To miss the first lockdown?

you do you.

Others posters have said she SHOULDN'T post. Of course she should.
I find people who only believe in their own experience and try to dictate how others should feel the tacky and unoriginal and self-indulgent ones frankly.

The question is whether posting these experiences adds to the debate.
actually, It does. For example, so many (office) people have seen their work scheduled completely transformed by the lockdown, because people realise things COULD be done differently, because the money to put the infrastructure in place was spent anyway. On MN, everybody is apparently told to go back to the office 5 days a week, in real life, many companies don't even have enough desk to accommodate the staff there anyway.

Acknowledging the positives of the lockdown IS a good thing.

If people want to have a thread where they discuss their nostalgia about their "quiet" or whatever life they had, who are all these people telling them they can't? If posters want to discuss what they can do to replicate the aspects they like, and what they can't (because of peer pressure or god knows what)
LET THEM BE.

Your shit lockdown is not any better because everyone was miserable.

This is what I have trouble with. Someone being policed for starting a thread on an anonymous forum. If the OP said something similar in real life to a person who they knew had endured increased domestic abuse, lost a family member or suffered due to isolation or illness or poverty, then of course it would be stupidly insensitive. But it’s a big big world with lots of people with lots of different experiences, all of which are valid. You can always rely on Mumsnet for a good dose of black and white thinking and a healthy dollop of whataboutery.

My grandmother died without me being able to see her. My close friend desperately missed being able to see her grandchildren and family and I spent it working my ass off on my own in a basement trying to send out as many online orders as I could to keep the company I worked for in business for it to only close down shortly afterwards anyway putting a lot of people out of work. So no I do not miss lockdown at all!

Thanks I was thinking more physical issues that's bad that things weren't kept in place for the hearing impaired and that is definitely a step backwards.

Where to start? For example, I worked with deaf and disabled people, who experienced a level of access when things pivoted to online delivery they had never known. So many online events were made accessible to them through BSL or captioning provision that had never been before. Many service providers really appeared to give thoughts to making their online events as accessible as possible.

The shortage of BSL interpreters etc was far less an issue for online events than it was for in-person because service providers were not constrained to only use BSL interpreters who lived nearby. An interpreter could do multiple jobs a day, providing services to people all over the country (and further afield). That's not possible for in-person provision because people can't physically jump from John O'Groats to Plymouth in the space of 10 minutes. All of that is possible online.

Services for deaf people and access to all kinds of things dramatically improved during the lockdowns. Services providers claimed to be fully committed to providing improved access one everything opened back up again. Then things DID open back up and it was back to the same old, same old.

@RichHolidayPoorHoliday

You keep a dignified and gracious silence on a thread posted by someone grieving a lost relative or a thread started about the mental health damage on your teen or something.
You can absolutely START a thread about something positive for you.
It's astonishing how people try to dictate what others are feeling or have the right to say? Everybody's experience is as valid as yours!

You can of course start a thread about whatever you like, as is your right. It's also my right to find this post tacky, unoriginal, insensitive and self-indulgent and to say so. I have as much right to my opinions as the OP does.

Everyone's experience is "valid". The question is whether posting these experiences adds to the debate.

I think the OP's position is vapid and morally bankrupt. She can post whatever she wants, I will continue to think its vapid and morally bankrupt.

My Dw is disabled, what was accessible in lockdown that wasn't once it was lifted?

Because they're not disabled. They've never experienced life as a disabled person. They couldn't imagine what it's like to be denied access to the normal, everyday things that non-disabled people unthinkingly take for granted their entire lives, and then to have it all snatched away from them again once Lockdown ends.

Sorry what do you mean?

No.

You keep a dignified and gracious silence on a thread posted by someone grieving a lost relative or a thread started about the mental health damage on your teen or something.

You can absolutely START a thread about something positive for you.

It's astonishing how people try to dictate what others are feeling or have the right to say? Everybody's experience is as valid as yours!

