Let’s Get Real!

by | Mar 27, 2021 | Kids, The Honest Truth

Let’s make this short, sweet, raw and real. Something so refreshing happened to me a few weeks back. We were outside enjoying one of the nicest days of the year and our sweet neighbors came outside.

To preface this: throughout COVID these sweet people were some of the only real life people that Sweet R saw. Sweet R is a talker (if you met her Dad, there is no questions where she picked this trait up). She talks in her sleep, to her self ALL DAY LONG, and to my husband and I ALL DAY LONG. I am amazed that she doesn’t get in trouble at school for talking too much. Our neighbors always genuinely listened to her and interacted with her.

Anyways…our neighbors have a little one the same age as Beast R. The impossible age of somewhere between 2 and 3. The age that makes working from home IMPOSSIBLE. The age that makes pretty much anything productive impossible, unless it revolves around them. So my neighbor tells me that she had to end up sending her little one to daycare full time because she just couldn’t work from home and try to entertain a 2 year old anymore. She follows up her statement with ‘for my mental health.’

I wanted to reach out and hug her. I don’t hug people, hugs aren’t my thing. But standing right there I finally heard someone come out and recognize that the mental health of parents is at stake. For a year I have heard these BS canned answers about COVID being great ‘family time’ or a ‘great time to slow down and do things they haven’t been able to’. I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy your Facebook posts or perfect IG photos with smiles. I’ll be the first person to tell you that I can recognize some good things that have happened in the past year. There have been some positive things.

But one of them is NOT trying to working from home with my entire family there. Nor is one of them listening to Moms (and Dads) lying through their teeth about how great the family time has been. I pulled my hair back into a half pony tail last night to wash my face and made the mistake of looking in the mirror. Oh my god, I have infinite more gray hairs. Some of them might come from age, but alot of them come from parenting in a pandemic.

So thanks neighbor for telling the truth, for acknowledging that pretending to be mentally ok is exhausting and just being real. It does not mean that you love your kids or family any less.

Stop the act people, it’s unhealthy.