Covid has made me hate parenthood

[undercurrent15]

Just that really.
I’m looking ahead to the 6 week summer hols with total fear and dread.
Being a mum used to be a huge source of happiness, fulfilment, joy and whilst at times challenging, I never resented it.
I love DCs (6 and 2) to death but christ, I am so miserable when we’re indoors at the moment and have such low tolerance for any silliness etc!
AIBU or is anyone else feeling the same?!

You're not alone. I could cry when I think of the summer holidays looming

There was a balance before. Kids at school, husband at work. Then we were all thrown together 24/7. Not normal and very frustrating.

Op can you put 6 year old into a holiday club? Even just one day a week. Our local University sports centre runs one

Yes this is me and it is making me so sad for my children. Thanks for posting, it’s made me realise I’m not the only one.

@thesevenhillsofhome I have booked the eldest in for a few weeks of clubs, I’m feeling slightly better now I’ve made some solid plans with family and got some dates booked up.
I mean, how hard can 6 weeks be after doing months on end with covid?!

Just really glad I’m not the only one feeling like it. It’s been a bloody exhausting/traumatic/testing year and a half

Totally! I just want five minutes’ peace! There is always someone demanding my time and attention. We’re in the middle of yet another supposedly burst bubble at school and so one little one is bouncing off the walls self isolating. I am constantly interrupted and can’t finish a thought. Today there was an online class from school. Both of us WFH and had important calls at the same time. Set said DC up. The teachers cocked up the link!!! I am so done with being a bad parent and a bad employee 😭

And I could also cry about the number of times this week I’ve told the DC to go away, leave me alone, I’m on a call, I’m in an important meeting… They must feel like I hate them at the moment. But what can you do? I’ve had so much time off because of home schooling and bubbles bursting and this child isolating and then that child isolating. We’re lucky we’ve both still got jobs!

I hear you @Lettuceforlunch, I am absolutely dreading the next inevitable isolation period whether it be through my school contacts or my eldests. Feels like at any point we’re on the verge of another 10 days of life being harder than it already is, it’s like some kind of sick joke at this stage 😂
Really hope you get through it and that work are as understandable as they can be!

Understanding, rather!

Can you get a zoo membership if there is a zoo local to you? You can visit then unlimited times in the school holidays and get them all outdoors and around animals. I always find this relaxing.

Ah God, I'm glad other people are feeling this way. I feel like I need to go on a month-long silent retreat. Just fried! And patience 1 micron thin.

Thank God my DH is doing the summer holidays for once.

Thank you for posting this. I feel like homeschooling ruined the parent/child relationship. I stay up at night too late just to be alone!! I really need to rebuild things. I feel totally numb.

@NeepNeepNeep

Thank you for posting this. I feel like homeschooling ruined the parent/child relationship. I stay up at night too late just to be alone!! I really need to rebuild things. I feel totally numb.

I used to get up at 5.30am just to be alone.

I'm so glad I saw this thread - makes me feel so much better! I have primary age DC and 20m DTs. I love them all, so so much, but I hate parenting them at the moment. I think for me it's partly the twin thing, made worse by the pandemic, but it's just all so hard and such a never ending slog. Unlike with my eldest, people don't offer to take the DTs off my hands (other than my elderly parents, who are in denial about how they could cope with 2 crazy toddlers), and it's them I get no rest from. They veer from being lovely to each other to being awful (chucking stuff at the other, pushing, shoving etc - mostly general toddler madness) and I feel I'm always saying 'no,no,no'. I hate it! I want to have the patience that having toddlers requires, but covid has stripped what little I had away.
It's v reassuring I'm not alone, but sorry others are feeling this way too x

I feel like homeschooling ruined the parent/child relationship. I stay up at night too late just to be alone!!

Never a truer word spoken @NeepNeepNeep

I can find the 6 weeks a slog anyway. Normally it's best if we go away for about 10 days across the middle to break it into smaller sections. This year we booked to go to visit family in another country at the start using last year's logic of the start of the holiday having better rates than the end. At present, it ain't happening if the quarentine isn't shifted pronto. If we make it, that country is still more restricted than us. Plus elderly relative is in hospital and hughly unlikely to be home. I'm not exactly bursting with anticipation!

