Lessons from Covid

A week or so after we came out of COVID lockdown in October, I had a few errands to do so I went to the post office, chemist and few other shops. Although I don’t love wearing a mask, and at the you needed to check in and show my vaccine certificate at each store you visited, I remember having a really nice day. I found everyone I dealt with to be very friendly and chatty. The lady who helped me at the post office suggested I keep the bags that my online shopping comes in in case I need to return the goods. We then joked about how sometimes you are so excited to get the delivery you end up ripping open the bag. I chatted to the man outside the chemist when he asked how my day had been and we spoke about what it is like for him to have to ask people to see their vaccine certificates. What I noticed at the time was that everyone (myself included) was soaking up the face to face interaction. Those seemingly insignificant moments of connection, whether with the sales person or fellow shopper, were no longer taken for granted. Just like most things in life, we don’t appreciate things until we no longer have them, and sometimes it takes losing things, to realise their value.

I often see something similar when working with separated families. ( At the risk of being politically incorrect and reinforcing traditional stereotypes, I am going to refer to “mum and dad” as it is confusing and cumbersome to keep referring to one parent and the other parent. ) I often have a mum complaining that the dad doesn’t know how to look after the kids and is incapable of doing so. The mum will explain to me that dad was often at work and was hardly around during the week. Dad had never made a school lunch, picked up the kids from school, organised their dinners or looked after them much during the week. Dad is now asking to have the children overnight during the week and mum is angry as dad never seemed to have time for them before, and on top of that she is worried about his ability to look after the children.

When parents live together it is easy to take for granted the time you get to see your kids. There are small pockets of time that parents see their kids just by virtue of living in the same home. Whether it’s a few minutes before everyone heads out the door to school and work, or kissing the kids goodnight before they go to sleep. If dad has to work late one night, he knows he will see the kids tomorrow morning or tomorrow evening. But when parents separate they suddenly become acutely aware of the absence of their children and the loss of those pockets of time. The morning chaos of children and parents rushing to get ready for school and work is now replaced with deafening silence, and that is often very difficult for parents, no matter how involved they had previously been in their kid’s morning routines. And just like that day, when the sales lady and I made the extra effort to chat and connect with one another, so too do I see separated parents finding a new appreciation for the time they have with their kids and stepping up to do the things the kids need from them. This doesn’t mean it happens in every case, however, often when I mediate with parents who have been divorced for several years they tell me that dad is far more present and involved now than he ever was when they were married. If the other parent does step up, your children will be better off for it.