Dad shares how he juggles work, homeschooling amid COVID-19
SCHOOL closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have forced parents to take a more hands-on approach to the education of their children.
In fact, on top of their fulltime professional responsibilities, parents have the added duty of ensuring their children do not fall behind in what is a crucial developmental stage of their lives.
Ed Bailey, 39, counts himself among the many parents who are successfully balancing work and homeschooling, using a combination of effective time management and sacrifice.
Bailey, a packaging line manager at Red Stripe and the father of a six-year-old daughter, has had to shift his priorities and get creative in order to actively participate in his child’s schooling while still remaining productive and meeting the demands of his job.
“I have to ensure that she is paying attention to her lessons and that is very challenging because, while she still gets her work done, she doesn’t necessarily have the attention span to stay focused the entire time without active supervision. If I’m not with her she tends to wander off and go play with her toys. So, because I have to take care of her, I will schedule all of my meaningful work tasks at 12:00 am 3:00 am, and then a couple times a week I will go into work from 6:00 pm to 12:00 pm,” he said.
Early mornings and late nights are exactly the kind of sacrifices that Bailey believes parents need to make to ensure that their children are not negatively impacted by the current circumstances. Most parents now find themselves in this predicament but Bailey says he has the benefit of a job that has helped make his situation manageable.
He recently participated in the second session of a threepart series put on by the Red Stripe Employee Support Network (ESN). The initiative, dubbed #Standupforparents, provided a space for working parents to share their experiences and collaboratively work toward solutions. Employees expressed feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the weight of both professional and personal responsibilities.
“The truth is that with an increased prevalence of stress and mental health issues experienced by workers as a result of trying to integrate work/life obligations and homeschooling, businesses have been called upon to recognise when their employees may very involved in their daughter’s life, but he notes that the presence of a strong father figure is especially vital to a child’s development.
“In my own experience, I wholeheartedly believe that fathers are necessary in children’s lives. I lost my own father at the age of 10 and I saw my mother suffer and sacrifice so that I could have a better life. After seeing that, I truly don’t think that I can operate in a way that is different from what I’m doing now,” he said.
The pandemic has altered the way Jamaicans operate, and some people have found it difficult to adapt to the new social order of things. Parents have had to deal with issues such as increased expenses while some cope with salary cuts. However, Bailey remains optimistic that this, too, shall pass.
“What has helped me is an acceptance of the situation I’m in and an understanding that I have to be okay with certain inconveniences as we all try to figure out the next steps of dealing with this thing. I truly believe that everything is a phase and nothing lasts forever, and that goes for this pandemic as well,” he said.