MartinPrescott via Getty Images Working motherhood looked hard, but it was also something I aspired to.
What’s it like to return to the office from maternity leave without an office to return to? This is a question I’d foolishly hoped I wouldn’t have to answer. After all, I gave birth back in the first wave, and surely the world would be back on track by January 2021?
Like all “Covid mums”, I experienced moments of deep joy this year, but spent much of it pacing the streets, exhausted, alone with a newborn baby and nowhere to feed or change him apart from a park bench. Now I find myself trying to manage another rite of passage refracted through a Covid lens: the transition from full-time childcare to work.
Kensington Palace/PA
She took part in a discussion with three parents, whose children attend Roe Green Junior School in Kingsbury, north west London, alongside headteacher Melissa Loosemore.
As part of a “show and tell” exercise during the video call, the headteacher instructed the group to write down answers to questions with the first request – “one word that describes parenting during this pandemic”.
READ MORE:
The duchess held up the word “exhausting”, while others joined in with similar sentiments including “hectic”, “patience” and “challenging”.
After being asked to explain her decision by the headteacher, she said: “I think as parents you’ve the day-to-day elements of being a parent, but I suppose during lockdown we have had to take on additional roles that perhaps others in our communities, or in our lives, would have perhaps supported us and helped us with.”
“He’s like a six-year-old in a 90-year-old’s body,” says Chris Ward of his son Thomas, who first fell ill in February 2020 with a fever, breathlessness and aches all over his body.
Thomas was assessed at A&E where the family was asked if they’d been to Italy – they hadn’t. They were sent home with instructions that it was a viral infection and Thomas, then five, needed to rest.
Flash forward a year and Thomas is still suffering – tests have since revealed he has Covid-19 antibodies. Every two or three weeks, his temperature soars. His glands are constantly enlarged and his body aches most days. Ward recently caught him walking up the stairs like a crab because of the pain.
âA 6-Year-Old In A 90-Year-Oldâs Bodyâ â The Children Devastated By Long Covid
Hundreds of children are not back to full health after COVID-19. Their parents feel helpless.
âHeâs like a six-year-old in a 90-year-oldâs body,â says Chris Ward of his son Thomas, who first fell ill last February with a fever, breathlessness and aches all over his body.
Thomas was assessed at A&E where the family was asked if theyâd been to Italy â they hadnât. They were sent home with instructions that it was a viral infection and Thomas, then five, needed to rest.