I think quite a lot of people do wish for that although many of them wouldn't articulate it.

But what makes you think that people feel that way if they are not articulating it? What evidence do you have?

I wasn't playing with kids in my garden. I didn't have a garden or kids. I wasn't furloughed. I was a self-employed person working crazy hours during Lockdown and living alone with no access to family or a support network. I did see any family or friends for over a year and worried that I would never see the one remaining member (elderly) of my nuclear family again. A friend died during Covid and I couldn't attend the funeral. I was often lonely and felt over-worked and was definitely not rich with a huge garden and oodles of time to bake bread.

Nevertheless, there were aspects of life during the Lockdown that I immensely enjoyed and was surprised by this. My life changed for the better as a result of the Lockdown (as distinct from the pandemic), particularly the new ways of working. But I would not want to return to a Lockdown state because I recognise that for so many people, that time was horrendous. I don't think one person on this thread has said they would ever want to see further Lockdowns.

Even the OP was only referring to the first Lockdown - I think she stated she found subsequent lockdowns oppressive. There IS an acknowledgement that it was not a universally pleasant experience for everyone, far from it. She experiences a wave of nostalgia for the way her life was during that period, she didn't say she wanted more Lockdowns.

Many of my clients say the same thing - and no, it's NOT possible for them to recreate that experience now. The accessibility they so enjoyed for, in many cases, the first time in their lives as disabled people, completely dried up the minute we went back to in-person events. They caught a glimpse of what their lives COULD be like and then it was snatched away from them again.

Heatwave. People will die, DIE in the heat.
Others will flood MN to complain about the HEAT, how horrendous it is, making their life miserable, how they can't live like this. Twats will kill or injure their animals by leaving them in cars or taking them on hot pavement. And cancer, and global warming, and temperature raising.. the fear of heat. You get the idea.

In that same heatwave, some people will have the best holiday of a lifetime, be on the beach or a beautiful resort.

Same thing. No one is directlyresponsible or making any difference to the heat, some will have a shit time, others will have the best summer of their life.

No rose-tinted glasses, absolutely right to start a thread saying "this weather is glorious, who else is loving their time"?

People have difference experiences. Does it make you feel better if everybody else is miserable? That's ridiculous. Just don't go on threads where people are loving the heat, or remembering how the lockdown was a positive for them!

Their experience is as valid as yours.

It was horrific. I had two teens studying from home and completely isolated from their friends.
I would dread having to do the supermarket shop every week, convinced I was going to bring COVID home to us all.
The local do-gooders were taking pictures and videos of us that dared to walk our dogs and posting them on the village FB page with comments about how they had reported us to the police and that we were killing people.
i simply cannot understand how people enjoyed this period and I would NEVER adhere to a lockdown again. It did more harm than good.

Why should she be silenced for voicing her views and experiences? You don't have to read her thread. She isnt standing on a box outside your house with a loudspeaker.

Accessibility for disabled people isn't a positive to you? Why?

That sounds really difficult and I don’t blame you for hating it.

but so many including myself relished that time to just live in a bubble for a while. That is my experience and just like yours, you are entitled to feel the way you do.

Beautifully put. This perfectly sums up how I feel.👏

It's OK to feel what you felt but a dignified and gracious silence on this breathtakingly tactless and deeply unoriginal revelation would cost you nothing and would do those of us who had a miserable time an enormous service.

The first lockdown cured my PND because I no longer had to see or meet the high expectations of the people triggering me. So in that sense, yes I did appreciate that pause on life. I wasn't working though and I had two DC under 5 so no school work to worry about. DH had just started a new job so we just both played our part and things were pretty simple.

Would I do it again, hell no!

