Parenting Forced Family Fun In Quarantine



I've always been an overachiever, to a fault. Four children plus two Schnoodle dogs is frickin' crazy, pardon my teenage French! If the ghost of Christmas future had projected my life online schooling four kids in Covid-quarantine, I'd surely have re-thunk Cancun vacations with my husband, where one more 'all-inclusive drink' made another powdery-sweet baby sound easy. Damn, if I’m not cursed by over-shooting my goals!

Forced Family Fun has taken on new meaning in quarantine. Family hikes and bike rides? Screw you mom; more screen time! Plus online schooling four kids is borderline insanity. 

Mom school. Who am I kidding? I worked in the CIA but never wanted to be a teacher or school principal in disguise. My students are savages and my undercover persona doesn't hold up to children who know I'm just their mom. 

My 8th grade son is mainly in detention. He sneaks YouTube while hiding behind a dark camera 99% of students refuse to turn on. Snapchat, Reddit and gaming are crack cocaine to a 13-year-old’s developing brain. Luckily, a few spy tricks have him convinced I've bugged his computer, and he's knuckled down, rather than risk losing gaming time after 'school'. Did I mention he grew a boil on his leg from too much Xbox couch time? 

Meanwhile my 10-year-old 5th grader, sitting within earshot of his bro, parrots his behavior, missing out on childhood innocence and fast-forwarding right into teenage rage. 

My 15-year-old sophomore is holed up in his bedroom all day on a computer he recently built, curtains drawn closed, his room smells like 'teen spirit' hard at work. His social life consists of a gaming headset and I worry about his lack of exercise, short of going downstairs to the fridge. 

Finally, I have my 17-year-old daughter to thank for preparing me for college. Nothing screams teenage separation like Covid-quarantine. I can hardly blame her ‘senior year’ frustrations. My 'good-morning hon' is a risk I take each day, praying she won’t volcanically erupt from all the pressure. As if pouring salt in an open wound, editing college essays ranks right up there with delivering an 8 lb. 12 oz. baby without drugs. I could hardly convince my own vagina to relax, let alone my teenage daughter reading my edits! 

Parenting online school is bonkers! Happy hour is the only predictable part my day. I've managed to begin at a more respectable hour now, though no one judges a quarantined mom anymore. 

Last summer, when quarantine was fresh as a newborn baby and all activities canceled, we decided to make Forced Family Fun great again and downsize our family of six and two dogs in a 32-foot RV, because apparently over-achieving is my forte! RV parks that promised Wi-Fi and didn't deliver, a dream! Less screen time, more family time, Covid-contained in an oversized tin can with it's own shitter and shower on wheels. I know it sounds ridiculous but so is parenting four kids trapped at home online schooling. 


What started off as freedom on the open road, took a left turn under an overhang before we even hit Interstate-5 heading south to California. Glancing up from my iPhone I yelled “Holy Shit!” followed my husband's cursed “God dammit!” as loud as the RV roof crunch, scratching its way under the covered parking lot next to Starbucks. That should've been the first clue a month in an RV was not great for our marriage, even after 25 years. 

With the AC unit still mostly intact, it was nearly smooth sailing down I-5 without a peep from the back end, until screen time ran out. I figured a generation tied to social media and gaming would be our greatest hurdle, though a broken generator somewhere over the state line was the tipping point of our RV vacation. 

We ultimately decided to reroute our trip. Rolling through Death Valley at a boiling 125 degrees with the windows down was not the ‘Extreme Forced Family Fun’ Fox News story we aspired to, and here’s a news flash, camping off the grid was not ‘lit’ to our kids. 

Outnumbered by four kids and two dogs, the whine more plentiful than wine, I tossed over-achieving out the window somewhere between my last frick and nerve, to salvage our marriage. A silver lining to our shitty RV story, I decided 'Less Is More' was my new mantra while resting comfortably in the air-conditioned cab. 

Thanks to our RV trip, I've lowered my expectations and anxiety. I also promoted Dad to tracking kids’ responsibilities. He quickly learned that a 10-year-old would cry when asked to practice piano and water the garden at 9:30pm. Why should I get to have all the Covid-fun?

Parenting in a pandemic has taught me less is more. Less stressful carpool juggling, less gas and pollution, less laundry, fewer showers, and more dinners safe together at home because even family skiing has proven too extreme!

Forced to put my feet up, rest assured, this mom has endured all the Forced Family Fun I can handle in quarantine! 




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