Lockdown. How easy has it been for you. Or hasn't it?

[Shosha1]

Just watching TV and guest on a show was saying that lockdown has been easy for them.

BUT they lived in a big house in the country. Lots of personal outside space, and no apparent immediate financial worries.

But that is not how most of us live.

We are lucky, only DH and I at home, and although I'm on shielding list, I do live in a tiny hamlet in Wiltshire with a huge garden. DH is in a secure job. I'm retired with PIP, so our finances are fine.

But I keep thinking about a single mum living in a 15th floor flat. How the hell does she cope?

Do you live in a place like myself, or are you one of the ones really struggling.

If you are, you have my great admiration. I was a single Mum for a long time and csnt imagine not being able to see my parents, without them I would not have managed.

Bit rambling, but really where do you live? How much is it affecting how lockdown is for you? .

It's been a mixed bag for me, on one hand, compared to most I'm having an easy ride of it and feel a little awful for moaning.

Our finances are not much different to what they were before lockdown, we're still skint! But, we have a garden that's a reasonable size and enough toys and garden jobs to keep DD (3) entertained out there.

On the other hand, I run my own children's clothing business and WFH and trying to do this, keeping up with my orders, website maintenance, keeping up with my social media pages to keep the orders coming in... Plus maintaining some semblance of a home and keeping up with DD... Its starting to stress me out in a big way.

I need to work to pay the bills, I need the work to keep coming in to pay the bills, but all this obviously takes time and is accompanied by the relentless "mummy, mummy, mummy".

The sooner we can return to normal, the better. Although I'm not in a hurry to lift lockdown etc I'd much rather we were all safe... But you know what I mean. I want to be able to go to sleep before 2am again!

Ups and downs for me - good days and bad days.

I'm a lone parent to 6 children and until today they hadn't seen their father at all. Not once. I'm working full time and my work is busier than ever. The hardest thing for me has been working and home educating the youngest children. I try to carve 2 hours out of the day and am senior enough that I can do that at work, but it's tricky because I'm so busy. The guilt and stress are huge. Some days I'm just so busy, that I can barely breathe.

Some days it's exhausting. It's always relentless. It's so hard being the only parent. I really really miss adult company.

And the practical side - cooking, cleaning, shopping, illness, etc is just never ending.

BUT on the upside, I've built a lovely relationship with my dcs, we are cooking and eating together every day. We are baking. We are walking the dogs, exercising and having such a lovely time. We've decorated the house. I love my work and and I love my friends. (I actually love zoom!). Zoom evenings with my friends have kept me sane. I'm so lucky to have them.

It's hard for me as a single parent. But I think if you are a single parent who has lost their job, with no outside space, and no support, this is an intolerable situation. And actually, I think the costs to lockdown far far outweigh the benefits.

I live in a flat and have an active 4 year old boy and a 3m old EBF baby, on top of that I was ill with (probably coronavirus) in March, I have an MSc dissertation to write over the summer....so you'd think I'd be struggling, but apart from being a bit tired I'm pretty much fine.

I think its because I had bad hyperemisis with DS2, I pretty much spent 6m in bed a bit 'out of it' as the anti sickness tablets made me so drowsy. So I guess I'm just mainly thankful to be healthy, to enjoy nice food and have the energy for go for walks and spend time with the DSs without feeling sick.

Practically we have been okay - it is me and my three teens, we live in a semi-detached house with a garden. I was temping when the lockdown started and then the work stopped (though I have volunteered in my community through my mutual aid group) and I have been living off the money I got when my car was written off. That’s running out but I am now seriously looking for new work and my Dad would help me if I really needed help. It looks like I may have a temporary contract in June, but I am also applying for permanent jobs.

So physically it has been okay, and we are lucky, but mentally, like everyone else, I go through phases (and every evening for about two or three hours) of finding it very difficult. The uncertainty, fear, sadness and isolation. My kids have been okay, but two out of three are fed up now. One had been going to sit A Levels, one GCSEs, so that was a shock. The one in Year 9 is the only one still having work set by their school, who have been very good with their online classroom and I haven’t had to do anything there apart from prod them to log on and start working. We are also arguing more with each other now and I think that’s due to how long we have been just us for (though two of my kids and I have gone to the park to meet the allowed socially distant one friend - all separately I mean).

Find myself crying quite a lot sometimes (yesterday for example) - I think mental health is quite a tenuous thing and sometimes hangs by a thread, and a lot of the things we do to bolster ourselves aren’t available right now.

Shocking to see what a mess our government has made of this and I have no faith in them. That doesn’t help psychologically either.

Exhausting with 2 energetic small children who both want my undivided attention and are competitive with each other, luckily we have a large house and garden and there's no home schooling this week.

Hell on earth. I am a single parent in a flat with no outdoor space. I'm on furlough and my job is at risk. I'm between a rock and a hard place as I can't work until DS goes back to school, whenever that may be (job isn't possible to do from home and no chance of me getting a WFH job as I have no qualifications).

I just want this all to be over. No idea what we are going to do if I lose my job.

I was wfh before all this so work wise nothing major has changed. I have a good sized house and a nice garden so I feel very lucky in that aspect. I have company with both adult DC here (luckily we all get on well!). So I would say that for me personally it’s been fine. Had this happened 20 years ago when the DC were young and we lived in a poky flat, my answer would be different! So I can imagine how hard it is for some people.

