COLUMN: Parenting In The Time Of Coronavirus

No one wants to wear pants.

This is what we all have in common in my household right now. By pants, I mean real pants, like, going-out-in-public-pants. But I also mean any kind of pants. Because we are adults, rest assured that my husband and I are wearing pants, primarily of the leisure variety, of course.

Three times now, I have put jeans on my body. Just to remind myself I am a human being. Our kids feel no such compulsion. I find myself saying “please put pants on” roughly 45 times daily, followed more than 50 percent of the time (directed at the younger two) by “at least put underpants on.”

I envy their ability to be untethered to even the most basic societal expectations. I am at a point where having all three of my children in underwear feels like a parenting win.

Inexplicably, I frequently find them in bathing suits, even though we don’t have a pool or live within walking distance of a body of water, and it is rarely above 55 degrees.

There was one day last week when it was 60 degrees, which translates to 85 degrees if you’re under the age of 10. So now we are shunning footwear as well. Basically, any kind of clothing or garment meant for the waist-down area of the body is considered as non-essential as a nail salon during this time, according to my kids. OK, fine.

“OK, fine,” is the new name of my parenting style, by the way. “What do you want for breakfast?” “I want Oreos.” Sigh. “We don’t eat cookies for breakfast.” (Spoken with close to zero conviction). “But I WANT Oreos!” (Spoken with SO. MUCH. conviction.) “OK, fine.”

My nutritional standards are now as follows: Does this food item have caloric content? Yes? OK, you can eat it. Just tame your emotional beast with calories and let me drink my coffee while I consume terrifying news and Instagram posts that will make me feel bad about myself in peace.

The dining room table is not for eating any more. In truth, that was never its primary purpose, but it did formerly fulfill that role with at least some spotty regularity.

It is now a landing pad for unfolded laundry (because the laundry baskets are filled with the rest of the unfolded laundry), and sad, half-baked “crafts” that are undertaken with minimal enthusiasm and abandoned before completion.

Food is consumed on the move, calories entering and exiting simultaneously.

Danimals yogurt smoothies — prized for the Paw Patrol artwork on their exteriors as much if not more than for their high-fructose flavoring — are rapidly consumed in a series of five or six, minimum, by my 3-year-old son.

Apparently, they taste better when you send them down the hatch as you roam the driveway barefoot (and pantless, as previously discussed), in a pee-soaked Pull-Up that for some reason you refuse to remove, while chasing the geriatric golden retriever who thought the first week of this was cool but is now clearly traumatized by our constant presence.

Making your disdain for pants clear is a priority in these times, but constant wardrobe changes are important as well. Is this what it’s like to work for Mariah Carey, I wonder, as I am barked at to zip, button, or lace up another dress, skirt, or horribly mismatched ensemble that my 5-year-old has assembled, as if each day is another performance in her Vegas residency, and I exist to facilitate the never-ending backstage costume changes.

Thank God she diligently folds and replaces each discarded outfit back in its proper place in the closet or dresser. LOL. Just kidding, she throws it all on the floor, and then, after I freak out and scream like a monster at everyone that I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE!, I diligently fold and replace each discarded outfit to its proper place, before doing my 20th load of laundry for the day, because the only thing that is worse than having been disrespected and losing all of your dignity is looking at a constant reminder of the chaos of your life in the form of clothes strewn all over the floor.

In those pride-swallowing moments, I find my mind wandering to the scene in “The Royal Tenenbaums,” where Richie Tenenbaum is bombing his tennis match and, forlornly removes both sneakers and just one sock before softly starting to cry. I think about this scene at least once daily. I will have to add this movie to our list, but first I will need a solo viewing to make sure it’s family friendly.

We’re watching a lot of movies. I make them watch all the old ones that are good, like “Back to the Future,” “Cool Runnings,” “The Parent Trap” (the original, duh).

Of course, I’ve also been subjected to all the cheesy Disney ’tween dramas that abound on Disney+. I find myself being drawn in to these bland and predictable movies, and then wanting to slap myself.

Did I enjoy “Teen Beach?” Do I actually want to watch the sequel? Yes, I do. Sue me. The actors are all very fit and thin and carefree and energetic. Strange, mythical creatures. Was I one in another life?

Currently, I am working on weaning myself off the modifications for every move in the half-hour Beachbody workouts I force myself to do to earn my snack and alcohol calories and make sure I still fit in those jeans I occasionally wear.

Here’s a question: What is with this weird fantasy everyone is indulging that we have more time on our hands now and thus we can and should use it to do amazing things?

