Do you ever feel guilty about who have you met/not kept up with guidelines

[Watford1990]

Not sure what I'm trying to get from writing this thread but basically me and my husband's views on the pandemic are starting go different ways. I'm starting to feel that i want to get closer with my parents and let them be closer with the grandchildren and he is the complete opposite he is still very anxious about anything or meeting anyone. He worked through out lockdown in the food industry and meets strangers every day.....Anyway a few times now when I've met up with my parents with the children I've not stopped the kids age 2 and 6 have cuddles with faces turned away/hold their hands/ sit on laps/help out with general things that my parents love doing and brings them lots of joys and smiles. But for some reason by the end of day like now im constantly feeling guilty about what ive allowed , and im not sure how I can stop feeling guilty me and husband have spoken about it and he would just rather not know what i let them do/get up to so won't question it but I always feel on tenderhooks after the days events. Maybe because the 6 year old is so honest they may say something..... I don't know?

How do you feel about doing this? Are you in a similar situation where one parent wants to get a bit closer to her parents and have a normal life for the children and the other parent is too anxious still won't let the kids even go near his parents or anywhere pretty much. How are you managing?

I'm a single parent so the decision making is all down to me but no, I don't feel guilty. I work and DS has had to be looked after by family as I can't do my job from home. I don't make him distance from family so therefore I don't bother either.

We’re anxious about our children going back to school next week. We had to shield due to my partner’s health. Is anyone else in a similar position?

No. I don’t feel guilty. But my OH & I fall on the same page. We are all low risk. I don’t really distance much with people I know & who I know are also low risk. My DD has been back playing with friends & at nursery since June. When I stayed with my in-laws as allowed, we didn’t SD at all. We stayed for 10 days. If any of us had it, we’d have all caught it from spending hours indoors together, sharing bathrooms, cooking for each other, surfaces etc

My mum is vulnerable from steroids & she has made the decision not to distance from us or her grandkids. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Sometimes I worry about it but then, it’s her choice, not mine. Her mental health was not good at all in lockdown. She’s currently choosing to prioritise that.

I wear my mask, I try to leave a decent gap between myself & someone on the street. I wash my hands a lot. I’m not hugging anyone. If I had any symptoms, I’d get tested immediately..

Nope. Over it. Got a life to lead and my mental health to think about. Enough of this nonsense now.

I think its entirely normal to feel concerned the first few times. I would say guilt is probably a little too fat, perhaps unknown regret...

If were honest, theres a (extremely small) chance that you might pass covid onto you parents and therefore a chance they might become very ill/die. Depending on where you live this could be a very very small chance.

However, few people are knowingly or willingly infecting friends/family. Instead you're meeting parents with good intentions to support them and you're children's wellbeing.

I would argue as a parent there are times I have willingly risked my children's life more. Ran across a road with them, left them in the bath as a baby whilst I grabbed something from bedroom etc. All minor things, but things that cause guilt, only unlike meeting grandparents there was no real gain and I have done them several times. That's not to say that I should have done those things, but when you consider the risks you may also have taken (different to me of course) seeing your parents has some perspective.

What might help is a conversation with your parents about what could happen. Are they happy with the risks (death) and could they/you cope. I find very few people seem to have these open conversations (mostly ad they put it down to scarmoungering) but once you have it makes things easier.

We have met my parents several times, including then staying over for several nights and us going on a shared house holiday, but we spoke about the risks (much earlier on when I feel there was a greater risk than now) are at peace with them.

Most importantly though. Speak with your husband.

I would say enjoy the summer. The risk is so much greater when they are back to school this week or next (unless you are keeping them off in a bubble in which case crack on). I have teenagers and have told both sets of grandparents we are not meeting now the kids are back to school.

No, I've never tried to stop my DDs grandparents hugging her. I'm not prepared to cut myself off from family anymore.

Me and my husband are on the same page thankfully and are pretty relaxed about who we see.

A good few months ago I met up with two of my friends in one of our back gardens and all our children were playing together, touching each other, splashing about in the paddling pool etc and it didn’t even occur to me that it was a risk.

The children have been seeing their grandparents within the last few months, including them being their for the day and also having sleepovers.

It was one of my children’s birthday a few weeks ago and we had 5 family members over at the same time, sitting in the living room, and us all acting as we normally would.

At the end of the day, the world has to return to some level of normality and everyone being too scared to see or hug their relatives makes me feel kind of sad - unless their are issues with those relatives being in the vulnerable category.

Thanks for all your responses and I tend to agree with most of them we do have to have a life again and live a bit more.

Maybe it's just difficult for me of feeling guilty because me and husband just arnt on the same page at the moment about it. I don't know how I can make him less anxious but his still very worried about everything. Going to the park we have to constantly anti bac our hands he says. Going to the shops as a family we havnt done yet. Me and daughter even went away for a few days by our selfs as he didn't feel comfortable .

He says its the public that's making him feel anxious still as where we live it's like social distancing has been forgotten about.

Ive said to him that I'd rather distance my self away from strangers and friends so to have a closer relationship with family . His mother is very anxious still and I know they have daily discussions about the situation and everything they hear on the media.......

Please ignore me im waffling I just worry it's going to cause a riff in our relationship

No both sets of grandparents have been helping out with childcare, DC have had sleepovers, gone for days out with them etc. Not sure if we might be a bit more cautious once they return to school next week though, going to run it by them and leave them to make their own decision

@kittensarecute

I’m so with you.
Totally over it. Have done with it. Whatever.
Went to my friends pub/ club ( not nightclub)
Expecting to have a quiet drink on Sunday
There were 60 very drunk people in there and it was rammed to the rafters.
No sd , no masks obviously it was a pub, and no sanitiser used
Am I worried. Nope.

@SnuggyBuggy
I was never prepared to cut myself off from my family.
No way.

Thank goodness for this! I made the mistake of posting on the social distancing in schools threads and immediately regretted it! I am
alone with dd. For months we only saw eachother. I am still sticking to distancing etc but last fortnight have allowed dd (secondary) to stop SD with her closest friends because her mental health is in tatters and I am very concerned. The difference in her since is incredible. Apparently she therefore deserves to have the book thrown at her at school and I should be ashamed of myself .

We are SD from my parents but do see my sister now as a bubble (as permitted) . Very careful in shops , so it is literally dd and her 3 friends who are the exception we’re making. I am happy to sacrifice my own freedoms to allow her to do this - esp as she’s back tomorrow and in the same bubble with her friends anyway so I’m quite sure they’ll all catch the same things regardless of how close they get . It’s not realistic to expect children to SD for a year- she’s done it heroically for 6 months now but she’s only 11, and it’s just me and her and she hasn’t seen any other children properly in that time. I don’t really understand how that can be ok- maybe the posters who are outraged have large families, but I think it’s different for lone children (just as it was recognised it was different for lone adults and we can pick a bubble to stop SD with) .

The abusive and deranged nature of some of the posts on MN makes me question the general mental health of the nation as well.

OP it must be difficult with a difference of opinion like you have, I hadn’t really considered that as an issue for people.