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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be really angry that seeing my parents is illegal?

675 replies

Snailsetssail · 08/10/2020 21:26

My area is very likely to be locked down next week. I am so furious that it’s going to be against the law for me to see my parents, and my children to see their grandparents. We did lockdown properly last time, it was absolutely awful. My mental health plummeted and I don’t think I can do it again. I rely on support from family and friends.

Just feeling so incredibly angry about it all tonight. Poor people in Leicester have lived like this for 100 days so far with no end in site.

I’m so fed up and I know I’m going to be told to just get on it it. But I just need a space to vent.

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 10/10/2020 10:25

Even if he is the household should still be at home

Elphame · 10/10/2020 10:27

I'm in Wales and not even allowed to go to my local supermarket let alone travel to see my now very elderly parents.

This is ridiculous and the policy is simply not going to work. It didn't in the spring and it won't now.

StealthPolarBear · 10/10/2020 10:29

Wow that's a stricter lockdown than we've got. How are people meant to get food?

derxa · 10/10/2020 10:31

@compulsiveliar2019

This thread scares me. It seems a certain proportion of the public have lost the ability to use their own common sense and rational thinking skills. There is more to life than covid. There is more to life than this pitiful existence that we have trapped ourselves in. We are caught in a covid rut and need to find a way to get out of it. People need to be able to make their own judgment about what is right for their own family and their circumstances. For those saying we should lockdown again and abide by all the rules - how long should we keep doing that for? Another 3 months? 6 months? A year? What if there is still no vaccine? What then? What about all the poor souls who will die alone in that time because they can't have family or friends visit? What about the children who loose opportunities to know their relatives? What about the kids education and prospects for the future? When do you say enough is enough?
Well said
dontdisturbmenow · 10/10/2020 10:32

a staggering lack of insight into just how distressing and damaging lockdown is for people less privileged than they are
I totally get the devastation for people who are losing their jobs and facing economical doom.

I get it when you have a family member terminally ill, older parents in care homes who don't understand what is happening.
But this wasn't OPs situation. She just seems totally list at the prospect of not seeing mummy and daddy for some more months. That's nowhere near devastation, that's being overdramatic.

CrappleUmble · 10/10/2020 10:40

@dontdisturbmenow

a staggering lack of insight into just how distressing and damaging lockdown is for people less privileged than they are I totally get the devastation for people who are losing their jobs and facing economical doom.

I get it when you have a family member terminally ill, older parents in care homes who don't understand what is happening.
But this wasn't OPs situation. She just seems totally list at the prospect of not seeing mummy and daddy for some more months. That's nowhere near devastation, that's being overdramatic.

You sound nice. Where did you acquire this expertise in internet mental health assessment?
WitchQueenofDarkness · 10/10/2020 11:30

@StealthPolarBear

Wow that's a stricter lockdown than we've got. How are people meant to get food?
It would mean leaving my county which is illegal. I can travel quite legally to the one 20 miles away.
Letsgetgoing123 · 10/10/2020 11:37

@FeckOffCup1

The child and the brother are in separate bubbles but only the child who has CV has been told SI. The brother who lives in the same household is still being expected to go to school and is being dropped into school by the mum who also lives in the same house.
@FeckOffCup1

This is totally wrong, and will be putting the rest of the school at risk, especially those in the brother’s year group.

Are you sure the child is actually positive, and not just been in contact with a positive case?

If the child did test positive I would expect that the parents would have been given information regarding the need to isolate, and surely they would have informed school?

StealthPolarBear · 10/10/2020 11:38

Because the local supermarket is over a county border? So you have to go to one further away? Madness!

Stantons · 10/10/2020 11:57

I find it ridiculous that OHs kids can come into our house snot and slobber everywhere and lounge over OH but I can't even meet my parents at a sensible distance in their garden. I know which poses the biggest threat!!!

PennyDreadfuI · 10/10/2020 12:08

@WinifredSanderson

Lockdown seems to suit the comfortably well off pretty nicely doesn't it. Meanwhile the rest of us who don't drive and don't have the latest tech and don't have employers who let us work from home will just have to 'crack on' eh?
This.
ancientgran · 10/10/2020 12:48

@stopgap I’m glad your sister and family came out the other side regarding a wartime situation. That definitely puts things in perspective! It was definitely a horrible time, they had the news on at work one day and there was an announcement of heavy bombing in her city and I cried, I'd never cried at work before and I felt such a fool. I have to say the British Embassy were pretty useless which didn't help.

Doesn't make it any easier for you though and being along way from family in troubling times isn't easy. Hopefully it won't be long before you can visit. I remain optimistic about a vaccine.

Letsgetgoing123 · 10/10/2020 13:02

@Snailsetssail

“I’m so fed up and I know I’m going to be told to just get on it it. But I just need a space to vent”

OP I think we all feel like this at the moment and it is ok to vent, I am having a day like that today, and the weather is not helping.

