Confessions of a single gay dad on parenting during the 2020 confinement
A few weeks ago, in April, NYmag dedicated its entire issue to the ‘Rich Corona, Poor Corona’ dichotomy offering a stark insight in how the coronavirus crisis has disproportionately affected poor communities and people of color.
Some articles also hinted to the fact that parents have experienced the brunt of the confinement order sometimes without much understanding or empathy from their childless peers. As a reminder, New York City schools closed for good on March 15th, following by the state’s stay-at-home order on March 22nd. Since then, our children have gone through the oddest period of their childhood so far and we lived one of the most challenging moment in our parenting experience.
Two weeks ago, I received a call from the Board chair of an LGBT+ NYC singing group on the Board of which I serve reproaching me for not having been responsive to his emails during the pandemic. One of the emails that I ignored, titled “Action required: Strategic Plan Review”, was sent two weeks into the confinement. Following the onslaught of reminders, I had emailed him on April 16th “I am adjusting to the situation with some difficulty” and texted himon May 4th “Just a bit swamped. The twins are out of school. It has been two months. So I juggle the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry and the schooling. It’s a lot at the moment”. Still he was lecturing me about meeting my volunteer commitment. I took the phone off my ear at some point during the call and just stared at it.
Throughout the pandemic, I experienced several of this tone-deaf comments which illustrated the lack of understanding of the situation of parents of small children confined in NYC for the past few months.
At the opposite of the spectrum, some of my childless friends and colleagues showed up in big ways. My friend Nic called from Ohio regularly to read to the twins in the evening — something I have always been unable to do. The twins godfather and another friend sent the twins potted plants to watch them grow in the apartment (lately the plants have been taking a bit of a turn for the worse). My friends Becky and Catherine separately sent me children masks and sterilizing wipes. Colleagues at OutLeadership often picked up our slack and cheered the kids when they would pop up on zoom calls holding half-completed assignments. My colleague Justin baked them bread. Our CEO and founder gave us additional days off. Many wrote them letters to which they diligently replied with comments such as “don’t gait the sicness!”.
These were such welcome breaks in what might have been the most challenging months of our parenting journey.
Obviously, juggling work and homeschooling as well as the additional household tasks has been a time-consuming challenge. Particularly in the tiny apartment we live in. Our second shift just became a concomitant first shift. But perhaps more importantly, the toll of not being able to fulfill the emotional needs of our children was hard to deal with.
Children, particularly small children, need attention and they are smart about getting it. If they’re not getting positive attention from their caregivers, they will get attention in negative ways: my sons covered their bed and clothes with glue, wrote long sentences on their beige corduroy pants, explored my photo archives on my iPad and broke every single pen they could put their hands on in the house.
Parents are also attuned to the emotional state of their children. The first month, I found my sons crying in their room because they “missed people”. It was also heartbreaking to see them running away from other kids in their daily 30 minutes outing in Central Park that wanted to play with them because I had forbidden them to approach anybody.
Toddlers and young children do not entertain themselves for an entire workday and it took a long time for NYC public schools to come up with even two hours of homework children could do independently. This did not prevent teachers to send constant messages to parents demanding to see completed homework and reminding them that their kids could be kept back if they did not make progress in writing or maths. Once the public system got it together, parents had to start login numerous websites and zoom meetings just so their children could get 2 hours of education every day.
My children — with some help — finished several virtual reality puzzle games (including “I expect you to die” which I really got into) on my Oculus Quest while my mother was sending me alarmist articles on the danger of digital devices and screen time for children and the consequences of the “screen epidemic”. Just in case I did not feel bad enough…
Our children felt caged, lonely and confused and all we could do was ask them to go to their room and be quiet so daddy could work. Finding the right words to comfort them was a constant struggle. Ultimately, I felt both like a suboptimal employee and a mediocre parent every day for 90 days or so.
There was also something ironic about being a parent in the time of Covid19. We reap what we sow. It was as comfortable as the time and energy we had spent before the crisis on teaching our children manners, respect, and a general knowledge of how to get along with others. The many times I felt overwhelmed, it was a silver lining to remember that we might never had another opportunity to spend that much time with them.
Hopefully, these three months were also a life-enhancing, mind-broadening experience which will leave them with some good memories.