The ‘Pandemic Prison’ Placed on Mothers

The COVID pandemic is over – well, I’m judging that purely on the opening of nightclubs, pubs and the mask burning ceremonies I’ve seen on social media. The world has opened its doors again. Office blocks are open, sandwich trucks are back selling those delicious cheap-ass cheeseburgers and you can once again ignore your kid in the soft play whilst they pick up a 2-year backlog of childhood illnesses. But for me, and many mothers, the walls are even narrower around our heads than ever before. The daily walks of boredom continue. The monotonous grind of the daily chores continue. We feel alone as we watch partners and friends return to work, social events and gatherings; us feeling lost in the world post-pandemic. Our days similar to the to the days of house confinement, yet not the same. Now with added stagnation up against a wall of trying to escape the ever so hard to describe ‘Pandemic Prison’ we have been placed within. A role forced upon us when the world needed to stop due to COVID. The result: morphing mothers into teachers, nurses, therapists and steel backbones of many homes. Mothers now who are struggling to slip out of that role. Who are now struggling to find who they are again and move on like everyone else seems to have done.

Adjusting to life with 2 kids was easy at first; the pandemic suited my life with a newborn. Giving birth just weeks before the UK shutdown, my partner worked from home and was there to help when shit hit the fan, floor, ceiling and sofa. He could keep an eye on the 4-year-old as I napped with the baby. I had no early morning nursery runs, no visitors or a need to remove my milk stained pjs. As the world fretted and people began climbing the walls with boredom, I relished my extended newborn bubble and life at home. Fast-forward two years and things are very different. The world is opening up again, my kid is at school and I have a toddler with enough energy to fuel a nation for a decade. The job I had is gone – lost to redundancy just before COVID made a name for itself. My life now is a mother at home – a place I itch to leave. The once semi-harmonious, balanced family life we had is gone. Now the weight of the house and children fall mainly on me, mum – due to circumstance more than choice. And it is beginning to pull at the cracks on my shoulders. But how, where, in this climate of increasing prices and little support, do I begin to break free from this pandemic prison society has created?

With the second kid, the change wasn’t so dramatic. I knew, mostly, what I was in for. Already a mother, my role and identity had been chiselled over the last 6 years. But what I didn’t foresee was a role of ‘house mother’ for myself. Confined to my own home by society – and not just because of COVID. The whole shift of working from home, job losses, home schooling, needs and fear meant someone had to be present for the kids, while the other parent works tirelessly to secure a means to fund these doubling fuel prices. My role as a fulltime rat-race worker gone, I sit now thinking ‘what do I do?’ and ‘what do I want to do?’… followed by ‘but how do I do any of this?!’.

I cannot even fathom giving myself to a role of anything outside of the house, purely because I feel so needed at home. The whole dynamic of relationships have changed over the last 2 years; my son doesn’t have the same bond with those my daughter does. There are few people I can ask to take my children, even fewer I can ask to do the school run or make sure my kids have dinner if I need to be out the house. Everything over the past 2 years seems to have squashed and condensed mothers into the home. Playgroups and support units closed, missed visits from childcare professionals, services at maximum with little scope to check in on people, less to give them help from out of this hole of pandemic motherhood.

Breaking free and finding that balance once again is the constant undercurrent of my overthinking mind. Over and over, my mind churns. Everything from mundane to-do lists and dates of appointments. To the frets of raising our children. Underneath it all I am still here. Stuck. In a limbo that has frozen me, as I don’t know what to do now that I ‘should’ be getting back out there. And I really do want to get back out there, but it doesn’t seem as simple as it did two years ago. So, naturally, after months of intense ‘adulting’, my mental health is on the rocks. I’ve crumbled after holding up for so long. The pandemic brought more change to our door than just job loss. Anxiety, depression, stress, happiness, sadness – all the emotions, all intense with nowhere to really go during a time where we queued at 6.A.M., two meters apart, wearing face masks, just to buy a weekly food shop.

This mental stress, the temper, rage and anger comes from being stretched too thin for far too long. This isn’t about support and “I’ll take the kids so you can sleep” – although that certainly does help. This is about being used, leaned on and overwhelming needed for the last 2 years. To now letting go of that life, feeling frightened and overwhelmed in the face of shifting, yet again, into a new one. Becoming a mother brings the tsunami of new, an upheaval of the life you had, crashing into your (oh so naïve) expectations of what parenthood looks like. At the end, when the water settles, you find yourself floating, thinking ‘what the fuck just happened’ as you drift into your new normal. Not an easy change, less so for those like myself you battled mental illness along the way. But this pandemic shift feels different, like a lingering change that I can’t quite name. As if I am aware of it in real time, watching the shift occur in front of me, but not for me. I feel just ‘here’. In the background, providing the most important role of all – a parent. Supporting everyone. Managing the home. Stocking the fridge. Kissing the ‘sores’. Begrudgingly playing 2 player Minecraft. Continuing in the role I’ve had to adopt since COVID. But feeling increasingly trapped within it.

