I’ll Never Parent the Same Way After This Pandemic Is Over

I just read an article in the New York Times that documented the unraveling of three moms who are struggling to get through the pandemic while juggling jobs, home, parenting, and marriage. These women looked bedraggled in all the familiar ways that I feel. It wasn’t just the descriptions of the daily grind that all moms go through. You know, chores, kids, life. It was the up-close look at the intense anxiety that spools its way around every minutia of every moment in a day. It felt uncanny to read because these women’s’ pain so accurately mirrors my own experience from this past year.

But there was something equally critical left out of that piece. When concentrated pressure is applied to anything, that thing will change.

I started thinking about how I’ve survived this long without running away — because some days I absolutely want to — and I realized that the way I parent today is dramatically different than how I was parenting my three children last March. Covid has changed my family, perhaps forever, and in one important manner that is a good thing.

IDGAF about the chores anymore.

My house is a nonstop mess now, and I have stopped caring. In the days before Covid, I spent my days trying (and usually failing) to keep my house orderly. But that old truism that kids can destroy a home faster than a mom can clean is accurate. Still, I always tried to clean like the Queen was coming. That was a piece of advice…