DS1 has ASD and that doesn't work for planning everything in advance as sometimes you just have to be opportinist with his moods (with on the day notice). If July 19th doesn't happen and if individual attractions don't ease up on the rules, options are still limited.

I did really well last year but I'm just burnt out now and bored of the sight of parks. At present there is little novelty to excite us.

I don't get alone time. I can and do put DS2 into occasional sports clubs, but it's DS1's idea of hell and it just ends up being a 1:1 day which is pleasant in itself, but not a break. The saving grace last year was DH WFH which had its own issues, but did also mean I could bugger off for a 2 hour run.

Since the winter lockdown when there was fuck-all to do, it's been tough managing expectations of tech time and policing that. We're on isolation at the moment and it's gone to pot again in self-preservation for all parties.

I really do love my kids, but they've been my main social interraction for most of the past 15m, and my life still is not balanced and ressembling normal so I'm not enthused by a further 6 weeks that at the moment look very uncertain.

Yeah I'm with you. I feel like they have already been off so much of the past year it's just more of the same. My oldest has ASD and struggles with being away from the routine of school anyway. She is always an exhausting combination of bored and anxious over the holidays. My toddler is at a particularly wild stage. Our local soft plays and swimming pool are shut due to covid, and there are only so many times we can go to the park!!

I'm so glad I work part time, my job gives me a chance to at least engage my brain and talk to people who can speak in full sentences.

So many comments completely echoing how I feel but @NeepNeepNeep, you nailed it in describing that it’s ruined the relationship and I need to rebuild it. Really resonates in such a sad way
I know we’ve all muddled through and given it our all with what’s been in front of us.
But now that survival mode has died down, it’s time to pick up the pieces and try to put something together that vaguely resembled how life was before and it feels impossible at times.
Big hugs to you all tonight

I used to find the 6 weeks hard going but after all the lockdown it's going to be a breeze. Especially without homeschooling, which was both a daily fight and lovely to do in (almost) equal measures. DD is 9 and a real homebody like me. I walk 6 miles a day doing the school run. We're counting down the days.

I’d just like to briefly complain about the SEVEN WEEKS my 12 year old has off this summer (not a private school). I love him dearly but his ADHD and my totally burned-through resilience are a bad combination at the moment. I have another child too. DH would gladly help, if he was alive, but he isn’t [weeps]

Solidarity to all

I honestly thought it was just me. When my 3yo was a baby/toddler I was FULL of enthusiasm, absolutely loved being a mum was always playing with her, full of energy, going to places etc.
Feel so bad my 1yo isn’t getting the same experience. I’m so sick of my house. The same thing everyday, we’re in one baby group becusde they filled up instantly and they’ll be stopping in summer anyway.

I’m sick of the park :( I find myself on my phone often infrint of my kids which I hate!!! I don’t know what to do to fix fbis

I disagree.

My dc have additional needs. Ex dh is a deadbeat dad with no contact . I have no family left. It's all on me 24/7.

I have utterly cherished this time with them. They are little for such a short time...and this is time that you will never get back. I wish I could stop the clock and do it all over again.

I totally get the frustration over the last year as a parent and I too have many times hated being a parent throughout the lockdowns. But things are different now, things have opened up and there are things to do, places to go, clubs to send kids to. So not sure I get why people still feel this way? 6 weeks holidays are always tough, well I find the last half hard work, the first 3 weeks I find easier, but it drags. Maybe I am missing something??

I think people still feel this way because many parents, and most of this falls on mothers, have been pulled in all sorts of directions and have slowly burned out. There is nothing left in reserve.There is also the pressure of "making memories" and cherishing everything when actually sometimes it's all a bit crap. Things are opening up again and getting better but I don't think mental health just snaps back. I'm sure there are a lot of parents having mental health problems for the first time and not realising it. I think we need to look after ourselves first. Be a bit selfish. And I mean actually really do it to be positive about parenthood again. You can't give of yourself if you have nothing left. Would love to hear what you're doing to look after yourself. I just want the fun back!!

to everyone.

Absolutely feeling the same. Currently 2 weeks into the EIGHT!!! week summer holidays. This week hasn't been so bad. Last week I spent the full week in tears. 6 more to go.....