I know the services are opening up. More jobs are becoming remote, more ‘flexible, family friendly’ (slight eyeroll there tbh). There are, in theory, ways to get out there and do what makes you happy. It’s just, umm, that’s not really true for many people. Childcare is the biggest issue. Nurseries are full, or very expensive. The cost of living is, I’m not going to say doubling, it is fucking insane and panic inducing. The logistics of working anywhere other than from home, unfeasible. The cost of attending work, when factoring in transport and childcare, is enough to demoralise anyone. Let alone those returning to work after a break of several years.

I want to find that passion, that thing for ‘me’. The other part of my identity that isn’t centred round ‘I’m more tired’ competitions and playdates. I look at my partner leaving for work with envy, his day filled with hard work, yet something fulfilling that he seems to enjoy. I wince at saying I stay at home – without a fucking doubt the hardest job on the planet, but I can’t be arsed explaining that to those who are ignorant enough to argue otherwise – I want to have that other conversation, the one not tied to motherhood.

What is that for me, I don’t know – that thought alone brings much tension. My vocation mismatching what now drives me, I swither on returning to a career I know or to follow a new passion of writing and helping others in this wild ride they call parenthood. It all seems like a constant mind juggle of not knowing what I want. How do I get what I want. But actually, how is that physically possible? Let alone the mental impact and strain it will bring if I am not the one who is dealing with the home and kids.

Underneath all of it is still the very real and suffocating pressure of being a mother to 2 young children, feeling vastly alone, in a new, less accommodating, yet increasingly expensive society. Even if I did have unlimited childcare, space to myself, time to think and plan my life, I would feel overwhelmed. Like a blanket of protection being ripped off, I now need to walk the walk and get out there. But I’ve been home for years. I don’t know what to do with myself on the rare occasion I don’t have my children. I run errands and clean. Catch up on the chores that are difficult with a toddler intend on stealing bleach from you. It takes my breath away when thinking of being alone, a place I don’t like to be as the chatter in my mind is amplified then. I’ve been mum on call, hugger and therapist to my partner, watched my friends have their babies and seen my daughter morph from little girl to attitude filled, smart arse know it all. Everything has changed in this pandemic and I don’t know where I fit anymore, or who I even am when I’m not needed by others.

I’m lost.

Almost unmotivated, yet more like not wanting to plunge my energy into anything in case it is needed elsewhere. To be honest, I don’t have much energy to give. I’m drained and emotionally tired. On the edge of depression, stressed, snappy and falling into traits I’ve tried so hard to avoid. The stain of the last two years is now taking its toll, almost as though it is safe to do so now that my kid is back at school and my partner is out at work. They are happy making progress, so now I can let my mask down and reveal how drained I really am. Depleted after being the rock for so long, trying my best to get through a strange and uniquely difficult few years.

So here I sit, stifled, frustrated at what I can only describe as a ‘Pandemic Prison’ – both mentally and physically. Part frustrated with myself, thinking now is my time to get out there again. Fuck, we know I NEED to get out there if I want to continue to eat. But it just seems impossible, too much, too stressful, too overwhelming. A shift I haven’t been through before, and never with so little safety net of support underneath us. My mental health also stalling me, with a recent job interview opening a whole box of crazy over me that I did not expect. All of which centred around how I would manage it all, how would I give myself to something other than the home and not become that wild, depressed and angry mother I become when I am pulled too thin. The irony is, I am already her at this moment in time. Over and over I think ‘how will I do this?’, to the point of now laying low mentally to get through the days. Avoiding anything I know will cause my mind to overthink. Waiting, until this storm passes. Hoping to re-emerge from the thunder into a more calm and clear mind.

This pandemic has been a motherhood blackhole, eating up every unit of energy a mother can give. Leaving nothing to come out the other side. Expected to bend and twist, catch the family at each turn, then after it all, dust herself off and get back to it. To what? Well, that’s just another thing for us to figure out, alone. As per. Met with misunderstanding or eyerolls that ‘it’s not that bad’ when we express our concerns. Despite numerous headlines explicitly stating the gender inequalities highlighted by the pandemic and how mothers really are the stronghold keeping society functioning.

But, much like the fear around COVID, that sentiment has quickly been forgotten. Not by us mothers though. We are reminded daily. Stuck here, still in the same 4 walls. Still doing the same park walks. Still seemingly living in our own isolation bubble as the world quickly passes by us. 

Kirsty Mac x

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