First of September. Time to go back to school. Magic date and a magic day. It means the end of the holiday fun for children and the end of the holiday nightmare for parents. The children do not want to go back to school. Their parents cannot be more happy that summer break is already finished. Nothing has changed in this matter.
Life of a parent is hard and doesn't need any virus to make it harder. You’ve got a lot on your shoulders, home, children, work and no one cares how you handle it, how you organize yourself. To find the right work-life balance is a tough challenge. You can practically forget about having any time for your own and there’s no end to this. I experienced it,
When I came to the UK I couldn’t really understand the expression "school run". It's hard without children. Now I get it. Name fits perfectly. It means that you get up on the run, get your children ready for school and yourself to work, and you run out. You rush, drop your child off and rush to work, work and rush again to pick up little ones on time, because if you're just a little late, the school will call you right away. And so every day, and there are also so-called extra classes. For me it looks a little better nowadays. I don't have to rush that much.
My son is 9 years old, this year he will be in Year 5. He has to be at school by 8:55, he is out punctually at 15:15. My wife goes to work in the morning, and I prepare my son for school (or vice versa, it depends on who works morning shift that day). Twins are running all over the place and it’s chaos, but it's okay, we manage somehow, because we have to. I pack them into the buggy and we go. After I drop my son off is an easy ride, we slowly go back home, eat breakfast and take care of what we need to. Around noon the children have a nap and I go to sleep with them (you have to catch sleep whenever you can). We get up and go pick up an old one, back at home I feed them with soup, my wife comes back and I go to work. On weekends, as the nature of our work forces us to work on Saturdays and Sundays, we share. We work alternative weekends, so there is always someone at work, and the other one, no one knows more or less happy one, babysits all the children for two whole days. As I said, my situation is not that bad. Whatever happens, no matter what, the child gets sick, we have an important appointment, half-term or holidays - I don't have to stress, because my arrangements do not interfere with my work life. Some people are not so lucky and a child, who for some reason does not go to school is an additional burden, as not every employer will tolerate the "family issue" type of explanation forever. My system, in all its simplicity, has one major downside. My wife and I both work shifts, so we hardly see each other. Each of us spends a decent amount of time with our children, but we spend very little time together as a family.
Covid-19, as we all know very well, turned the whole world upside down. It messed up in every possible area of life. Schools in England closed in March. At first everything looked good, a bit like a joke or a nice gift from fate. It started just like any half-term or holiday when it's quite normal that all routines die on the spot, but very soon we realized it’s not going to be an easy ride. For me business was closed at the end of March. Theoretically. Practically, so-called work from home began, and I was required to be available all day, Monday to Friday. Weekends were generously given as days off. Same to my wife. Meetings, consultations and training sessions have started. Children do not really understand that dad has a two-hour Skype, and they should be quiet. Sorry, I don't work from home. I work shifts, precisely to combine work with childcare! On top of all this came the famous homeschooling. I am not a good teacher. I have no patience for this. If I had to do this, I would probably scream and shout. Or I would start drinking to drown my frustration, as many teachers do.
Nightmare. Once a week, the school sent us things to do. It wasn't too much, and at the end of the week everything had to be uploaded on the relevant website and so on. Sounds okay, only there is no discipline at home. It took me a lot more to convince my son to sit at the table and start doing it than it did for him to make the daily portion himself. Constant discussions: do faster, do not look out the window, focus... And listening to things like: why and why, I'm tired, why it takes so long, it doesn't make sense, I don't want to... It was exactly the same every single day and the two little ones did not make the whole thing any easier. Locked up in four walls, we didn't go out, so the school had the great idea that the kids must have PE as well, and they came up with online classes and exercises, in which you had to follow someone on YouTube at 9AM. I don't know, maybe some people like it, maybe they feel good about it, but I didn't like it. And so it was for four months until the end of June. The best part is that we haven't had a bad time anyway. And we’ve had an easy ride compared to some of our friends. When I saw what they had to do every week, my heart stopped. I would never get through this. Apparently everything depended on the teachers, and thankfully our lady was pretty lazy. After all this, it turned out that the school was going to make an annual report based on what the kids had achieved before the closure and also on the teacher's opinion, so the whole home kindergarten idea could have been smashed hard right at the start.
