For working parents, the reopening of schools does not mean a return to normality

As a principle for living, focusing on the positives isn’t a bad place to start. But it isn’t always easy – especially not in the past few months.

For all that I try to remind myself that I’m lucky to have a garden, and that I’ve taken joy in endlessly baking bread, and that less travelling has meant more time spent with the kids, the frustrations of lockdown remain hard to shake.

And even as restrictions begin to ease, I seem to have more moments of gloom than of optimism.

The juggling of work commitments and childcare has inevitably been the greatest challenge in this peculiar period. It brought enormous relief therefore when my 5-year-old son returned to school in June. Even though it was only for two days a week, it made it possible once more for me and my wife to have a working life that coincided with office hours – well, more or less.

Last week my daughter was able to go back too, her two days thankfully coinciding with her younger brother’s. Never mind that she didn’t appear to do very much in the way of learning on her return – after all, it could not be possible for her to do any less in school than she has been doing at home, where easy tasks are drawn out over painful, unmotivated hours and completed carelessly.

When I set out to pick both children up last Tuesday, I therefore had something of a spring in my step. I had been able to work productively for hours without interruption; my children had spent the day being given the attentions of a trained teacher, rather than an irritable parent. This, surely, was progress.

My son was first, his “bubble” let out at 2.55pm on the dot, parents queueing at two metre intervals outside the school’s front gate. He had had a good day and, after he had thrust his coat and water bottle at me, we set off to his sister’s school – some 20 minutes’ walk away – and chatted about the sporting challenges he had been doing as part of his class’s sports week.

When we were halfway there – heading away from the town centre and up the valley side – I had a sudden panic that maybe my daughter’s pick-up time was a little earlier than I thought, so I began to hurry Tristan along, becoming irked at his many pauses to look at birds – something I would usually be delighted by.

My anxiety was misplaced and my daughter came out, equally as enthused as her brother at her day. I suggested we walk home via the “back way” – through a wood just outside the town. It added a few minutes to the journey but was a much more pleasant route. The children agreed, with only some modest grumbling.

But as we made our way over the bypass and then along the tree-lined path, their moods darkened. My son became increasingly cross for no apparent reason (hungry, I thought); my daughter shouted at him and whined. Eventually, when I realised that the light pitter-patter against my back was the result of little stones being thrown by an angry little hand, I began to shout too.

I gave my daughter the front door key and suggested she go on ahead. My son, despite being desperate to be at home, dawdled – the small child paradox. I glanced at my watch, knowing that I had to be back for a Zoom meeting, and tried to stay calm.

By the time we reached our house, I felt utterly fed up – as, I presume, did the children. I threw a snack at them, handed my daughter a tablet and stuck my son in front of Thomas the Tank Engine. I then hurried back to my laptop, stressed and feeling like a terrible parent.

With schools due to reopen full-time in September, perhaps a greater sense of normality will return then. But with a lack of clarity around breakfast and after-school clubs, the idea that working parents will be able easily to return to their offices or other places of work feels impossible – especially if schools continue to require that all children up to the age of 11 are dropped off and picked up by parents.

As for the summer holidays, many of the usual childcare options – notably grandparents – are off the table. It’s going to be a long six weeks.

The path that took us into lockdown may have felt precipitous, but it was short and straightforward for all that. The path which is apparently leading us out of the coronavirus crisis is winding, strewn with obstacles and may – for all anyone knows – be taking us in entirely the wrong direction.

Still, focus on the positives eh?