“Parenting throughout this pandemic has been ghetto”

I can’t find the right words to describe how I have felt about parenting throughout this pandemic. I have experienced a wide range of unpleasant emotions. Like many other parents, I have been exhausted, confused, annoyed, sad, drained, frustrated, angry, scared and anxious. There are days where I am on my game and everything is good. However, there are days where I’m struggling to make to the end of the day. Sometimes when I am having those rough days, I go to bed stressed at the thought of having to do it all over again the following day. Parenting a very active, busy and sociable eight-year-old throughout a pandemic has not been easy. His extra-curricular activities such as swimming and soccer have been cancelled. He can’t go to our neighbourhood park or continue to play the games he enjoys with the kids on our street. Everything has completely changed. It has been over a year now and it’s not getting any better. 

In March of 2020, schools moved to remote learning and it was a complete shock. His grades began to slip. In September of 2020, he went back to school in-person. Everything was completely different as you can imagine. After, Thanksgiving his classroom teacher switched, and he moved to a new class. After Christmas break, schools went remote for a month. Then they went back to in-person. March break was cancelled and moved to April. Now, April of 2021, a whole year later schools are back to remote learning and the government has issued a four week “stay-at-home” order. I haven’t gone into too much detail, but can you imagine how these changes have impacted out little ones. Now we are on spring break, but due to this new “stay-at-home” order, you can’t purchase items that are non-essential. So, craft materials or outdoor activities for the driveway or backyard are off limits at stores. It is ridiculous. The government has not made mental health a priority throughout this pandemic. Also, after spring break our children will not be returning to in-person school but will continue remote learning indefinitely.  

Parenting in the pandemic has made me feel like I have turned into a “bad mom”. Like so many other parents I struggled to keep my mental health in check. E-learning (homeschooling) made me feel like I was a terrible parent, who wasn’t doing enough at home to keep their child ahead. Trying to complete my masters online and managing working from home at one point caused me to burnout. Balancing the two left me with little to no energy to give my son the attention he needed. I would mentally check out by the early afternoon. Zoom fatigue is the worst, I would get of the computer and have to spend an hour laying in the dark because my head felt extremely heavy. This caused me to allow my son to have way too much screen time to stay entertained while I tried to feel better. Some weeks we ate out more than typical because cooking seemed like another draining task. Fuelling our bodies with junk didn’t make things any better of course. I would go to bed a night and think, okay… tomorrow I will do better and be better. However, tomorrow would come and I would fall into the same trap. I have felt so guilty over the past year. I thought I was a “bad mom”. I told myself that I am failing as a parent. I have experienced mom guilt before, but this pandemic has me feeling mom guilt on a whole new level.

Giving ourselves grace is so important, I am still learning how. There is no handbook on parenting, much less parenting within a global pandemic. This was unexpected and unplanned. I know that I am not alone, and you are also not alone. We as parents need to schedule time to address our mental health and well-being. We can’t pour from empty cups.

Here are links to two pervious blogs you should check out!

5 Ways to Improve Your Mental Health and Manage Stress 2020

3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Child’s Mental Health