A Mom’s Survival Guide to Island Living

Remember back in April when I said Moms in the United States were not OK? Well, that was just a signal flare and now the island is burning.

What most men are starting to piece together at this point, the secret to success, lies at the hands of women. Over the past 145 days, Moms have had time to filter through what is helpful and what is harmful, as we navigate both the physical and mental battles. We are still here, mothering adrift from our village and it’s: lonely, triggering, and enormously difficult. But we are adaptive and here is what we’ve learned. Like everything in motherhood, take what serves you and leave the rest.

Step Away from the Internet

The only thing worse than the comment section on a political post, is witnessing other people seemingly living their best quarantine life on social media. It’s critical to take extended breaks from both the news and social media. It’s not just because of all the divisiveness, hate, and conspiracy theory insanity—it is also because whatever is viewed and read on a screen is not always an accurate portrayal of reality.

We miss seeing another Mom in Target, standing next to a toddler, fully sprawled on the floor, tears the size of the crocodile musical toy she is refusing them. We need this proof of life because not only does it serve as a reminder of humanity, but because it’s honest and entirely relatable. Front porch photo shoots and dreamy homeschooling setups are a struggling Mom’s metaphorical salt in a festering, oozing wound.

When you go to reach for social media, try a meditation app or listen to a therapeutic podcast instead. The social media highlight reel, is anything but real.

Lean on and Learn from Others

Locate a supportive network of Moms who aren’t afraid to tell the truth. Ones that invite you for a socially distant walk to talk, instead of encouraging you to pick up a second glass of wine.

Find someone who says, I see you’re struggling and I am too.

We have been Schooled

In order for learning to take place, adults need to act like adults. I too want to throw an enormous temper tantrum over virtual schooling again—but neither that, nor using children as experimental guinea pigs will end the spread of COVID-19.

Thank you to the all the brave teachers on the front lines, attempting to safely educate students in person.

We should stop assuming kids will benefit from a virtual world that hasn’t been able to emotionally benefit adults. Online learning, like in-person schooling, isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. It will work for some, but not for all.

When online schooling or homeschooling isn’t the right fit—look into an in-person, cooperative learning pod. Find a family to add to your circle, hire a teacher, or take turns with the curriculum. Children are social creatures and learning, especially from a young age, has more to do with human interaction, than it does words or numbers on a screen.

We’ve Gotten Creative AF

We will do whatever it takes to be social, safely. It’s clear other people are hellbent on killing themselves and others--but policing them requires more bandwidth than we have to spare and we need every drop of energy for our own families. Their stupidity only ignites our creativity.

We’ve done: coffee meet-ups from the trunks of minivans, socially distant walks and runs, 6-ft apart playdates, Zoom book clubs and happy hours, restaurant dining in parking spaces, and kid’s birthday drive-by parades.

Mental Health is the Key to Everything

While we are doing everything in our power to keep our family safe from COVID-19, Mothers also tend to set the tempo of the family’s mental health. Everyone looks to us to be the metronome. When we are off beat, the whole house falls apart.

Prioritize mental health, as if it is our only source of oxygen. Seeking help should be as socially acceptable as washing our hands at this point. Resources are available online--is it ideal, no. Is it essential, yes.

It is OK to say, I’m not OK.

If you look closely, you’ll see me, waving over here on my island, putting out little fires everywhere, disconnected but determined. Mothers may be marooned, but we will always find a way to move us all closer together.

A Mom’s Guide to the Stages of Quarantine

Never did I ever think I’d be writing a mom’s guide for a shelter-in-place response to a pandemic. But here we are, at home—were your butt should be.

Pre-Quarantine: Overly ambitious goals and caffeinated efforts.

We made lists of overly ambitious tasks, unfathomable projects requiring unreasonable amount of time. Projects like: the garage, the kitchen junk drawer, color coordinating your spices.

We now have no excuse not to fulfill resolutions and goals: this will be our opportunity to return to the high-school-track-and-field-weight and emerge just in time for bikini season. Kids will be reading, potty trained, sleep-experts in no time. Marie Kondo will be calling us for advice when this is over.

The over-used phrase of the times is officially “out of an abundance of caution”. 

Homeschooling will be a challenge, but we’ve always dabbled with the idea anyways, how could a school possibly cater to our child’s uniqueness like we could?

Week 1: Intentions are strong.

We spend a small fortune on Amazon preparing for creative and inspired schooling— annoyed that they are no longer shipping in a day, because that’s the reason we weren’t able to jump start their learning— and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that when we floated the idea to our kids, they just grunted from behind their iPads.

When we go outside the colors seem brighter and more vibrant. That’s it! We will be a hiking, exploring, nature-loving family!

Week 2: Denial.

We are still riding the waves of denial; we may have even used the word “stay-cation” non-ironically. We aren’t necessarily exercising, but instead are emulating a bear just before hibernation—which is justifiable because the grocery store shelves themselves are bare and just this visual makes us grateful for the surplus of Easter chocolate.

The internet has become our obsession, both for the witty memes and terrifying statistics.

Week 3: Unprecedented.

We discover The Tiger King the docuseries on Netflix and personal hygiene and aspirations get traded in for a flamboyant, feline-obsessed polygamist suffering from Trump-levels of narcissism. The fact that we no longer brush our hair is excusable, since it’s not a mullet.

The term “unprecedented” has quickly replaced “out of an abundance of caution” as the new buzzword.

We fantasize about what life would have been like had this occurred in our childless carefree-years. Never has it been more apparent that it takes a village to raise a child and dear God, are we missing our village.   

Real home schooling has yet to gain roots—after all the internet is encouraging us to nurture our children and not bombard them with worksheets. We’ve blocked all of the Pinterest moms that are attempting to win the quarantine. Thanks for tagging us Karen in your post about making compostable to-scale WW2 dioramas with your 6 kids, we will be sure to get right on that just after we finish our snow cones for breakfast and Daniel Tiger marathon.

Predictions for what’s to come:

We’ll discover everyone living in our home appears to be playing a uber-competitive game of who can annoy us the most.  

We will float the idea of getting a hamster or a puppy and cutting our own bangs doesn’t sound like a completely terrible idea.

We will start setting caffeine, alcohol, and internet limits.

The projects, label maker, Common Core math textbook and the scale mock us with their presence.

We start to argue with random strangers on the internet about predictions of release dates, now that everyone is suddenly an infectious disease expert.

Some things are too scary to predict--so we try our best to find humor where there is some, or we’ll surely succumb to the heaviness and we need the light to carry our children through this.

Hope for the future:

We’ve heard the expression “life can change in an instant”— but now we’ve lived through it.

And survived it.

We will come out the other side changed with a profound appreciation for the value of face-to-face human connection, that we will never again take for granted.

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