Bubble struggles
For parents with shared care of their children the coronavirus lockdown presents its own problems. Katy Jones reports.
An essential worker sat and cried in his car, one morning before work during the coronavirus lockdown.
‘‘There’s this dread of my little boy, who doesn’t quite understand what the hell’s going on,’’ said the Nelson father, who did not want to be named.
His nine-year-old son usually spent every weekend with his dad in Nelson.
But the boy’s mum had taken him over to stay with her new boyfriend in Golden Bay before the level 4 rules came into force.,
‘‘She’s a good mum, and I trust her that the people she’s with are playing the game, but I don’t know them.’’
The loss of control was terrifying, he said.
‘‘I’m scared for him. I’m scared of all these people going into supermarkets without wearing masks, or seeming to not care; is my son going to come across one of those people somehow?
‘‘I’m scared for the way he’s thinking.’’
The man said he wasn’t given much choice about his son going to Golden Bay, but said it was ‘‘definitely not a time to hold old grudges’’.
‘‘As a dad, there’s a bit of you that thinks, when there’s a crisis, he should be with his dad, being protected.
‘‘[But] I have to in my head go, it’s like the Second World War where they shipped all of those kids out of London into the countryside to keep them safe.
‘‘I guess he’s safer over there, than backwards and forwards between her and me.’’
However his son was ‘‘not enjoying it much’’.
He had talked to him once on the phone, and once on Skype.
‘‘They have limited phone range out there as well, which makes it very hard for both of us, because we’re very close me and my son.
‘‘He was concerned for the situation. He knows ... we’re all scared.’’
The man also had to put his trust in the many truck and courier drivers he was in contact with daily, at the warehouse he worked at.
‘‘I’m handling products that they’ve given me. And a courier parcel has had 20 hands on it before I touch it.’’
The man was also worried for his son, if he got sick himself.
‘‘There’s the whole not knowing of everything, the misinformation.
‘‘I don’t know how to tell him it’s going to be ok.
‘‘I’m sitting here with the hope that I’ll see him in the [Easter] break. But if this goes on for months ... maybe things will be a bit different then.’’
Crowded House
Vanessa Sweeney spent the first fortnight of lockdown ‘‘doing breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week’’.
Life in a bubble with her teenage daughters and younger son in South Nelson, had proved tiring for the solo mum.
‘‘They forget that I’m not a restaurant.
‘‘I think teenagers are in their own bubble in every household anyway.’’
Although she and her daughters were close, teenagers hated being away from their friends, Sweeney said.
The girls, aged 13 and nearly 15, didn’t want to go for a walk, or do anything initially, other than be on their phones, she said.
‘‘The first week it was all good, I just let them go for it.’’
But by the second week, Sweeney, an ‘‘outdoor person’’, was fed up of picking up after the children, and needed more structure, as well as free time of her own. Particularly hard-going, was when her daughters started arguing amongst themselves.
‘‘A couple of days ago I said right, I need to talk to you two about your arguing ... we just don’t need it because we can’t escape.’’
The family agreed on some ground rules.
The children were to do something in the morning that wasn’t just ‘‘play’’, like reading or school work, and some kind of exercise. They would decide on a plan for the evening like a board game.
Sweeney also put up a list of all the chores she did every day, and the children choose something that wasn’t just emptying the dishwasher, or tidying their room.
On Monday, they all cleaned up the section together. It felt like the first day during lockdown they had come together as a family, Sweeney said.
‘‘I think now they’re just adjusting to, we’re in this for a bit longer than a long weekend or a school holiday.
‘‘It’s been a bit like breaking their own friendship bubble to become a family again.’’
Sweeney, who had been studying to be a social worker while working part time, had sole custody of the children.
A student who was boarding with them, also had no family nearby, so was staying with them during lockdown.
The family had started selfisolating to a degree, a week before New Zealand’s alert level four was announced.
Sweeney had been ‘‘very vigilant’’ about who was coming into their home, with one of her daughters due to have a tonsillectomy on the first Monday of the lockdown. It had taken a year, and several bouts of tonsilitis, to get the referral for the operation, only for it to be cancelled 12 hours before the procedure was due to take place.
Sweeney remained anxious about not knowing what would happen if she or one of the children needed to go to hospital.
‘‘It’s one parent, splitting myself between three kids.’’
She had only been able to start looking at the children’s’ school work this week, and was trying to help her daughter fill ‘‘holes in education’’ due to her missing school with tonsilitis.
‘‘[But] I think I’m quite fortunate that I don’t have a partner.
‘‘Whether it’s a separate partner that I’m playing ping-pong with with the kids, or I’ve got a partner at home and that relationship’s not equal.
‘‘It’s just reining in the kids, and lowering their expectations.’’ 19 25 31
I have to in my head go, it’s like the Second World War where they shipped all of those kids out of London into the countryside to keep them safe.