We are lucky, been very easy for us. Financially secure, will take financial hit on summer holiday, cancelled school trip and I have no income now as we've got 2 kids at home who need home educating one with SN. But we can manage fine on one income. DH job has more work than ever and he's wfh. I don't qualify for self-employment scheme as only started 1.5 years ago but luckily can manage without it.

We live rurally in a village with lovely community supporting each other and supermarket in our lane, garden etc. Loving having all family home, no school pressure (DS is ASD and school often couldn't cope), no commute for DH, everyone is happier. I need to teach DS everything but am enjoying that and learning subjects I didn't choose for my GCSEs. Plus a whole lot of random stuff as DS is ASD and suddenly likes to investigate things with me.

Kids have learnt new skills, Dh is doing lots of lovely baking cakes and cooking, piano playing. DD has started cooking us breakfast and painted her room. We've got 3 silkie chickens - thinking about it before and finally decided to take plunge, first egg two days ago and now 3 eggs. Our cat is loving us being here all the time, cat purrs non-stop.

It was ok at first. I don't have financial worries and we have outside space BUT we are also not able to get home, and we (me and ds) haven't seen my DH since 28th Feb. It's getting to me now. We've been apart before for longer periods than this, but that was planned, and manageable because we knew when we could all be together again. But there is no end in sight right now. No flights home yet. And I also miss my cats like mad.

Oh Waxonwaxoff0 you're exactly the kind of person I've been worried about during this, you poor thing. I really hope you get something sorted and that we're all back to normal asap.

I found it quite telling that the didn't put everyone onto UC as if they had, they would have all seen what an absolute shit show it is and we can't have that! I suspect though, that there will need to be an overhaul as there will be a lot of people financially impacted by this crisis and the system will need to be a lot more workable than it currently is for those who are out of work or on a low income

Very easy and I know I'm very lucky. I'm actually loving it. I've been furloughed but am actually better off as gym/cinema/soft play memberships have all been frozen. Dh is still working but doing less hours on full pay. 4 dc but two are teenagers so doing their own nocturnal thing and I'm homeschooling the other two.

Home schooling takes up a big chunk of the day and I've no idea how anyone with more than two children can possibly get it all done never mind those that are working. Working from home and homeschooling would be impossible and it must be a nightmare to deal with. We also have a good sized house and big garden so it's easy to escape for 10 mins if you need to.

I worry about my young sil who is on her own in a tiny flat and has hell from her neighbours (music all night etc) and no outside space. Also worry about my grandad who is rattling about a large house alone and while he has a garden he is high risk and his usual busy life has totally stopped. He's in tears every time I phone him and I worry that this will kill him before the virus gets a chance.

It’s been fine for me as I’ve had loads to do at home (4 children in early adulthood, one husband, 2 dogs, so taking turns cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing clothes etc). We live in a big enough house in a rural area, so have enjoyed walking the dogs. I have also been working, but that still means I’ve been on lockdown, as apart from travelling to & from work (support worker in a residential children’s home), I’ve been following Government guidelines. Work is similar to home - just teenaged young people that aren’t mine & the home is on the edge of a small town, but we rarely meet others while we’re out walking. I’m looking forward to seeing a friend at her house tomorrow & another friend coming to mine on Wednesday. We’ll keep 2m apart. I’ve had a few Zoom socials & done Zumba via Zoom. As others have said, I feel sorry for those who are having a really tough time of it.

MarkRuffaloCrumble thank you. I have been on benefits before when DS was a baby, so I know I could manage but it feels like such a huge step backwards. I was so lucky to find a job that I love with amazing employers who were willing to take me on despite having no experience. I'll be devastated to lose it. My confidence was at its lowest when I was on benefits and I could cry thinking about having to go back to that.

I found it very hard at first, wfh full time with 2 primary age dc to home educate but now we have settled into a routine, we live in a flat but access to a shared garden so can get out.

I would rather lockdown not lifted too soon if it will risk a lot of lives.

Have really flipped between feeling very can do and positive about making the best of this situation and feeling very low and overwhelmed with sadness. Have family member who has fled an abusive marriage in the middle of this and another family member who had their spouse of 50 years die alone and not being able to comfort or see any of them is making me feel Impotent and useless. In one way can't wait for it to all be over but also feel weight of responsibility to make a large workplace safe when it's reopens. Mainly feeling lonely as have distant family and few close friends to be in contact with.

We're in a 2 bed flat in central London with a toddler and a teenager. No outside space. It's still been fairly easy for us, though. I have taken the toddler out every day, as we have lots of parks and gardens nearby. I made it a plan to visit every green/public space within walking distance, and I still have new places I could go. So I feel lucky that we have that variety of interesting places to visit. We always see people on our walks, but make an effort to be socially distanced. I actually like being able to do people-watching, so I wouldn't want to just be surrounded by fields and never see anyone.

Financially we haven't been affected much. DH's job is secure and well-paid and he can wfh easily (he'll probably wfh until at least the end of the year). I run a small business where I usually wfh but I'm furloughed, which I'm glad about as I can focus fully on the dc and the flat. DH's wage covers everything we need, so I'm not too concerned about how the business will be affected.

I don't need to home educate as the toddler is below school age and the teenager has left school. I would have found it stressful to have to do that. I am doing lots of playing, reading and music/dance activities with my toddler, but nothing formal. She's very active outside the house, and loves to explore the different parks we go to.

DH and I don't really see friends regularly, and the teen only has online friends anyway, so we aren't bothered about not being able to socialise.