But yes I suppose we have to suck it up and get on with it, because as far as I can see, no one has come up with a better solution.......

The people who just want to forget about it and get on with their lives seem to handily gloss over the rising hospital admissions, and the fact that this will impact on everything else we do, whether we like it or not.

MrsMcMuffins · 10/10/2020 13:02

@Stantons, they are children with a relationship with their dad while you and your parents are all adults? Personally I would see people outside at a safe distance.

Letsgetgoing123 · 10/10/2020 13:10

“I find it ridiculous that OHs kids can come into our house snot and slobber everywhere and lounge over OH but I can't even meet my parents at a sensible distance in their garden. I know which poses the biggest threat!!!”

It does seem stupid doesn’t it? Personally I can’t see a problem at all with meeting up with people at distance outside, and I’m not sure why this isn’t allowed in some areas.

I can only surmise that it’s because people either aren’t distancing, or will tend to go inside if it’s cold or wet? But that’s just my own opinion.

Meeting up for a distanced outdoor coffee or walk has been a lifeline for many, and it would be a shame if it was stopped because of others not being bothered to be as careful.

Letsgetgoing123 · 10/10/2020 13:20

@WinifredSanderson

“Lockdown seems to suit the comfortably well off pretty nicely doesn't it. Meanwhile the rest of us who don't drive and don't have the latest tech and don't have employers who let us work from home will just have to 'crack on' eh?”

I think you’re making generalisations there. Some comfortably well off work on the frontline, not all work from home!

Likewise, minimising the use of public transport for essential journeys only, protects all of us, including those low paid workers and non car drivers who have to use it.

Some will definitely have it tougher than others, but if we didn’t lockdown for a short time to try and slow the spread, the lower paid/frontline/key workers etc could find themselves in an even worse position.

What would you do instead?

Ecosse · 10/10/2020 13:21

@Letsgetgoing123

Lockdown doesn’t slow the spread- it pushes it back a few weeks.

WinifredSanderson · 10/10/2020 13:25

@Letsgetgoing123 I'd let people make their own decisions on what they consider a risk. Because we're adults and capable of making choices. My DD worked frontline all through lockdown, so lockdown really only protects those able to wfh. I'm not ok with that nor should anyone else be.

Stantons · 10/10/2020 13:40

@mrsmcmuffins adults have feelings too, they are also able to distance, not touch things etc so are far less of a risk to me than OH kids. I'd love to see my parents outside but they are elderly, have just had a major op and the weather here is awful. We could bubble with them if it wasnt for the bloody kids

AmIACowBag · 10/10/2020 14:21

YABU stop moaning OP.

Happyheartlovelife · 10/10/2020 14:34

Friend of mine lost his 25 yr old daughter to Covid. He's doing all he can to spread awareness of it. She thought it was flu. Called an ambulance. But died before it got there.

The way I see it. You shouldn't be penalised if you want to stay in lockdown. You should get help money wise and not lose your job

Yet if you need to be out of lockdown for mental health. Or health reasons. Then you can go see each other. But mustn't shout out when you get Covid. Because it's a risk.

I feel we shouldn't put anyone down for thinking the way they do

Hannahmates · 10/10/2020 14:35

I guess you would rather get the virus and pass it on to your family. Yabu. Suck it up and follow the rules.

Happyheartlovelife · 10/10/2020 14:39

@Codexdivinchi

That’s the Q really isn’t it.....will you accept some inconvenience and disappointment for yourself in order to protect someone you don’t know

Inconvenience and disappointment?

No I’m passed the point of protecting some one I don’t know when my 88 year old grandmother is getting depressed, weak legs because she’s not getting out. She isolated for five months. She deteriorated. This is not a way to finish the rest of her life.

But to be fair. That stranger that dies through Covid. Which could of been stopped

Will be someone's child. Might be someone's parents. Sister. Brother. Grandmother

This was always about the bigger picture.

dontdisturbmenow · 10/10/2020 14:42

You sound nice. Where did you acquire this expertise in internet mental health assessment?
Not claiming to be an expert, only giving my opinion and personally I have enough of people whinging, being self-absorbed and dramatic about something that affect everyone one way or the other and likely much worse for many.

Kids won't be half as damaged not seeing their grand parents for some months as they will from a parent who acts in away to make them believe it is devastating. Now is the time to teach the value of resilience and the good of public health.

I do feel some sympathy for OP that she feels dreadful, but validating these feelings is not doing anyone any favours.

CrappleUmble · 10/10/2020 14:44

I've had enough of people bullshitting over stuff they know nothing about. As if you can possibly know what will do a person any favours on the basis of assumptions you've made about their mental state.