Unprecedented events create new experiences. What fun, misadventure, or positive discoveries have you encountered while locked down?
A thought experiment launched by Saving Ninja.
Four weeks into lockdown and it’s clear I have been functioning in survival mode.
I saw the lockdown coming – my parents live in Northern Italy who are a few weeks ahead of us in all this. I could see our future in their new everyday existence. But I was unprepared for the shock of the intensity of it all, even beyond the financial adjustments.
Introverted me time is suddenly a rare first world problem. And time to blog. And to read.
My 3-year-old doesn’t get why she can only see her friends on video calls now. She is sad, frustrated, bored, and tries every new tactic to get back some control over her own life. Like pooping in her pants if we don’t get up soon enough in the morning. Or the fact that now most days it takes two adults to brush her teeth. I don’t recognise her.
Will she be a digital addict? Maybe, she is now for sure, giving her YouTube Kids is the only way we can manage work video calls at the same time. Not the education I had in mind when we decided to have a kid. We’ll work to change that after the lockdown.
I’m concerned about our mental health. We work long hours due to the many interruptions our daughter creates. Our sleep is interrupted several times a night as she is out of her cot and now just climbs into our bed. Yet everyone out there keeps telling us how important plenty and uninterrupted sleep is – where’s the advice for people with small kids??
I’ve been watching the news and social media much less as things were getting too much for me. Many people I know have done the same, and I feel for journalists who don’t have that option.
I need the outdoors to function and having had a stressful pregnancy I know she is also more susceptible to mental health issues, studies confirm. We are spending a lot of time outside – in the garden, on the river and in local parks – and I am grateful the sun is out most of the time.
Here’s my confession. We spend more time outdoors than we should. But when we do, we choose areas with little to no people around. Hurray for green suburbs that make this possible!
I miss my cleaner so very much. We both don’t like cleaning. Yet now that we have no choice but to do it, we set a day and split the work, then we just get it done. My daughter was first puzzled – she had never seen us clean – second time round she wanted to mop the floor herself.
Are we missing an opportunity to raise her a Renaissance Woman by not involving her in the cleaning of our home? The lockdown gives us the opportunity to show her it needs doing and how to do it, but no doubt we’ll revert to our cleaner as soon as we can.
Financially our investments tanked, we both got a 20% pay cut, but with mortgage holiday and no nursery fees we’ll be fine. We both wish we had a larger emergency fund, and that’s a lesson learned.
Most importantly my husband has finally come over in full to the financial independence thinking. All the talking I’ve done over the years is now crystalised in real life. I guess it would have taken many more years without the lockdown. Now he will occasionally slip into conversations concepts like emergency fund, dividends, index funds and low fees. And this is probably the main positive outcome for me from lockdown.
All in all I like spending a lot of time with my family. I like where we live and the life we lead. I now know more than ever who my real friends are. And most of all, we are healthy (or, I should rather say, we have no symptoms of any sort).
5 Comments
Firelite · 26th April 2020 at 10:52 am
Hi, I do feel for you having a 3 year old at home.. we are in the same boat! However, our boy seems to take it pretty well and only really cos we take turns to work so he has one of our attention more than he’s had since infancy.
As our boy is very social, we’ve created a new friendship group from his cuddly toys. Obviously hard work us doing their voices day in day out, but possibly something to try? Just a thought! We play school with the teddies each day and it’s a been a great way to teach him sharing and hmm he’s getting less sulky with losing games! I got the idea as he’s much more compliant around other kids and was kinda dreading his rebelliousness with us. And I teach about imaginary companions and how they aid social development, and ahh!
The whole parenting thing is hard though. I sympathise! Any yeah none of the advice is for parents of young kids! We take turns to parent and each work 7 hrs so there’s not constant interruptions (in theory) but it means our days are v long with little time altogether outside weekends. Had been wondering how others do it…!
While it’s true that research suggests prenatal anxiety exposure will increase the chances of the child having mental health problems, it is only a probability, not a certainty, don’t ever blame yourself. I had a tough pregnancy too. I ate tonnes and I even felt guilted that I’d have a boy who’d be obese as I was night feeding still after he took solids. Health visitor had good intentions and sure the research shows a correlation but seriously we as mothers feel such responsibility already, we don’t need that shit! I myself take deep breaths often when the situation with LO is testing!!! The outdoors is great though, I agree!
We are still paying 20% of nursery so good you’ve not been asked to! Our saving is much lower as we have 30 hrs free. But we did pay a lot before 3 years. I do think 3 years is a great time to spend with children and we are learning everyday how much ours has learned in nursery and they have such great imaginations and soak up stuff! I’ve learned so much about dinosaurs too haha.
Take care.
Sonia · 26th April 2020 at 5:00 pm
Hello Firelite,
I really like the idea of a social circle with teddies, I will introduce the concept and see how far we can go together.
Most parents I talk to are finding it challenging. Taking turns with work certainly helps but we can’t do it much as we both have calls at various times of the day. Luckily both our employers are understanding. Since penning this post I realised that I also miss being able to plan things besides having a more normal routine.
I do like your blog and your back story, I love to hear of people like me doing something different, something non-standard like aiming for FI 🙂
Stay safe,
Sonia
Firelite · 26th April 2020 at 9:03 pm
Oh, thanks! I checked out your blog as noticed you’d also done Savings Ninja’s thought experiment. Been meaning to link to all those who’ve done so, so will add yours. I’ll check out your other posts soon!
Lukas - author of www.myfinancialfreedom.blog · 30th April 2020 at 8:51 pm
Hi there,
Sorry to hear about the challenges the combination of work and caregiving during the lockdown create for you. Rest assured, that you are not alone and that the situation is similar for many many families around the world.
May I ask a bit more about your emergency fund? You said you wished it was larger than it actually is. I recently wrote about it and would be curious to get your perspective! https://meinefinanziellefreiheit.com/2020/04/22/emergency-fund/
Thanks and cheers,
Lukas
Sonia · 11th May 2020 at 4:33 pm
Hello Lukas,
We are learning to make the best of the situations, and we remind ourselves of the many learnings.
My emergency fund in March was 3 months of expenses, my husband’s 4 months. We have separate finances, which I have insisted on. Going forward I will aim to having 6 months or more, depending on circumstances, because I know that I would sleep better at night.
Good article you linked, you make a good point that the emergency fund amount can be different for different people based on background. I think it certainly is also a matter of personality.
Sonia