I’ve been tears-in-my-eyes sad all day. The federal government and the mayor of Berlin have decided: daycare stays closed for children of non-essential workers. Until August!
I’m rather desperate; I dread the idea of continuing this for three more months. Our children sleep later and later, a sign that they’re not challenged enough during the day. They need new impulses, things to learn, playmates. What happens to children age two and four when they can’t interact with their peers? How to give them the necessary support in their development? How am I going to keep them engaged and curious?
There are days it takes hours before they’ve had breakfast and put their clothes on. We get into this vicious circle, where they don’t want to get going, get bored, want to do even less, get stubborn and don’t want to leave the house. But when I can just get them to go into the backyard, they’re happier and play independently.
To make things worse, I really don’t know how I’m going to stay productive enough when working. Taking care of the kids just takes a big cut out of the week. As I mentioned, they sleep late and half of the evening it’s my turn to stay with them making sure they don’t jump around instead of trying to go to sleep. So just flexibly shifting working hours doesn’t suffice—we have other household stuff to take care of as well.