To feel appalling guilt and impotence over my DD during lockdown

[thepeopleversuswork]

I know rationally that its not my fault exactly.
But during lockdown I feel my DD has gone backwards in so many ways and I blame myself.
I'm a lone parent and am working on average 10 hours a day. I'm on conference or zoom calls all day or working on documents. There is absolutely no question of my easing off at work, they don't take my situation into consideration at all.
The outputs of that are a) I can only support home schooling in the most rudimentary way -- I can't really supervise and she gets very little done b) she relies hugely on screen-based entertainment. I feel so awful about this but in a lot of situations its literally the only way to guarantee the non-interruption I need in order to be able to work.
During lockdown we have ensured that we build in exercise and I have tried to make time after work for non-screen based things (games/puzzles/reading). And she reads a lot. But the reality is she spends a vast amount of her time on youtube or on her tablet. I feel she has lost some social skills and she has put on weight.
I've tried motivating her to do other things (craft etc). But its always with limited success. She'll do it for a short time and then will default back to screens. I can't take the risk of her coming in and interrupting calls etc so I tend to take the path of least resistance and usually just let her get on with it.

I know in my head that this is probably just the way we've been able to cope. But I feel a mixture of appalling guilt for allowing it to continue as long as it has and anger and resentment at people who haven't had to make this choice. I know people on furlough can't be blamed for this and try hard to separate this in my head but I still feel inexplicably angry that I have had to do so much with so little support and my daughter has suffered so much as a result of my burning myself into the ground to keep the lights on.
I'm worried about lasting damage to her from this and wonder if anyone has advice about a) helping children move back into some normalised world after lockdown and b) helping support them reclaim life after screens. Because I am really eaten up about it and we both need to move on.

IDontLikeZombies

If I left now they'd be fucked. But they also know perfectly well that no-one is leaving jobs at the moment and they have me over a barrel until things improve. No I'm not in a union (any more). There is no union represention in my industry. I don't have any meaningful rights, really. Except the right to walk out of the door.

IDontLikeZombies

I've written to my MP and she's written to the useless Gavin Williamson on my behalf. Not holding my breath though.

Don't worry. It's only a few months out of her life. No long term damage if you make changes back to normal once we're through.

You're doing as best you can for her in an impossible situation. And that's enough.

Op can't you use childcare. Babysitter nanny childminder? All are now options. Child swap with friend who can take your kid to the park. Teenager or local student?

It's very stressful but there are now options. Where I live we now have holiday clubs as well.

Writerandreader I can and I am now starting to use childcare 3 days a week. And things are improving a little on this front, to be fair.

Bless you, you are trying your very best and you should be so proud of yourself for getting through this exceptionally challenging time. Give yourself a break! Congratulate yourself for what you ARE doing holding down a big job, parenting and loving your daughter, managing all the life admin and finances rather than beating yourself up for how things could be better.

I am also a single parent and I totally get it.

Try looking up Outschool -- online classes that cost money to sign up to, are of somewhat variable quality (but we've done some brilliant ones) and cover all sorts of educational topics.

There may also be free equivalents but I don't know of any. Look up your local museums, galleries and community centres to see if they have anything listed or contact them.

Another single parent here, with an only child; my dd is slightly older than yours, but while I've been working from home all lockdown I've given her no input at all. She's been doing schoolwork on screen, then playing Minecraft or watching YouTube for the rest of her time. I also feel incredibly guilty - guilty not to be spending time with her, and guilty that she doesn't have any siblings for company. Bills have to be paid though, so we just don't have the luxury of spending our days 'homeschooling', crafting etc

Basically OP

Your employer's unreasonable - but your hands are tied on that one. It'll come back to haunt them though - when they lose all the good staff who remember being treated like shit.
The situation's fucking unreasonable - what's happened to these kids is just so desperately bloody unfair.
The world's unreasonable right now

And you're just a mum trying to do the best you can for your kid. Mine gets stroppy and angry and lashes out over it all (school took her back in for that reason) but when she's calm she's mature enough to realise (she's a year younger than yours) that I'm doing the best I can by her and that it'll pass and they'll get back to some form of normality (and we do joke about the Horrible Histories bog roll thing - on here sometimes I can mentally hear Rattus saying "and people on the internet actually did tell others to put cheese in their coffee")

I've kind of made my peace with the screens for now- I bought into a subscription site for the time mine were at home before they went back to school and enforced a couple of 30 minute slots of them doing that with the kitchen timer... like "I want 30 minutes of maths and then you can go and chill and play minecraft till your eyes go square" type situation.

@thepeopleversuswork I think this is just a horrendous situation for many parents. I think employers should have given much much more slack to people in positions like yours - it's like society as a whole forgot our children - they are our common responsibility.

For me personally - if there is another lockdown and schools close I am going to get a nanny even if it needs to go on my credit card. And Im going to link up with other faimlies = we now know that outdoor transmission is non existent and children are very low risk so if school closes I'm going to keep doing swaps and take other kids to the park etc, I'm not letting my children suffer alone again.

@Sockbogies I agree with every single word of your post. Particularly this:

Any future lockdowns are carefully planned around education, with equal consideration as to how remote learning actually works when left to people who are also working

I have spent the day remote working (with laptop camera compulsorily on) with some top people in the city. How the fuck am I supposed to simultaneously work through key stage 2 tasks to be submitted for review by 1pm?

I am exhausted and would like to cry.

@thepeopleversuswork

Writerandreader I can and I am now starting to use childcare 3 days a week. And things are improving a little on this front, to be fair.

You’re working 5 days a week so why not use childcare 5 days a week? Holiday clubs are starting soon (around here) which would be ideal to give her the interaction she needs

If possible, it would be great to take some annual leave to spend with her before schools go back in September too