Has COVID Changed Parenting Forever?
We need to talk about sick days.
Earlier this month we had one of those lingering, annoying summer colds kicking around the house. Many home tests and our pediatrician confirmed it wasn’t Covid - just a regular old boogers and cough kind of thing.
Pre-Covid, I would have sent the kids to summer camp with this kind of thing for sure. I had a hard and fast rule back then: no fever and no barf meant no sick day. But these days, the calculus is different. I don’t want the other kids to be worried if my kids cough. I don’t want the other parents to give me the side eye if they sniffle at drop off. Not to mention, we don’t want to share our germs.
So, I did what so many other parents of young kids do these days - kept them home for many, many days, despite the fact that they were signed up for camps that we had paid for and that they love attending. Bummer.
Covid has changed so much, but as a parent, one of the things I feel the most is the dramatic increase in my kids’ days at home due to mild illness. I’d estimate in my own family with three kids we have 3-4 times as many sick days as in the before times. This is a massive increase in the number of days per year without childcare. And I know we’re not the only family who is experiencing this, It’s a seismic shift in what it means to parent young kids.
As a lawyer who works with families, this has me thinking about what this dramatic increase in the number of hours when active parenting is required means for clients who are co-parenting:
Who gets to/has to cover these extra days?
Do we take into account the flexibility of each parents’ job?
Should illness alter the existing custody schedule to accommodate or protect certain people?
These are the kinds of questions we should be asking our clients and things we should be incorporating into agreements. Because I have a feeling this isn’t going to change any time soon.
If you are co-parenting and want to speak about how Covid has impacted your custody schedule, let’s connect!
