Impacts on Children and Parenting
Some of our participants had children. Many of them talked about how long COVID made it harder for them to parent their children as they had done in the past. They also worried about their symptoms frightening their children, and the impact on their children of seeing them so ill for so long. Some participants also felt that long COVID was creating burdens and responsibilities that children shouldn’t have to deal with. More optimistically, some of the people we spoke with found a silver lining that allowed them to parent their children differently in unexpected ways.
Some of the people we spoke with expressed regret over small things that had an impact on their children. For example, Manali told us, “I haven’t been able to cook dinners and have so much time with them as I would have done otherwise.” Carrie 1 explained, “I used to be the mom who didn’t like screen time … and now … my kid watches probably a bit too much screen time. But it’s the only way that I get five minutes to myself to lie down and rest.” Cathy experiences post exertional malaise. When she speaks to her son on the phone, she often has to “cut the call off” when she starts to feel tired even if “its nothing but good news … and I’m really excited for him.” Some of our participants told us that changes in their sense of themselves as parents had been highly emotional for them.
Luna says long COVID has completely changed the way she parents her children.
Transcript
I discovered pretty early on that if I push myself out of bed, if I have that wakeup energy of, “I better get up and do that thing, get the garbage out to the street or get the kid to school,” that I could be sick for the rest of […]
Chris tries not to feel like the second parent.
Transcript
And not to mention, sort of, my relationship with our daughter some of, you know, what I’m able to do in terms of spending time with her, in terms of looking after her has been so greatly impacted. She’s three. When I first started having these symptoms, she was one. […]
Concerns about scaring or upsetting children
For some of our participants, one of the most difficult aspects of living with long COVID, was that it scared or upset their children. As Kristen explained, “It was a traumatic event, even for my kids. They saw mommy sick for a very long time. And it was often my husband taking the kids to the park, going out for walks, things that we would do together, that just wasn’t happening anymore. Mommy wasn’t there for a lot of it.” Nicole felt something similar. She told us, “I’m someone who was always on the go, working out six days a week, here, there, everywhere, never sitting still. My kids never saw me on the couch. And at the beginning of this they would come home from school and I’d be lying or sitting on the couch and they would just look at me like ‘what’s going on?’ They weren’t used to seeing that.” One of Paulina’s children experiences anxiety. She would ask, “’Are you going to die?’ It’s been really, really hard on her.” Katherine has an adult son who has autism. She too, worries about upsetting him with her symptoms. She told us, “My son lives in a three-storey walk up … I have him meet me on the main floor … because I’d rather him not see me gasping for breath at the top of three flights of stairs … I don’t like to show any kind of weakness to him. It scares him because he’s so dependent on me.”
The burden on children
Some of the people we spoke with had children who were old enough to take on additional responsibilities at home. They all felt sad about this and regretted what they saw as the burden they were placing on their children.
Valérie wishes her children didn't have so much responsibility.
Written testimony
Là ils sont rendus ados maintenant, mais j’aurais aimé qu’ils aient une enfance/adolescence plus douce, avec moins de responsabilité, je dirais. Parce que veux, veux pas, même si on leur ne demande pas continuellement de m’aider ou quoique ce soit, ils vont le faire d’emblée parce que… pour que ça continue à fonctionner, à rouler dans la maison, mais ils n’ont comme pas vraiment le choix. Fait que je trouve que ça, ça a un impact qui est vraiment très grave … . Mais les enfants des personnes qui ont la COVID longue comme mes enfants, c’est vraiment quelque chose. Ils doivent vraiment s’adapter à la situation puis ça leur amène des contraintes, que normalement les enfants n’ont pas. Fait que l’impact est immense …
[They’re teenagers now, but I wish they’d had a gentler childhood/adolescence, with less responsibility, I’d say. Because even if you don’t continually ask them to help me or anything, they’re going to do it right away because … to keep things running, to keep things rolling around the house, they don’t really have a choice. So I find that it has an impact that’s really very serious … The children of people with long COVID, like my children, it’s really something. They really have to adapt to the situation, and it brings with it constraints that children don’t normally have. So the impact is immense.] Translation from original French.
Tanya worries about the burden long COVID puts on her children.
Transcript
I feel bad for my kids. You know, they don’t have a functional mother anymore. You know, like I’m … I’m usually either sitting or laying in bed, or whatever, and, you know, can’t … You know, can’t be the parent that I always have been and the parent that […]
Impacts on relationships with grandchildren
In addition to being parents, some of our participants are grandparents. They found it especially difficult to engage with children who were sometimes noisy, energetic, and too young to understand the situation. For example, Jennifer 2 has six grandchildren and is no longer able to babysit. She feels she’s been “robbed of … the kind of relationship that I would’ve wanted with my grandkids.” Kari feels the same way. She explained, “My grandkids … I don’t see them as often anymore. When I do see them, I’m not able to do the things I could with them … My oldest grandson is three and how do you explain to a three-year-old, you just can’t, right?”
A silver lining
While our participants generally expressed deep regret about the ways in which they felt long COVID was impacting their children, there was also sometimes a silver lining, or positive side to the story. As Carrie 1 explained, “I never in a million years wanted to be a stay-at-home mom … But I’m learning to lean into it and to really love the experience … Having all this time with my kid is exhausting, but … it’s quite wonderful to sort of help her become the best person she can be.”
Violaine weighs up what is lost against what has been gained.
Transcript
Ce qu’on aimait le plus faire ensemble c’était aller au théâtre, aller au concert, cette vie culturelle-là très riche, qui était une espèce de communion là pour mes filles et moi bien on ne peut plus le vivre hein! On peut regarder sur des écrans, des rediffusions, mais ce n’est […]
Cher is bedbound but now has more time and attention for her children.
Transcript
I think with my kids … I mean, it’s a different type of relationship, but I think that it’s actually a deeper relationship than before. Because I was pretty much always busy before, right? I was either working, or I had a hobby thing on the go, or … I […]
Chris has found new ways to spend time with his young daughter.
Transcript
I – it’s given me more time with my daughter because of the time I’ve had to [laughs] take off work. So that’s been a silver lining, there’s no question. It’s made me rethink what constitutes quality time, or how I approach it, because I might not be able to […]