Obsession with disinfecting everything, loss of appetite, crying on the sly, general tiredness, family conflicts are some of the situations that parents who are in isolation with their children and teleworking confess to feeling in the first week of fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
“How happy we were and we didn’t know it before all this happened”, says João, 43, father of two children, aged 11 and 08, husband, son-in-law, uncle, businessman, researcher and university student in Porto.
In a testimony sent this morning to Lusa, and after finishing his tasks at home, João reports that playing “so many roles” in the exceptional situation of the pandemic that forces him to “control” and “hide” the “many emotions” he feels throughout of social isolation in teleworking.
“The battle is hard, because the battle fronts are different. The way I deal with the different fronts requires a constant change of approach. Being faced with an unthinkable situation, in which I am required to take care of myself and others, fight for life avoiding an invisible virus, plus professional pressure, accompanying children in school tasks and also in their emotional balance, supporting the whole family, dealing with and managing the information that comes in every minute through the media, is emotionally, mentally and devastating physicist”.
João confesses that it is in the silence of the night on the veranda, when the family sleeps, that he regains the strength and courage to face another day of isolation: “I believe that we will be able to end the storms as we have done in the past, but we will be with marks of this situation lived forever “.
Margarida, a veterinarian from Porto, three children aged 02, 10 and 14, outlined a contingency plan at her home more than 15 days ago to combat the Covi-19 pandemic and says she is obsessed with disinfecting everything, having lost appetite.
“Only today I managed to put a cream on my face. I can’t eat, I am obsessed with hygiene and disinfection of everything and everyone. We had contacts at work with people who may be infected. Some from Ovar (a municipality that is in a calamity situation), but we still don’t know. We are looking forward to the 15 days of waiting until we return to work. Any cough or sneeze is received with a start “, he reports.
Not being able to hug your children and husband in the same way and not being able to be with parents, siblings, nephews and friends is more difficult. “The future does not scare me, as long as we are here to face it. We will survive. I am just very afraid of losing someone or even of being lost”, she confesses.
Maria, 34, single with a 15-year-old daughter, is a member of the Porto Municipal Police and “collapses completely” at night in bed, after working in daily 12-hour tunnels and without family help to care for the teenager, whose father is in South Korea.
With a degree in criminology from the University of Porto and a master’s student in police science, Maria confesses that “she already felt her heart wanting to leave her chest”.
“The danger is exponential in my profession and my fear is to bring the virus home and pass it on to her [a filha]”but as they both depend on your salary, you cannot afford a family allowance
Clotilde and her husband, both scientific researchers from Porto and parents of a 14-month-old baby and a 05-year-old boy, are telecommuting at home. They are sharing household chores and take turns taking care of the children, but the forces go down, because to give attention to the children during the day they work the night away.
Tears fall and Clotilde takes them on without shame. “I have cried a few times. Concerned about the future, with my family here and the one who lives in Brazil, with all the global chaos. I cried because I felt I couldn’t do enough, tired”, he describes. However, inner strength prevails and Clotilde relativizes exhaustion to let feelings of hope in better days enter.
Olga is responsible for human resources in Porto, has two children, aged five and two. She is “exhausted” and “distressed” after the first week of isolation and teleworking with her husband.
“I feel like the worst mother in the world, for not being able to keep my emotions to myself and explode and cry in front of the kids. I have little time for myself. I can’t exercise despite the gym constantly sending emails with videos of classes to do. at home, I can’t even watch a program I like or worse, I can’t be five minutes alone “, confesses that mother Olga.
Olga recalls that there hasn’t been a single day that she hasn’t cried at least once. “There are times when I am really distressed, because it is being very difficult to reconcile everything and, at the same time, maintain serenity so that my children do not get trauma after this is all over.”
Filipe, 44, divorced, has four children – two from his first marriage and two from his second relationship – and a clothing company in Paços de Ferreira with 62 employees.
He decided that the children would stay with their mothers, because they need to find solutions to save the family business. Father Filipe’s desperation to save his employees’ wages forced him to go to the company, located in the north of the country, in the last few days to explain to them that he will fight until the last euro of financial aid from the State and the European Union to keep them a job, but that already had to suspend the business. “I don’t even have a salary for this month, because the orders that followed for French customers are no longer being paid,” he says, anguished.
Júlia, 43, divorced, with a 12-year-old teenage daughter and elderly parents to care for, says she doesn’t cry, but confesses that her heart is racing with “fear of the future”, “fear of how the world will look after the pandemic “and” fear of nationalism, of the madmen of the world, of the war to come and how people will be “.
To take care of the parents and not put them in danger, she chose to do the isolation alone. The daughter went to her father’s house. He recognizes that the decision is hard, as he knows that the mother’s affections and comfort are “essential in a time that will be marked forever in life”.
Away from her daughter, mother Júlia leaves home at 7 pm to support her parents, a task she shares with her sister.
Mother of a 05 year old boy, Ana Rita, sculptor and entrepreneur in the tourist sector, with two apartments of Local Accommodation in Porto, she is currently without work and without income, because “all the guests canceled the reservations” and the sculpture had to stand by and is distressed and afraid.
“Only when he falls asleep do I allow myself to feel this anguish, this fear of the unpredictable, the fear that this invisible threat could bring down some element of our close-knit family. We have several relatives and friends at risk and I am having difficulty dealing with all this uncertainty with positivism. I wake up several times during the night, with a tightness in my chest, afraid of what the next day might bring.
According to the researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto, Cristina Queirós, the situation of forced social isolation in confined spaces and parents dealing with unpredictability and rapid change “increases the risk of mental disorders”, can “decrease mental health” and can also “affect the relationship in the couple when they live together”.
“It will increase depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, aggressiveness and impulsivity and impatience”, describes the expert, warning that many of these situations will only be revealed after everything improves, because in spite of “despair, some parents are in mode of survival”.
“When you calm down, your body / mind will give the order now you can get sick, because they don’t need you so much. I’m afraid that, in isolation or in normal return, there will be a decrease in mental health”.
“Anxiety, fear and confusion”, as well as “irritability and impatience with everything and everyone for being confined in a closed space 24 hours” are some of the feelings that parents have to be prepared to feel, warns Cristina Queirós.
“The sadness that everything has changed” the “guilt of feeling bad and being able to contaminate family”, “the frustration of what has been lost”, the “revolt when others do not fulfill isolation and contaminate” or “impotence of not being able to control the his life as usual “and” a lot of physical and emotional fatigue “are other feelings that can appear right after a week of social isolation in telework with his children.
For the psychologist specialized in educational psychology José Morgado, it is important, however, that in the midst of the ‘tsunami’ of information about the pandemic and tiredness, parents are able to build a “safe environment” for their children, promoting “positive routines” and of flexibility, that allow kids to recognize the structure of time and “mitigate negative routines”, bringing children to more enjoyable activities.
Parents should also be aware of “disruptive behaviors”, such as eating disorders, such as bulimia, and look for the causes of tantrums, although they are likely to increase in a context of isolation.
“Gasping children’s concerns about the pandemic, without hiding the truth, but without dramatizing”, using “quiet speeches” is another measure to contain negative behaviors.
More than 10,000 people have died worldwide infected by Covid-19, according to official data released today at 10:30 by the France Press Agency, the majority in Europe (4,932) and Asia (3,431).
The new coronavirus, responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, infected more than 235,000 people worldwide, of which more than 9,800 died, after it appeared in China in December 2019, and has already spread to 179 countries and territories.
In Portugal, the Directorate-General for Health today confirmed six deaths and raised 1020 people infected.
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