My little darling became wayward and lazy over time. Nothing more nothing less. Too much free time and nothing to do. Everyone in the house, tired of each other. There was not much we could do to entertain our son. Everything was closed. Yes, we did go for a walk every day. We spent a lot of time in the garden or playing football on the nearby lawn, but it was clear that it was not enough to let the steam out. There was a computer, of course. The thing our offspring love most. We let him play much more than normal, and it quickly turned out that he is playing... with his classmates. It was good that he had some substitute contact with his peers. Over time, new routines became established. Sleeping till late, breakfast, TV, whining, then computer, lunch, TV, whining, argument about whining, dinner, computer and going to sleep, but the bedtime was much later than it would be during a normal school year. We, preoccupied with twins, gave up, because we were all at home all the time, it was too much for everyone and more and more often there were minor tensions.
We went back to work in early June. Seemingly, life has returned to normal. We started to exchange responsibilities. For the twins, it was the same as always, and only this poor son of ours did not feel any change. His new routines remained the same. The worst part is that he started to like these routines. He didn't have to get up in the morning, he didn't have to study anything, or go anywhere. He was sleeping a lot, gaming even more, watching YouTube and it was only more and more visible that he is bored and definitely in need of some physical activities.
It turned out that schools will open on time, with some minor modifications, such as picking up at different times, parents not entering the premises or on PE days children come wearing their PE kit. Nothing big. We bought new clothes and shoes, and we are ready to regain some of our lives. When asked, my son was very blunt about the school. I will not quote him, but the meaning of his statement was that he doesn't really miss his friends, and he does not want to go back to school. I'm not surprised. Being him I would probably feel the same.
1st of September, hurray! Finally!
I heard a very interesting thing on the BBC today. The children are going back to school, they said, which is hard to comprehend, because, as it is, so many people together, crammed into such a small space... Parents are said to be very worried about it. I just don't know what kind of parents are really disturbed with this. I am a parent myself and I know many parents. Let me tell you one thing - none of my friends are worried about it. Nobody has any doubts and everyone is looking forward to their child's return to school. Everyone agrees that the kids in the house just started freaking out, that it was all taking way too long.
School is absolutely essential for a young person. It gives knowledge. Teaches discipline. Shows how to live. The child must be with peers, play with them, laugh and argue. See them and talk in real life and not only via the computer. School is also absolutely essential for parents . It gives them a break from their children. It allows them to reset their brains and gather strength. I can understand that teachers are reluctant to go back to work and that homeschooling is ideal for them. For us parents, school is a salvation. Without it, the whole system would collapse like a house of cards and everyone would lose eventually.
The second thing. Apparently concern is caused by the large number of people crammed into a small space... Sorry? Aren't they disturbed by thousands of people swarming in Ikea every single day? Where, despite all the safety measures introduced, social distancing doesn’t exist, because everyone does what they want and people crawl on people and touch everything around? Does that worry no one? In shops, at least the majority wear masks, but what about the thousands who, on beautiful sunny days, were frying on the beaches, side by side, exposing uncovered faces to the sun? What happens in parks, shops and on the streets is disturbing. In my opinion, schools are a problem here for those morons, who normally misbehave and don’t comply.
Don’t you think that maybe that's how it should be?
You can't keep people isolated. They can't live like that.
The world now seems to be divided into three periods. Time before the virus, time of the virus, and what some people call the post-virus new reality... Some of those talk about how nicely we've adapted to living in the new world, to work from home, to homeschooling and to not going out in general. I absolutely disagree with that. We should never be locked in our homes. No one should be guided or intimidated. We have to live like human beings do.
Our children need to go to a normal school. They have to live normally because we, the parents, need it as well. And what if they could get infected there?
Maybe we should all finally get infected and that way it would end once for all?
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