“This too shall pass” is often said to struggling new parents. Solid advice! You’re cooped up at home, minding a baby, unsure how to cope, no clue when things might be normal again. It’s a gentle way of advising someone: I know. But you’re going to have to dig in now. You will endure.
“The days are long, but the years are short” is the best parenting advice. In truth there’s a melancholy to being a parent: you’ll want to jump out the window at times, but when it’s all over you’ll wish for that time back again.
“When this is all over…” is something people have been saying a lot recently. When this is all over we’ll meet up more, we’ll have a new appreciation of nature, we’ll hug our parents, we’ll pay the nurses what they deserve, we’ll reinvent society, we’ll have the mother of all sessions.
When this does pass we won’t pine for it. But a couple of weeks in, I’m now trying to notice the little moments in all of this. Our little family cocooned away. We’re doing okay. This is going to be the only summer we’ll ever have with the kids being 6 and 3. There are small moments to be had. These days do feel long, but the year will be short.
TLDR: We’re in lockdown and my kids are giving me Stockholm Syndrome.