After nine weeks of lockdown with her two kids – a nine-year-old daughter and five-year-old son – Mara from Alexandria in Sydney has her weekly escape-from-the-family plan down to a fine art. “On Saturday nights, when my husband is home, I go get takeout from three different places. My son won’t eat sushi, my daughter won’t eat fish and chips and I want what I want so three places it is,” she says cheerfully. “I walk instead of driving because it takes much longer. And I make sure to have a glass of wine first so I can say it would be unsafe for me to drive.”
All up, a trip that should take no more than 30 minutes stretches out to one-and-a-half hours of blessed solitude, and for Mara, the break is little short of lifesaving.
Mara is just one of the increasingly desperate parents stuck in the New South Wales or Victorian lockdowns who has developed an arsenal of ways to carve out a tiny window of alone time when their kids are at home round the clock.
“I spend as much of my day as possible shopping,” says mother-of-three Katelyn from Sydney. “I ‘went to get milk’ on one particularly heinous Friday after homeschooling all three of them and spent two-and-a-half hours walking up and down the aisles listening to music.”
Natalie from Melbourne says the bathroom provides a blessed salvation. “I take showers for 30 minutes and wash absolutely nothing,” she says. “Just enjoy the hot water on my back in my self-made prison.”
Others rely on work as an excuse. “I lie in bed surfing the net,” says Craig from the NSW south coast. He tells his daughters he’s busy researching for his job as a writer. Ruby, from northern NSW also “works” significantly less than her children realise. “I lock myself in the office and tell the kids I have an important Zoom but really I put some Real Housewives on.”
Extended – or even entirely unnecessary – medical appointments are also a welcome escape hatch. Sophie Paterson, a mother-of-two from Lake Macquarie in NSW, says she looks forward to the merciful relief of a doctor visit like a dying man finding water in the desert.
“I’m currently on the way to donate blood,” Paterson says. “I am salivating over the chance to read my book and eat snacks uninterrupted. Needles v kids? No contest.”
It’s the same for Naomi Chrisoulakis from the Illawarra, south of Sydney. “‘Oh no, there’s such a long line of cars ahead of me at the drive-through testing centre!’” she cries in mock horror of her visits to the local Covid clinic, adding that she carefully chooses the longest line, turns up the tunes and blisses out.
Mara also races for a Covid test at any opportunity. “When [NSW chief health officer] Kerry Chant said a few weeks back that we need to stop getting tested for Covid unless we have symptoms, I felt personally attacked,” she says drily. “It’s one of the only times I’m away from the kids.”
Dr Justine Gatt from the School of Psychology at the University of NSW, says it’s vital parents grab whatever slivers of time they can to look after themselves when the pressures of full-time parenting, homeschooling, working and the pandemic in general threaten to wear their resources thin. “The challenge right now is figuring out ways to boost our own wellbeing within the confines of our home, with so little spare time to do it,” she says.
Along with grabbing those brief moments of alone time, she suggests parents look for ways they can make life easier on themselves, such as going to sleep at a reasonable hour so they’re able to wake early for a sunrise walk or jog, or trying meal kit delivery services to save the time and stress of cooking every day. “If you have a partner, you could also organise a schedule where you each take on the ‘parental load’ and give each other some time to do something you enjoy,” she says.
Clinical psychologist Dr Judith Locke says parents shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving their kids to their own devices whenever the opportunity presents itself. “It’s important parents don’t become ‘Julie, Cruise Director’ – instead making sure they’ve taught their child to play by themselves occasionally,” she says. “Even ‘quiet time’ where everyone is in their room playing or reading quietly is a good idea. Headphones for children watching TV makes the space quieter for adults to regroup.”
If all else fails, advises seasoned child-dodger Mara, keep the house in a complete mess so it’s easier to conceal yourself. “I spend a lot of time hiding under the doona,” she says. “It’s surprisingly effective because the whole house looks like a tip so a crumpled heap of bedding is a genius disguise.”
Some names have been changed to keep cunning plans hidden.
