merely a stepping stone to his next stage of schooling. Online classes, while less than ideal, are going fine for him. He took the pass/fail option because it really didn’t matter for his 3.7 GPA. My two oldest are trying to survive online classes at a university that barely supports their students in person; they are missing out on their college baseball season and now the cancellation of summer college baseball. My boat is rocky at times, but I am loving the moments that I am gaining with them - we haven’t been home this much in the spring for over 10 years due to sports.
My sisters-in-law have younger, elementary school kiddos. One is furloughed and a certified educator. They are doing pretty well. The other is still working, helping at-risk populations in our community via telemedicine, and has two kiddos that are fairly adept at managing their schooling on their own…Well, as much as a 5th and 2nd grader can be. She also has a husband that is able to tag-team with her, as his office is on a 2-week rotation in the office.
I have a few clients that are truly in the boat that speaks to the scenario above. Employers who are either unsympathetic (and most certainly cannot empathize) or those who are trying to be understanding but struggle with justifying paying staff on F/T pay and seeing P/T focus from employees. Parents who were rockstars in the office are now wearing ALL the hats: stay-at-home parent, babysitter, teacher, tutor, chef, housekeeper, employee, therapist, entertainer, tech support, and personal trainer. If I thought “Lean In” set a bad precedent, this is a holy hurricane for so many. Add on top of this the fear or stress of losing pay or possibly employment and we are hitting a “class 5 mental crisis” for some.
What I’m still telling clients, 8 weeks into this, is to give yourself a little grace. We cannot be everything to everyone 24-7 in a crisis situation. We DO need to figure out how to put on our oxygen masks in order to manage all the things and all the people. We also need to find the space to help our families process this current stress. It’s OK to let your kids know you are struggling, too. It is OK to struggle. It is also OK to take a mental health day - for you and/or your kiddos. Nothing about this level of isolation is normal. My clients and I are both finding the following questions helpful when the overwhelm and exhaustion set in:
What do I have control over?
What can I let go of today?
What do I need to help myself recharge?
What is a realistic expectation at this moment?
The answers for each of us are different. The answers we give may be different by the day or even the hour. The power of these questions is in the pause.