The pandemic has been testing humanity for three years, changing lives, redefining paths and causing unprecedented management problems. The challenges for parents have become enormous, as they have to deal with the crisis not only as people responsible for themselves but also as parents responsible for other people for whom they are called to make serious decisions. APE-MPE spoke with mothers about how they experienced and are experiencing the last two years, the different phases they have gone through and their fears. The emotions and worries they describe vary, but one of them is common to all: fear.
As Maria N. describes: “Before answering as a mother how I experienced the period of incarceration I will answer as a 46-year-old woman. The fear that traps you mentally emotionally and physically for something you do not see was terrible! This fear in quarantine increased 100 times …!
So in quarantine I was a scared mother! “So the frightened mother was afraid for her children, for her husband and for herself.”
Alkisti with two children in a provincial town explains her own feelings: “During the incarceration, negative emotions prevailed. Insecurity, fear of the unknown but also oppression and a feeling of deprivation of liberty. “I was afraid for the health of my family members and I was worried about the dimensions that this situation could take as well as its duration”.
Maria V. is also a mother of two children, but in Athens she had to face a different fear: I could not bear to be “to blame” for someone else’s death. As a mother, I treated lockdown as a necessary evil. I confined my children to a home without seeing friends and classmates. “Their only contact was the screen, a screen that I had struggled to avoid all these years and had managed to do so by then.”
Emotions did not remain the same during the pandemic. They went through different phases that were recurring during these two years, as were the situations they had to deal with. “The phases I experienced were in order: fear, familiarity, acceptance of the situation, fatigue, longing to return to normalcy,” says Alkisti.
Despite the fears and worries, however, the sight of children in the house on a daily basis for long periods was disappointing for most mothers.
“Through various means such as reading the psychological literature, I tried to overcome my fears. But also for the children not to understand what is happening to me and not to transmit it to them. Basically the worst thing that ever happened was to see a 13 year old almost addicted to social media and a 9 year old almost addicted to videogames. So you put aside the fear and try to find solutions for the above. “With the 13-year-old child, I tried to solve all the questions about information he received from social networks and for the little one to try to get them out in the parks as much as possible”, says Maria N.
“I was looking forward to the opening of the schools. The quarantine was devastating for the children. They did not attend classes properly, nor did they play with their classmates during breaks. In general, school is the right place for children, not the house or the screen. If it was difficult for me to attend a lecture on the computer I can not imagine what it meant for the children.
I understand the reasons for the incarceration, if I am asked I will obey for the good of the whole I would do it again. I was vaccinated, now my children too. This is how it will all end … “, concludes Maria B.
Maria N., who is also the owner of a kindergarten, in addition to her mother, submits her own thoughts on the issue of open or closed schools: And as a school entrepreneur by experience I knew that children were more controlled at school than freely in parks and squares. Since in schools the children respected the rules. Even now that the three quarantines have passed, during the Christmas period I was terribly anxious which manifested itself with a headache because I was trembling at the idea that the schools would not open on the 10th of January. Not as a businessman but as a mother of adolescence and preadolescence. It would be unfair for vaccinated children, as in our case and vaccinated parents, for children to be quarantined again. I wish 2022 without quarantines “.
Although Alkisti was afraid to send her daughter to school, she concludes: “She was tiring mentally and physically with the children and worried about the consequences of the incarceration on them. I was afraid to send her to school. When the schools opened the activities were much better for everyone. The little one acquired interests and the tensions that had been created due to the confinement were normalized “.
Speaking to APE-MPE, psychologist Stella Argyriou urges mothers: “Start talking about their own concerns and not yours. Help them focus on what they can control. Implement good routines, consistent eg sleep when not enough has been linked to stress in children. Prepare as a family for change, also keep some virtual activities, whether it is a music lesson or a physical exercise. That way, if the school and the tutoring centers are closed, it will not seem like everything is lost again. “
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