7 ways pandemic parenting felt like postpartum all over again
Though my postpartum years were certainly filled with milk-drunk smiles and adorable baby snuggles, they’re not a time I wanted to revisit once my kids were out of diapers. But that?s exactly what happened to me?and not because I had another baby. It’s because I?ve realized that parenting through pandemic times was like going through the roller coaster of postpartum all over again. Here?s how I think pandemic parenting was like an 18-month-long experience of déjà vu for me, and for so many of the other parents I know.
1. It felt both all-consuming and sudden.
For me, pandemic parenting was a jarring reorientation to the realities of 24/7 caregiving?kind of like how pre-kids, I had all the physical and emotional autonomy in the world, and then the next day I brought my first baby home, I realized how much I had come to rely on and value the schoolteachers and friends and babysitters who bore some of the caregiving load so that I could go to the bathroom by myself every so often, or do what I needed to do to bring in a paycheque. 2. I had to slow waaaay down.
Just like in the early days of parenting a newborn, I had to reckon with the fact that I simply couldn?t accomplish as much as I usually did, and find a way to be OK with it. I had to start lowering my standards and saying no a lot more in order to stay sane. Honestly, it?s probably something I should have done long before ?The Rona? was a household term.
3. I got laser-clear on my priorities.
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