Two local mums have spoken on their experiences and difficulties of the recent lockdown.
Abby Lombard is a 30-year-old single mum who lives in Pakuranga with her two young daughters. She is studying full-time on a diploma in legal executive studies.
When Lombard heard of the announcement of the current lockdown, she was “extremely anxious and quite upset”.
“But I’ve come to terms with it a bit more now.”
She told the Times that the previous lockdowns were difficult but this one has been even more of a struggle.
“I wasn’t studying then. I am now.”
“It has affected us quite a lot – broken routines and home-schooling.”
The lack of physical contact with friends and family has been a challenge. “It can get lonely being the only adult in the house. I try to keep contact through daily phone calls.”
“Having three assessments due while juggling home-schooling and keeping the girls entertained is quite hard, but we are doing the best we can and that’s all we can do.”
That is one of the most difficulty factors of lockdown, Abby says, attempting to juggle everything – including housework, home-schooling and studying.
“The positives are we are healthy and realising how much we take it for granted!”
Karen Brewer, a Shelly Park resident, has two young sons with her husband Gavin. They have been married for seven years. Gavin is an essential worker – he works as a senior electronics technician in East Tamaki.
Brewer is a senior research fellow in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland (UOA).
“I work part-time and can, in theory, do all my work from home,” she says. “However, I can’t actually work from home while I have sole charge of two small children.”
During the first lockdown in March of last year, Brewer says the experience was very different to the current one. “I was finishing up my post-doctoral research fellowship, Jacob was 11 months old, and Gavin was on parental leave, so we were all home in our bubble.”
“When we were all home last time it felt like a safe and cosy bubble. I don’t get that feeling because Gavin is out every day”.
This is the second time she will be celebrating her birthday during lockdown. She says her friend’s situation overseas has put the situation into perspective for her. “She recently spent her 40th birthday recovering from Covid-19, along with her husband and four young children.”
Due to working at home with children being unsustainable, the couple came to an arrangement to make their circumstances more flexible.
“Gavin takes two-and-a-half days of annual leave each week so I have two afternoons a week to do some work,” she says.
“I’m much happier now that I can separate work time and spend the rest playing with the kids.”
The most difficult part of lockdown, Karen says, is never having a break from the children. It’s made much harder when there isn’t a kindergarten or Sunday school open. “The boys miss going to playgrounds and they don’t get as much opportunity to run around so it’s hard for them to expend all their energy,” Brewer says.
On the other end, the most positive part of the experience is “not having to pack lunches every day”.
“It’s also nice having quiet, safe streets,” she says. “Liam had learned earlier this year to ride a pedal bike without training wheels – last weekend I took him riding on the road for the first time.”
