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The Parents Are Not All Right

Even in the most privileged households, the pandemic is exposing the farce of how society treats families

Chloe I. Cooney
GEN
6 min readApr 5, 2020

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Photo courtesy of the author

“I just want to cry,” I told my wife on Friday morning.

I had just gotten off a work call and my brain was ticking through follow-up items, adding to a long list of untouched to-dos. My wife, meanwhile, was multitasking an onslaught of work questions while also trying to manage “homeschool” time with our son — but he refused to participate. Instead, he huddled in an increasingly secure couch fort, refusing to do anything — color, read, go outside, talk to his teacher — besides sit in silence in the dark or watch his iPad. (Today, he opted for sitting in silence in the dark).

“Are we permanently ruining and psychologically damaging him?” my wife pleaded with me.

We both felt guilty for the work we were not doing — and aching for the way our son was struggling and needed us to be present and calm. But that’s exactly what our current schedule prohibits, as we run back and forth between…

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Chloe I. Cooney
Chloe I. Cooney

Written by Chloe I. Cooney

Advocate & writer. Focused on feminist movement building, global health and human rights. Parent 24/7. Views are my own. Twitter: @chloeicooney

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