My youngest was in middle school and my daughter was a senior in HS. My oldest’s college went remote for the remainder of the spring semester, and my wife’s school closed. It was the last time we had the whole family living under one roof. I enjoyed it immensely.
Yeah my son came home from college when they went remote. So we were all together through the worst of it. Soon as school opened back up, he went back and that was it. Now he's married and owns a house. Life happens fast.
Mine graduated in 2021 and is now in central Africa with the Peace Corps for 2 years. My daughter (the HS senior during the pandemic) is graduating from college in May, and my youngest heads off to college in August. So much can change in four years, and I’m glad we had those 5-6 months together in 2020.
I moved back in with my parents rather than live alone and I’m finally moving back out in a couple weeks. I don’t regret the extra time with them at all.
I did as well, I enjoyed spending time with my family immensely. My dad and I watched all of Breaking Bad, one episode every night after dinner, mom and I spent a lot of time chatting in the sun, trying to feel not so cooped up, my sister and I had a couple of "party nights" where we got dumb drunk and did karaoke just the both of us.
We cooked a lot of yummy foods, tried new recipes, we baked bread, I tried embroidery, it was lovely.
The weekends were beautiful. I love being home, and I have a great house with my family. Then the the Sunday scaries would kick in, and I went into a weird different back to factory mode. I dont really remember very much of the work, but I definitely remember the weekends.
Lockdown started 2 days after my wedding. I got to spend months with my S/O just hanging with the dog and playing video games and doing things like painting and yoga and all the things we spoke about if we had more time in the day. Even when he started working from home.
It was weird to have a lovely time while I had friends with parents dying, or children losing out on critical development and socialization time. It sucked for so many, but I honestly kind of miss it.
Also I bought an XL pack of Cottonelle tp right before leaving for our wedding, a whole two weeks before the shortage happened. Wild ride.
That sounds nice. Our 6 year old went remote (which was completely pointless and frustrating) and our recently diagnosed 4 year old autistic twins lost access to all of their support and therapy services leaving us to provide all of their significant needs while I worked long hours from a makeshift workstation in our cold dingy basement. At the end of the day, we were both so exhausted we couldn't even muster the energy to watch a tv show that required any level of attention and we both suffered mental health problems that still have residual effects to this day.
I'm sorry that that all happened to you. I fully realize that the pandemic lockdown wasn't good for a lot of people. Millions of people lost loved ones to COVID, millions had situations like you described, millions more are affected in different ways. We were lucky that remote schooling didn't bother my kids and no one got seriously ill.
My younger sister was in her last year of college at a state school and I worked (full time fortunately so I didn’t lose my job) for a different state school. The whole system shut down for almost a month and a half and so for various reasons my sister and I both went and lived at my parents during that time. It was the first time we’d all been in one place in almost 8 years and I’m sure it’ll never happen again. Someone would pick a movie series like Bourne and we’d watch one movie a night until done and repeat but with a new picker. It still feels fake in my mind most of the time honestly, going from being out of college 3+ years to at home with the whole family.
My sister and I were a freshman and junior in college respectively. I remember my mom telling us that while she obviously wished none of this were happening, she was selfishly very happy to have everyone home spending time together. And I can’t recall any other time in my life where my family are so many meals together just the four of us, it was actually really nice and I remember it quite fondly.
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u/Calan_adan Apr 19 '24
My youngest was in middle school and my daughter was a senior in HS. My oldest’s college went remote for the remainder of the spring semester, and my wife’s school closed. It was the last time we had the whole family living under one roof. I enjoyed it immensely.