The mental health of parents that can’t afford a YouTuber quarantine
My wife and kids are in quarantine for much before COVID-19. We moved from Brazil to Chile last June in search of a better place for our career and also to raise our kids — I came in June with a visa sponsored by the company, and they arrived later in September. My wife is still waiting for all the paperwork to be allowed to work legally here, so at the moment she’s a full-time stay-at-home mom.
Adapting to a new country is hard in every sense. The language and cultural barriers are the worse for kids, but I was lucky enough to find a school where everyone — from the principal to teacher and students was truly kind and friendly to my 9 years old stepdaughter.
Unfortunately, a few weeks after the first day of school, protests erupt all over Chile and classes got suspended. In a matter of days, all my plans went down the drain — after all, kids learn pretty fast and there’s no better way to learn a new language by speaking daily with locals.
Ok, I agree — moving to a foreign country where you don’t speak a dime about the local dialect may not have been a good plan, but still… everything happened so fast and we didn’t have time to take a few Spanish classes before moving. Fast-forwarding a few months, classes started normally in February but soon got suspended again because of the pandemic.
TLDR? My stepdaughter is confined at home since last October.
Before the pandemic, things were a bit easier — if you are married and have kids I’m pretty sure that the monthly supermarket trip is one of the family outings. I also used to go to the playground daily with my son so he could run, kick the ball and spend some energy there.
Given that, can you imagine living in a 600ft² apartment with two kids of totally different personalities and who share the same bedroom? If not, let me tell you how it feels: it’s maddening.
All the above brings us to the discussion presented in the title. One way to keep kids entertained is with technology — mainly YouTube and Netflix. And, God! Have you ever watched YouTube videos targeted to kids? These so-called YouTubers lives in huge mansions, the bedrooms are all colored and Montessori like, have more toys than any average kid and eat a lot — I mean a lot — of junk food.
The parents are also part of the show and they present themselves as holy adults that are successful in their careers, do not lose the temper over the kids and are always happy.
I wanted to be like Bill Gates when I was younger, now I want to be like Diana’s father.
It’s not that I’m jealous, but come on! My son always asks me for new toys and I don’t blame him — most of his toys are second-handed and the only one in really good conditions is his Hulk action figure.
I encourage my stepdaughter to watch videos to stimulate her creativity and learning, but she never has the paints or color pencils needed, and I also don’t blame her.
What I’m trying to say is, YouTube is full of content for kids that do not align with the reality of the majority of kids watching it.
For kids is dificult to separate what they see in videos from reallity. And for the parents, the hard work is on trying to balance this in the household budget. I want to buy new toys to my kids, but winter is comming and last year clothes aren’t fitting anymore.
Priorities! It’s dificult even to us, adults, understand and know how to prioritize our needs. We are humans, after all. And people seems to forget this. You know what really grinds my gears? All these people in social media saying that you should enjoy the quarantene to learn something new, meditate or whatever. For us, real life parents, the goal is to keep the kids alive and feeded.
I know, they are my kids and therefore it’s my problem and I couldn’t agree more. But please, don’t call my apartment at 5pm in a Saturday complaning that we’re making too much noise.
So if you are a parent reading this, let me tell you something: I’m pretty sure you’re a fantastic mom/dad and is doing your best in this so hard time. Don’t give up!
