To miss lockdown

[globula]

Just that really.

This is my personal view and experience and I cannot comment on the suffering the COVID situation brought to many people however for me it was great (of course the reason for lockdown wasn't great, JUST THE EXPERIENCE of it).

I have a 0hrs contract with NHS but working on a non COVID ward so was able to pick up full time hrs last year resulting in more income (normally only able to do 2 shifts per week due to lack of childcare) and didn't feel unsafe or uncomfortable if anything it was easier with less patients, no visitors and limited visits from other agencies). DH was off on furlough staying at home, doing diy, garden and helping to homeschool.
I loved having DCs here to homeschool- actually think they learned way more at home than they do at school on regular basis- and overall we had more time to spend as a family and enjoy each other's company as there was no external stress and pressure.

We don't have family around and don't go out very often anyway so I wasn't bothered by places being shut.
I loved the empty streets, buses, trains and supermarkets (maybe I just don't like ppl I don't know).

So overall for me it was brilliant. I realise that I sound extremely selfish and wouldn't say it to anyone in RL however my intention isn't to diminish anyone's hardship just needed to share how I feel.

I think the discussion about WFH is who’s life it makes easier.

Over a year ago I would have said that it was a brilliant idea, but now I’m not so sure.

My OH has been working from home since the start of the pandemic. It has meant I have spent the days either creeping about, feeling as though I’m in the way / under his feet in my own home, or staying out of the house as much as possible, which isn’t too bad in May / June / July, but in the misery of a January lockdown, was hard going.

I have found myself becoming increasingly intolerant of his constant presence and sometimes feel as though I dislike him (I don’t, it’s depression.)

I also think it’s been really bad for him. He’s gained a lot of weight, is practically sedentary, and rarely leaves the house.

lockdown was great for women

Lockdown was shit for women. It became apparent exactly how far the cards are stacked against women in terms of balancing work with family and other responsibilities. For the most part, women are default. When childcare, education, respite care and other social supports were removed, the consequences seemed to fall overwhelming on women's shoulders to the detriment of their health and leisure time.

I just slightly wonder what's going through peoples heads when they pop up to post about how much fun they had during the biggest crisis we've had since the Second World War.

To be fair though, a lot of the posts about the positives of lockdown aren't really 'Woo hoo - what fun we had!" posts at all. Many of them are either from people who have awful difficulties in their normal lives, which were alleviated by the circumstances of lockdown, or people for whom lockdown shook them out of their usual routine and made them realise that there were things about their lives that could change.

I don't think it's that helpful to discourage people from publicly exploring what the pandemic has revealed about what we need and want out of life, what we missed and what we didn't etc. Besides, anyone who feels it's insensitive need not click on the thread.

Lockdown showed exactly how equal pay, shared parenting and women's hard earned rights were nothing more than lip service. I dare anyone to tell me to my face that lockdown was brilliant for women. Being locked in my house with my abusive husband was not brilliant. Seeing my friends run themselves into the ground trying to keep all their plates spinning was hideous. I would also refer posters such as @NannyAndJohn to the pinned post about the mother with a disabled child, and ask them how lockdown was brilliant for these women.

@isthisareverse

individualism is destroying both the planet and the very thing that holds the human race together - the family.

for many of us, "family" was the first thing we missed out during the lockdown. Surely it's pretty obvious that many families are split across countries and continents?

That is part of my point. Traditionally, families lived within a reasonable distance of each other.

Now, a lot of them are spread out all over the globe and their bonds are weaker because of it.

I found it awful. Stuck in with a just turned 2 year old, pregnant and alone while husband did his normal 50+ hours a week. No family anywhere near us to meet for a walk when the restrictions allowed it. It nearly drove me mad. I'm pleased that we can go out and about again

@lazylinguist

I just slightly wonder what's going through peoples heads when they pop up to post about how much fun they had during the biggest crisis we've had since the Second World War.

To be fair though, a lot of the posts about the positives of lockdown aren't really 'Woo hoo - what fun we had!" posts at all. Many of them are either from people who have awful difficulties in their normal lives, which were alleviated by the circumstances of lockdown, or people for whom lockdown shook them out of their usual routine and made them realise that there were things about their lives that could change.

I don't think it's that helpful to discourage people from publicly exploring what the pandemic has revealed about what we need and want out of life, what we missed and what we didn't etc. Besides, anyone who feels it's insensitive need not click on the thread.

That's a totally fair comment and you're right that we should have a conversation about how and why people benefited from it and its worth exploring some of the massive shifts that lockdown has engendered in people's lives.

It's just this "lockdown was great for women" comment made me absolutely see red.

I enjoyed it too. Dh works ridiculous hours and it was lovely to spend time as a family. It's time we will never get again. I missed family terribly though.

I hated lockdown but even I've thought back wistfully about how much money I wasn't spending. 😂

It's just this "lockdown was great for women" comment made me absolutely see red

Me too, mainly because numerous studies have shown this to be categorically untrue.
Just because that particular poster wants it to be so, doesn’t make it so.

*extended

Well... the first lockdown - when we weren't feeling really worried - had some nice moments. DH was in a position where he was working from home but only part time. I was WFH but was briefly furloughed. There was no pressure from
school to do loads. We tried really, really hard to make it an ok experience for our daughter - while being very worried about teenage DSD who was studying abroad and DSS who was at uni. And I think we succeeded, we look back and it seems ok. The other lockdown: things had changed, DH was a key worker out at work, school were putting on proper pressure as mandated from above, I had a shit load of work to do and the weather was crap. It nearly broke us.

