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Incensed and Insulted: This Is Why Single Parents Are Still Furious With Dominic Cummings

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“Mummy, you’re not going to die are you?” Confined to her bed with symptoms of Covid-19, mum-of-two Kerry Mead felt wracked with guilt at leaving her two children to fend for themselves. And when her eight-year-old daughter voiced fears that her mother was going to die, Mead felt like the ultimate bad parent.

Kerry Mead, 43, who lives in Bristol, has been juggling the practical and emotional aspects of childcare during the coronavirus pandemic totally alone. Even when she was bedridden with her coronavirus symptoms, she didn’t break the lockdown rules or drive her children to seek assistance.

The single mum tells HuffPost UK she feels “insulted and angry” by the actions and excuses of Boris Johnson’s special advisor Dominic Cummings who drove his wife and child from London to Durham during lockdown after his wife developed Covid-19 symptoms.

Mead, mother to son Sam, 11, who is autistic and daughter Ruby, eight, was particularly incensed by the prime minister’s defence of Cummings. Johnson said Cummings had “followed the instincts of every father and every parent”.

Kerry Mead with her son Sam, 11 and daughter Ruby, eight (Kerry Mead)
Kerry Mead with her son Sam, 11 and daughter Ruby, eight (Kerry Mead)

“To try and get around it by saying he was just trying to be a good dad is insulting and a kick in the teeth,” Mead says. “It is offensive to other parents up and down the country who stuck to the rules and he is insulting our intelligence with his blatant lies.”

Cummings and the government “are rewriting history and using parenthood as an excuse”, she suggests. “They are basically saying that all the thousands of people who weren’t there for their loved ones as they were abiding by the rules should have used their ‘common sense’ and done it anyway.”

To try and get around it by saying he was just trying to be a good dad is insulting and a kick in the teeth. Kerry Mead

Mead first started to feel poorly...

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