Covid 19 coronavirus: Shout-out to the stay-at-home parent, an essential worker

Stay-at-home parents already knew the lockdown would be exhausting. Photo / 123rf

COMMENT:

It's been a long four and a half weeks and we're all a bit worn down. We've cooked so many meals, we've washed so many dishes ... the novelty of time at home has now well and truly worn off.

Stay-at-home parents could have told us we'd feel this way.

I've never been a stay-at-home mum because I like my work days to actually have an end to them.

I returned to work when my daughter was 6 months old because I wanted the level of mental stimulation that talking with other adults can achieve - and because I was lucky my daughter's dad - the true hero of this story - was happy to stay at home with her.

The past four weeks have proved that, as usual, I was right: with my daughter's daycare closing for alert level 4, I've been working from home to a soundtrack of a toddler who talks all day long, from the minute she wakes (way too early) to the moment she goes to sleep (way too late).

How can a tiny person have so much to say? And how can so little of it be of any interest to another human being?

These are merely two of the dozens of questions I ask myself while I prepare yet another snack for her to lick and then dismiss.

This life I've been living in the past four weeks is precisely what I was trying to avoid when I returned to work, and all this online fascination with this newfound domesticity just rubs salt on the wound.

Don't get me wrong: I love her to pieces and I am loving all this extra time watching her grow and develop - but you can love your time doing something and still recognise how exhausting it is.

You can love something with all your might and find it exhausting to deal with it 24/7 for days on end.

You can absolutely adore someone with every fibre of your being and still wish you could pee without them staring at you - at least just once.

As I learnt from watching Daniel Tiger with my daughter: it's okay to feel two feelings at once.

I like the luxury of not having to think about more than one task at once, of peeing uninterrupted, of not having to repeat myself 32 times to get a simple message across, of writing articles like this in one sitting and without having to stop mid-paragraph to help find the Lego piece she purposefully threw behind the sofa.

All those luxuries disappeared in a flash when the pandemic hit and I've had to relearn to multitask while trying to keep a child alive and out of harm's way all day every day.

After four and a half weeks of this madness, I tip my imaginary hat to you stay-at-home parents (and toast to you with my very much non-imaginary wine).

Being a slave to your family's every want and need, especially when a percentage of your family is made up of tiny dictators who can't fend for themselves, is hard work.

To any parent who stays home with young kids and gets to the end of the day with a clean house and a sane mind, I salute you. Also, I have many questions for you and all of them begin with "how the hell?"

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

And to the parent who achieves none of that but still puts their child to bed, safe and sound, every night: I see you. I see you through my pile of laundry and the dust on the surfaces and the pile of toys that I'll only tidy tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.

The pandemic has forced many of us to become stay-at-home parents and we now, more than ever, realise how daycare teachers are just not paid well enough and how no wage subsidy on this Earth could ever begin to cover the work a stay-at-home parent does on a regular day.

Imagine working in an office with someone who requires constant supervision for every task and who follows you around mostly undoing all the work you've managed to get done in a day? You'd probably find that however much got paid wasn't enough to deal with that kind of high-end bulls***. That's what a stay-at-home parent deals with, every day.

Sure, when we're not in a pandemic, there are playgrounds and cafes and other things we can do to fill the time - but the essence of it is the same: caring for your family full-time is full on.

When this passes (and it shall pass) and the economy is all up and running again, most of us will hopefully go back to work in offices and factories and all sorts of other places that we don't have to clean up ourselves. We'll look back on this time and remember how exhausting it was to do so much cooking, and cleaning and childminding and we'll all have a better understanding of how much those who "just" stay at home all day are actually dealing with.

Pandemic or no pandemic, stay-at-home parents are the ultimate essential worker.