PARENTING by Working Parents During the Coronavirus ockdown in South Africa

It all started on the 17th of March 2021, when we all had to shared our study room; a 24m square space. We fitted 2 more reading tables with a computer each. Our situation was more complicated because on the other hand, our 10 and 8-year-olds who attended a four-term school were on holiday with no words on any take home tasks from their school. My working became bleak for a period unknown to myself and the South African government.

In the new set-up, our children studied each day by logging into the Google classroom at 7:40 am. After the 20th, a weekend of uncertainly pursued before the President’s announcement on National lockdown. Before no time, I found out that I am behind on work. This is because when I got home, I spent more time finding out how homeschooling went. We spent more time talking as I sought more details than I would, during mainstream schooling when I had to help with assignments and tasks only.

News of panic and bulk buying was trending on social media, and as soon as the President announced that the country shall be locked down, the duration of the lockdown did not matter to me. Going to work did not matter. How much money I had was not an issue. All what took over my thoughts was what we needed to survive; or precisely, what our children needed. Milk, Bread, Meat, Rice, Flour, Mealie Meal, Tomatoes and more. Then the frenzies on toilet paper, canned food, perishables and nonperishables alike. I was not worried by space to store what I would buy. I worried about time to buy and the safety of my children after I ran from one shop to another.

On his part, my husband worried about hand sanitiser and hygiene. He bought soap, snacks, and other hygiene and leisure items. He bought movies as listed by the children, called in handy people to fix the pool, to check on CCTV cameras and even reconnected our television in a household that had gone without television connection since 2013.?

It was Monday. The lockdown effected on Thursday at mid-night. It was a must to pay my staff. The dilemma of the company not having money was overpowered by the fact that all my 7 permanent employees and their dependents will depend on my gesture to go through these times. They also have to panic buy. We had asked them to stop coming to work earlier because Profounder Intelligence’s outstanding businesses had been cancelled indefinitely.

Our helper was not left out in our preparations. Auntie Rose had worked with us for over 6 years and because her husband and younger children live in the East of Johannesburg, we decided that locking her down with us would be torture. We asked her to go home. But how? We made a plan; we had to pay her early also. Worse even, Rose did not have a fridge; how woud she survive? We offered her a fridge. She organised a bakkie to fetch the fridge and take her home. We took advantage of this arrangement and offered her some flour, tomatoes, maize flour and what we could share from our panic buy. We even got the gardener to get some avocados from the tree for her.?

Rose the helper was gone. Office was shut down. No gardener came around. No shopping was possible. Here we were, parents and children, stuck with each other in a free-standing house in the suburb of Waverley in Johannesburg. We are left with a pure middle-class worry; chores…, bills …, luxury. We had to decide on turns to make food, clean, do laundry, man the yard and do the vegetables garden. We had to think of how to consume milk and portions to last us the entire lock-down period. We had to think of who would have to go out to shop for necessities should need arose. We thought of what games to indulge in. While locked in, life seemed normal. No difference between father and mother. Hubby and I were making sure that after every few minutes, we asked the children to wash their hands.

One of the reasons I write this article is because I worried. I worried if this lock-down will last 21 days only. I worried for family members and my friends. I worried for my colleagues and complete strangers. I worried about schools shutting down. Before now, my worry was on schools not shutting down. I worried that Covid-19 may invade our lives and change every single habit that we have spent so much time to cultivate. How about disappearing our finances? I just worried.

Our household is not your typical one. My husband and I were both self-employed, and in the same industry. We are lucky in the sense that we can both be there for our children. Or should I say we were lucky before COVID-19 came to fore? Unfortunately, now we are both held up with not a single option on how to earn our next cent. We have never had a taste of paid leave. Now stuck at home and no way to conduct our training and hospitality businesses from home, we spend our days between everything else including viewing and reading everything we could find about the Corona virus. We could no longer be cautious. We quickly grew nervous. By day 3 of the lockdown, we collectively decided to not panic any longer and to boycott information overload.

This meant that we had to start responding to unending questions from the children. Some we gladly did, others we suffered from full disclosure, either because of their ages, or simply because we had little knowledge on. I tell you; parenting has become even more physically, emotionally, psychologically and mentally demanding. But guess what? I learnt a huge lesson of gratitude and I will leave that with you the readers, my children and many others.

