Lockdown is lonely enough without pressure of the perfect family

The notion of the perfect family is not a new phenomenon but since the breakdown of my parents’ marriage in November of last year and the introduction of lockdown measures, it’s one I’ve become acutely aware of.

At school I remember feeling a strange sense of pride about having a nuclear family – it seemed so rare to have parents who were still together and it became entwined with my identity.

So, when my seemingly faultless family imploded in the space of three weeks – and my sister and I found ourselves stuck in the middle of what became an incredibly fractious divorce – it simultaneously triggered an existential crisis within me.

While it’s something that, with the help of therapy, I’ve worked through and learned to deal with, the introduction of lockdown measures during the coronavirus crisis has made me reassess the dominant narrative surrounding families both on social media and in real life.

For example, Instagram is teeming with stories documenting families isolating together harmoniously, going for long walks in idyllic country villages and coming home to host a themed dinner party, where they dress up as characters from their favourite Eighties chick flicks. That has only served to exacerbate the feelings of loneliness I was already experiencing having chosen to isolate alone.

Staying home by myself wasn’t a choice I made enthusiastically. It was partly because I’m in a high-risk category and my dad works on the frontline in the police force, but it’d be a flagrant lie to suggest that the recent breakdown of my family didn’t impact my decision.

Adjusting to the new normal of my dad living with his girlfriend, and becoming estranged from my mum, was tricky enough, before a global pandemic was thrown into the mix.

Families are sensitive subjects to talk and write about. It feels incredibly vulnerable to disclose that, behind closed doors, your life isn’t perfect, and you don’t have the romanticised family unit. Yet, lockdown has revealed that, as a society, we’re not quite ready to expose the imperfect peculiarities of our domestic lives.

It’s almost as though in the chasm left by the absence of Instagram stories at the Tate and over-dramatised Twitter threads about the eccentric man sitting next to you on the train, we’ve rushed to fill it with humble brags about our mum’s banana bread and endless photos of the pop-up pub in the living room.

Through concealing the day-to-day realities of family life and depicting domestic mundanities through the lens of an Instagram filter, we’re propagating the idea that all families should be close-knit and amiable.

When Meghan Markle became estranged from her father, she was relentlessly portrayed as cold and unfeeling for severing ties and flouting societal norms. But the narrative underpinning the headlines denigrating Meghan’s decision was rooted in the idea that the nuclear family is sacrosanct.

To admit that your set-up contradicts the myth of the perfect family feels like walking around with the word “outsider” emblazoned on your forehead in black marker pen.

While families have been romanticised and held up as the central pillar of society since time immemorial, for those who had no choice but to isolate alone or return to problematic homes, lockdown is only intensifying the dichotomy between the “perfect” and “imperfect”.

Admitting that you don’t get along with your parents, or that you love them but cannot live with them, feels almost sacrilegious. But there’s no shame in accepting that living back at home would cause more problems than it would solve.

I have spoken to many others who moved back in with their families and found their stark differences have created a volatile environment at home. The common thread running through their accounts was that of feeling like they were alone.

Being a part of a healthy, loving and supportive family is incredible and not to be judged or vilified, especially at a time when life feels so overwhelming and unsettled.

However, there’s never been a more salient time to begin to unpack the notion of the perfect family and explore the detrimental impact its perpetual dominance can have on the mental health of those whose families do not fit the nuclear mould.

Families are complex, multifaceted and nuanced beasts, each one with its own eccentricities and skeletons in the closet, but what I’m beginning to realise and accept is that there’s no shame in this.

Just because you’re not sitting down to a family quiz every evening or beginning the day with long runs with your parents, this doesn’t make your familial set-up any less valid.

No family is perfect, no matter what they share on social media. The sooner we accept this and begin to dismantle the stigma surrounding unconventional familial set-ups, the sooner we’ll all start feeling a little less alone.