Sarah, 26, is confined to her sixty-something parents with her brother and two children. She agreed to tell us about the daily life of these three generations forced to live together under the same roof, without being able to go out.
“It’s a big test. We had a house built and were about to move in when the lockdown was declared. My husband has been living with his mother for a year and a half and I have been with my parents, aged 68 and 69, with the children, to finance this project. The lockdown has made things more difficult.
“It’s conflict upon conflict”
We are 6 in an apartment without outdoor space. Usually, we come and go to work, to go to school… There, we are on top of each other. I went to 50%, so I telecommute in the morning. To be quiet, I put my 4 and 2 year old children in front of the TV or the laptop. I feed them at noon and put them to a siesta around 1 p.m. They get up at 3 p.m. and we do the exercises sent to us by kindergarten, as well as activities like painting, but they are not concentrated in the afternoon. They constantly want to play with the phone, I know I’ve set up bad habits with that.
I think we will move in next week when the fiber is installed, because I need an internet connection to work. I look forward. The children will be able to enjoy the garden, get some fresh air and my parents can breathe. The little ones are turbulent, the atmosphere is heavy, I spend my days screaming, it’s complicated. It is conflict upon conflict. My 29 year old brother lives with us. He is separated and has not seen his daughter since the start of confinement. To let them breathe, I spent two days with my sister who lives next door, but it’s complicated. My parents are very worried, they don’t go out, my father spends his time on BFMTV waiting for it to end.
“I have psychological symptoms when I go out”
He is a hemophiliac and had lung surgery, he really should not be exposed to the virus. I’m the only one going out to go shopping, I put on gloves and be careful. I sometimes take the children out at the bottom of the building for a few minutes so that they can get some fresh air, but we go back up immediately. The situation scares me. I even have psychological symptoms when I go out: I have a sore throat, heavy head, shortness of breath. Then nothing when I get home. One of my friends is a nurse in an intensive care unit and tells me what is going on there: that they had 20 beds before but that the epidemic forced them to install 46 beds, all are occupied by patients infected. She does not even know where the patients who were installed there before the epidemic have gone. There are deaths every day, sometimes of patients who were in their forties. Their family cannot see them. It’s scary.
My husband also had symptoms for over a week: he was coughing a lot, had headaches, nosebleeds, diarrhea. I’m sure he got it. Today, he is better and has been able to see the children again, but without getting too close to them. It’s too risky, I don’t want the little ones to be infected and contaminate my parents.
We don’t know how we’re going to get back to normal life. Even if it will do us good, it will remain in our heads for a long time. I’m worried to know that there won’t be total ‘deconfinement’, I wonder how we’re going to go about it. I find the authorities disorganized, I find that they manage badly and that we do not see enough what is happening in the hospitals. Overall I feel well informed, but sometimes it lacks details…”
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