My husband has been the hero in it all. However, it still seems like as a working mother, the threat of COVID-19 gives me a new view of domestic and emotional labour. I had to be a psychologist to make sure that I gauge and manage fears and anxieties. But I did not manage my family well because my own fear and anxiety kept featuring as I thought of how long the items we bought would last for. How many children out there have no food? How many men are held up and being abused by their children and partners? How many men have abandoned women with children? How many women are locked up with and are meant to look after stepchildren that they have never met? How many parents seem to be strangers in looking after their children because they paid helpers to do so all their lives? How long will working and schooling from home last? Where will our next household income come from? How will our bills look like in the next weeks? What will banks say? What will the government do? How about my employees? How long will this last for?

I worry about how parents in private employment feed their children if their salaries do not go through? How will people survive psychologically? How many grownups are now locked down with and have to look after and feed parents who abused them all their childhood? And the old people, can they stand for themselves? The mentally disturbed, where are they? I worry about who can hear the silence. The burden is huge. It is real. But it can be lightened by us all.

It is clear that many of us will survive. It seems certain that COVID-19 is a stress test for societies. Even experts’ understanding on the Corona virus and how it functions seems to be extremely limited. Worst even, we are bombarded with new findings every day. We know that it is now an Airborne virus, right? Scary as the world may be, let me emphasis that it is important for parents to protect themselves from stress and anxiety. Children pick up queues very easily and they can be traumatised when they noticed that their parents are acting weird. Do not over or under compromise. Try to keep a balance. Maintain a routine as per schools or instill some order to avoid chaos. Please find humour in any and everything, eat together, exercise and practice me-time, watch Television, read books, make phone calls, participate in chat groups, play family games, eat out of routine now and then, make your own rules, reward yourself and your family for committing. Celebrate milestones with simple meals, involve everyone in anticipating the needs of the family and plan what's next. It is a no brainer that school closure is a wake-up call for many, if not all families.

It is sad that some men have demanded personal space. Some have set-up private offices in rooms with controlled access in order to keep away the wife who also has to work, and the children who need supervision from their working parents. Some have started to abuse substances. I appreciate all men who like my husband, are shouldering this uncertainty with; actually, for their families. My husband commented on day 3, that the lockdown felt like a normal weekend. His job as the chef for all three meals each day got us all overfed and left him exhausted. He made the rules that him and I shall each cook every after two days while the children clean up. However, he cheated and this has left the children calling themselves his kitchen army, after they each had to chop, fry, boil or at least do something when it was his turn to cook. In between living each day, all 4 children rellied on our support to do their best at homeschooling.

Survival beyond Corona virus pandemic leaves many of us with lessons. It does not matter whether you stayed in a village, township, suburb, hotel. It does not matter whether you were wealthy, of the working class, single, married or a beggar. It does not matter whether you lived in Europe, America, Africa, Asia or Australia. Nothing matters much after COVID-19. What will mater will be the fact that we depended on each other to survive. So, maybe. Just maybe, COVID-19 come to show the real meaning of Involved Parenting, Involved Caregiving and a revision in policies.

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Victorine Mbong Shu is in education and training since 2002. She is the CEO of Profounder Intelligence Management Services, a Peak Performance Authority Coach, Publisher, Editor, Researcher, Transformational Speaker, Material Developer, Facilitator, Assessor and Moderator. She is the Co-owner of Profound Conference Centre in Bramley-JHB. Victorine and Dr. Fru are raising 4 bubbly children, including Child Prodigy, Africa’s youngest international multiple award-winning bestselling author of chapter books, 13-year-old Stacey Fru. A PhD fellow in Communications herself, Victorine is a respectable Involved Parenting Conversationalist. She is a BrandSA Ambassador and Awards Winning Author of the following books:

·????????‘Stop Complaining! and Bring Back Involved Parenting, 2016’

·????????‘Trapped in our shadows, 2017’

·?????‘Proven habits for financial freedom, 2018’

·????????‘S’EX, 2018’

·????????‘Not too late: Bring Back Involved Parenting, 2020’

Follow her on all social media by searching @Mbongshu