I remember having to mute my DD's class WhatsApp group because of all the SAHM's or furloughed Mum's posting pics of their smiling DC next to their banana bread and elaborate craft projects, selfies lounging in the garden with a G&T, waxing lyrical about how lovely it was to slow down and have so much quality time with their DC. Meanwhile, DH and I were working in shifts from 5am until midnight trying to juggle manically busy jobs with homeschooling DD and caring for a toddler with SEND. I felt like I was failing my DC because I couldn't give them this magical, blissful lockdown experience that others were apparently having.

Were those Mum's unreasonable to be enjoying themselves when I wasn't? Of course not! They weren't doing anything wrong.

Were they unreasonable to keep posting about what a lovely time they were having on a group with NHS Doctors and Nurses, people who were facing financial ruin, and people who were struggling mentally or losing loved ones? I think so, yes. Others may disagree, but I think it was unnecessary and insensitive.

I feel the same about this thread. Its great that you had such a lovely time in lockdown, OP but I do think that it's tone deaf to start a wistful, navel-gazing thread about how nostalgic you are for lockdown when the grief, the trauma, the financial calamity and the physical and emotional toll is still very raw for so many people.

I wouldnt give so much headspace to the things that get said on MN. Debate things, chat about things etc but it shouldnt be that 5 years later your still so affected by posts on here. Its MN it's not the world.

I sort of know what you mean OP. If you’re an introvert and find social interaction tiring, at first it was a bit of a novelty, no longer having to make excuses to avoid seeing people/doing things. I recall the first summer was a nice one and it felt like endless, slow days without the rush of commute and life craziness.

But I also know that’s a very privileged position to be in. Many were stuck indoors in cramped accommodation, sometimes with abusive partners. Many were isolated from sick relatives and had the horror of having to say goodbye on video calls. Many, many people struggled with isolation, business loss etc and some have never recovered.

I think it’s ok if you were fortunate enough to have enjoyed the state sanctioned rest but I certainly don’t ’miss it’. I have however found ways to slow down and learned lessons from it.

Come on then explain the connection between covid and AI?

@Butchyrestingface

If they were self-indulgent and morally bankrupt, surely the people who enjoyed Lockdown or aspects of it would be wishing for a return to that state?

I think quite a lot of people do wish for that although many of them wouldn't articulate it. And to be fair, not necessarily only people who are morally bankrupt. I can understand how if you have had a lovely time playing in your garden with your kids you might be reluctant to go back to working in an office. Its a perfectly rational position.

Then you get this whole narrative overlaid about how wonderful it was for "introverts" (ie pnot actual introverts but people with social anxiety who decided to identify as "introverts") to not have to deal with other people any more because they couldn't be bothered.

My problems with this are:

a) people not realising that their time being "cosy" and "reconnecting" came in direct contrast to other people whose lives or livelihoods were at risk, whose children were struggling and whose mental health was shot. And also the idea that this "slow pace of life" is something which is open to anyone. It very obviously is not. It was open to people with a unique combination of circumstances in their favour. It's just very lacking in tact.

b) a society where everyone retreats back into their family unit is not a healthy one. Yes there are some benefits to being able to chill and spend quality time with your children. But the COVID experience gave a lot of anxious people the green light to indulge their worst fears and carte blanche to switch off from society, something which I think triggered the epidemic of poor mental health and depleted social skills which we are living through now. (There are other factors, smartphones have also played a major part as have changes in working patterns etc, but this was a key trigger). It's not healthy and its not something which should be celebrated as part of some weird nostalgia by a small group of people who did very well out of lockdowns.

Mumsnet really is one of the most peculiar corners of the internet!

we will just have to agree to disagree

God yes I hate those "time to learn to slow down" posts. So totally lacking in emotional intelligence.

I remember going to a party when the first lockdown ended: it was the first time I'd seen anyone socially other than my daughter for nearly three months and we went to a socially distanced party. And some twat was banging on about how great furlough was and how wonderful it was to "connect" again and to learn how to enjoy nature and his family.

I was on Zoom calls in a bunker of an office more or less around the clock and I nearly throttled him.