On the whole, I'd rather people were having a nice time than not but it's a very mixed picture for everyone.

My family and I had a wonderful time during lockdown and there was a significant improvement in our physical and mental health. This is despite me working in emergency medicine.

@QueenofKattegat

I do think lockdown was so beneficial for women as a whole

No, you mean for you. This statement is absolutely loaded with privilege.

Your further comment about "family" is laughable. On the corona board of misery, you agreed that key workers should be forced to live apart from their families for an entire year. You said "it would be a hard year, but worth it for zero covid".

Please don't take my comments out of context.

I implied that because our country is so deep in the shit, the only way to get anywhere near Zero Covid would be a long (a year is probably about right) lockdown. And on balance, I still think it'd be the right thing to do.

I think yabu.
If being forcibly stopped living your life makes you enjoy it more, then change it up. Do something different. Slow the pace. Homeschool if you want to. See less people. Find a job working from home.
If the only thing that enables that was furlough you are unreasonable to miss it - because the ultimate consequence of any more lockdowns would almost certainly be job loss and all the hardship that comes with it.
Personally, I hated lockdown. I love my kids and do actually enjoy spending time with them but like other posters I didn't enjoy trying to manage a demanding job with homeschool and no childcare. We managed by working shifts between 5.30am and 11.30pm. It was brutal.

There’s definitely a dewy eyed sentimentality on here sometimes, about days of yore where mothers gathered in rooms together advising the generations below them on the wisdoms of raising children, while toddlers and young children played happily together running in and out of houses on the same street.

I think the reality was a lot more irritable than that, with lots of squabbles and arguments caused by different opinions about child rearing all crammed together in one small place (would you like your MIL with you eight hours a day?) lots of competitive cleaning, lots of stress and no privacy at all. I don’t think I’d want to go back to those days!

The thing about World War Two is that it caused a sea change and many of the effects of it were rippling ones from years down the line. So a lack of available working males meant we turned to the West Indies for labour and man power in the late forties and early fifties: thirty years later, their children felt the effects of racism and the Brixton riots happened. Not a direct result of WW2 but an indirect one. Even the spread of AIDS was indirectly because of WW2. I suspect there are many more things to come out of the woodwork re lockdown.

What is certain is that every major event in history has winners and losers. If you happened to be a winner, that’s not a problem and I don’t personally feel it is insensitive to say so. But saying that lockdown was great for women is rather like saying the Battle of the Somme was great for young men

I loved parts of it. It was so easy to walk my reactive dogs without a million people at the park. DH was furloughed so we had lots of time together. The constant knocking at the door of sales people, charity people, religious folk and spam mail stopped almost completely.

I didn't like it at all. Neither of us were furloughed and had to manage an autistic child and an older one who seemed to have no idea what he was doing with school work at the same time as attempting to hold down a job was hell.

I'm an extrovert and I missed other people and days out so badly. I think I actually have mild PTSD from that time as so many awful things happened.

I feel lucky to have my lovely full life back with lots of people and plans.

I hated it. Being told what to do by the government, unable to go where we wanted. I complied, but did it begrudgingly and I hope it never happens again. Fuck it was dull.

@SpicyJalfrezi how was the AIDS epidemic linked to WW2?

@Nosferatussidebit

My family and I had a wonderful time during lockdown and there was a significant improvement in our physical and mental health. This is despite me working in emergency medicine.

My families physical and mental health only deteriorated in lockdown. My Ds put on quite a bit of weight...he was no longer playing football three times a week plus pe, plus walking to and from school every day. Our daily lockdown walk or jog didn't come close to the levels of physical exercise he got every day prior to it. My dds mental health got worse every day as she began to feel more and more isolated. I didn't get a moment's break as I felt like I had to constantly be providing meals, activities, conversation and general cheeriness.

@Neverrains

It's just this "lockdown was great for women" comment made me absolutely see red

Me too, mainly because numerous studies have shown this to be categorically untrue.
Just because that particular poster wants it to be so, doesn’t make it so.

That particular poster’s views seem to vary considerably, but always manage to coincide with whatever will cause the most uproar in the thread at hand.

@SpicyJalfrezi

"There’s definitely a dewy eyed sentimentality on here sometimes, about days of yore where mothers gathered in rooms together advising the generations below them on the wisdoms of raising children, while toddlers and young children played happily together running in and out of houses on the same street."

Yep. That's the part of this whole narrative I can't stand. It's just such rose-tinted nonsense. You just know its going to form the backbone for some latter-day Enid Blyton pulp fiction.

And also @NannyAndJohn's comment about it being "beneficial for women as a whole. The mind absolutely boggles.

Have a discussion about the surprising positives of lockdowns and how its changed our approach to work, by all means. We should talk about that. But don't present it as some latter-day Eden when people all got back in touch with their "family values" etc. Nauseating, overprivileged and mendacious.

Lockdown suited me quite well too, I'm retired. It meant I didn't have to go anywhere or see anybody unless it was essential. I enjoy being a hermit.

@TopBlogger

"and poised waiting for it all to kick off in autumn"

Really? How can you be so certain? Just enjoy things now if you're so convinced the vaccines won't make a difference.