These Parents Went To Desperate Lengths To Cope During Lockdown
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I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve felt like banging my head against the wall through lockdown. Being in quarantine with two young children – who are both missing school, their grandparents and their friends – has been tough.
I’m lucky I’m not doing it alone, and their father is fully involved, but it’s still the hardest period of parenting I’ve ever known – harder than those fractured nights of little sleep when they were newborn, harder than dealing with the onset of temper tantrums, harder than settling them into school and nursery.
It’s easy, then, to understand why some people have been tempted to bend the rules. Doing so is anything but straightforward – and is likely to be shrouded in secrecy.
The row over Dominic Cummings has proven just how controversial the issue can be. Before the Cummings controversy broke, HuffPost UK spoke to three families to find out how, and why, they bent the rules.
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‘My mental health was taking a significant hit’
*Samantha, 31, from Devon, works full-time. She has a five-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.
“I have a full-time, senior level marketing role and I was given the choice of taking furlough or continuing to work at a 30% pay cut. I chose to work, because marketing is essential to our business at this time. And most of my team are still working from home and need managing.
“I have a five-year-old daughter who hasn’t been able to go to school and a one-year-old son who’s usually cared for by my 68-year-old mum and a childminder.
“I did the first seven weeks of lockdown trying to work, while attempting home schooling, and then working from 7pm...
