500 Words on What I’ve Learned about My Kids During the Pandemic

The New York Times is collecting stories about this topic, so I thought I’d write a response…because why not.

Full disclosure: I’m writing this after a long day of work running a childcare center with my husband. Today we found out one of the children at our center is Covid-positive and then had to deal with the health department, worried teachers, financial stress, and quarantine planning all day. I have three kids -- a boy (2), and two girls (6 & 8). They all attend the childcare center I own, with the girls doing distance learning with their elementary school in a pod at the childcare center. When I got home with the girls tonight, I asked my girls to give me peace and quiet so my brain could rest while I cooked dinner. And they did. While the broccoli roasts and the pasta boils, I write.

I’ve always craved this deep connection with my children, that I felt only time could create. Like a lot of moms, I find myself struggling to balance the demands on my energy and time in normal years between family life and work as a small business owner. I waver between wanting to be a stay at home parent, implementing the elaborate art projects and cooking days I love, and thriving by working as a small business owner. I wish I were two people. The pandemic has forced me to be both, and it’s just exactly as wonderful and horrible as I anticipated.

Finally, being forced to stay home more, I have done those elaborate art projects. They have given us joy and something to make each day different than the last. We have found connection through fingers burned by hot glue, messes of glitter, and so much paint. With so much time together, I have learned to be more honest with them about my needs, and in doing so, they have developed better coping skills for managing their own emotions. I have talked more openly with them about when I'm stressed, cried, yelled, and generally exposed my inner mess. I struggle with anxiety anyway, and it has been worse during the pandemic. I didn't expect them to find healing in my mess, and yet, they have somehow.

When I come home and ask for space, they respect my request. And because I have that space, I can enjoy in the scavenger hunt around the house that my oldest planned for me to do after that dinner of pasta and broccoli, and it's actually fun for me. I notice her improved spelling, and her clever rhyming clues, and know she couldn't have done that two months ago. I get to see the tiny incremental changes. But more significantly, I am embracing that this was the time where I modeled what it looks like to worry, to make mistakes, to care and to try again for them, and to know that this was a time where they came to know me as me, as the layers of my perfect-mom-ideal came unglued and my messy, imperfect, boundary-setting, and loving mom was uncovered.

So I guess it’s more about how they got to know me better, more honestly, than me them. Kids are great at being their authentic selves, adults less so. Something I can learn from them, over and over each day.