Before this end times-esque moment began, I was a freelance writer-for-hire with three kids, two of whom were in school five full days weekly, one in school three days (one full) weekly, and we paid someone to come to our house once weekly to clean up and do all our laundry while babysitting the youngest.

Now, I am effectively unemployed, forced into stay-at-home-motherhood I never desired, and I’m also apparently a kindergarten/third grade teacher, laundress, chef, child psychologist, and chicken farmer (we bought live chicks, don’t ask, it’s a separate essay), working at the rate of $0.00 per hour. Where, pray tell, is all this extra time of which you highly motivated people speak?

I am simultaneously doing nothing and everything. Nothing interesting, everything mundane but necessary (see: laundry, dishwasher, food preparation, etc.).

So I see how there is this twisted fantasy that Big Things can be achieved during this time. What a deceptive fallacy this is. And how on-brand for America. When everything is sent into a forced and necessary state of slowdown, to the point of a near grinding halt, we convince ourselves that we must respond with its polar opposite: a state of hyper hustle overdrive, without pausing, even for a moment, to examine if we actually have more time on our hands or not. (Spoiler alert: we don’t).

You must add to your already crushing stress the guilt that you aren’t doing more! I am not immune. For more than a week now, I have felt guilt for procrastinating about writing an essay about how you shouldn’t feel guilt about not doing more. It took one too many homemade frozen margaritas for me to feel a surge of energy and begin this meandering tome at midnight.

We’ve now reached the point of the personal essay where I am supposed to segue to the silver lining or lesson learned or bright side or the takeaway or whatever you want to call it.

I guess I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t have much to offer in this department. All I can offer is a glimpse of my messy life in the hope it makes someone feel better. In that regard, I DO have a lot to offer, so, you’re welcome. The “let me present my messy mom life” essays are a dime a dozen, I know. In that sense, it feels stale and unoriginal. And yet, I keep reading them. I don’t know why, but I guess I do know why. Intuitively, you know the bonkers-ness of having small kids is normal, but you still need that constant reassurance.

So I guess I’ll add a few more tales of woe and ridiculousness to make you all feel better. Here goes. My son has been 3 since December, and still is far from potty trained. He’s regressing, if I’m honest. 
We keep a gate on his bedroom door (for sanity) and the other night he removed his pull-up and gleefully peed through the slats in the gate, onto our hardwood floor. I thought this was the peak of grossness, until I discovered, the next day, that he’d pooped in my daughter’s bike helmet. That night, in my non-existent gratitude journal, I wrote: At least I discovered it before she put it on her head.

Both my son and the 5-year-old wake us up every night. If you have a newborn and you are holding out for that magical “they are finally sleeping through the night!” moment, just know that that is never really a permanent thing. Sorry.

I cry on a regular basis. I want to strangle my dishwasher. But also, if it broke right now, I would lose the strength to go on.

I am so tired of people needing me. I fantasize about solitude and silence, which is so lame and unexciting and wrong when so many other people are so alone.

OK, so maybe I have a few silver linings.

My daughters, 8 and 5, have suddenly become best friends. In these few (extremely long) weeks, they have barely fought, have actually enjoyed each other’s company and have even on occasion enveloped each other in a loving embrace.

My 3-year-old son is getting close to a super awesome 80s-tastic hair situation that I might just decide to keep and which I surely would have had the barber deal with if things were normal. It pairs well with our 80s movies marathon vibe.

I do a weekly video chat with my college friends. I haven’t talked to them this much in years.

It’s 1:02 a.m. on a Saturday night (which no longer means anything) and I worked up the energy to write this essay, even though I won’t get paid for it.

But it will run in my community newspaper, and I hope people will read it, get a laugh, feel more connected somehow, and keep supporting this newspaper so it remains with us after this is over.

So that, along with the rest of the talented people I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside, I can get back to writing stories about people and all the amazing things they are doing and overcoming and the important contributions they are making in the world and in our community, instead of writing about my son’s rogue bathroom habits.

So I can pay the preschool teachers who, praise be, educate him and who I now truly realize deserve to make 20 times more than they do.

So, here’s what I’ll say: Write in your gratitude journal, or don’t. Exercise like a fiend and post about it on Instagram, or make a cake for no reason and eat half of it in one day, or do both, or neither.

Watch tons of old 80s and 90s movies and weird out your kids by knowing all the words to the songs.

Take off your shoes and one sock and cry in your driveway, take 10 naps, drink more coffee and wine than you normally would, sleep in, feel your feelings, get up, do it again.

One day, this will all be a super weird memory, and we will say, “Well that sucked, but at least we didn’t have to wear real pants.”