Lockdown Missive #9
Wednesday 19 August 2020
Hello all,
We’ve thrown around the word ‘unprecedented’ a heap of late, but I think it’s fair to say that the stage 4 restrictions imposed on Melbourne two weeks ago are a measure whose only useful point of comparison is a country on a total war footing. Curfews and forced industry shutdowns, at least to anyone under 90 years old, are unheard of in a country like Australia. They are the domain of dystopian science fiction, not a modern, vibrant liberal democracy.
Yet here we are—and it could have been a whole lot worse.
According to research from the Burnet Institute, stage 3 lockdowns avoided some 20,000 cases (along with the commensurate rise in deaths). For instance, when the daily high of 700+ cases was announced, without a return to stage 3 restrictions, case numbers would have been around 4,000.
But the impact on people and to the economy will be dire and far-reaching. So much of the pain of this pandemic has been exacerbated by neoliberal policies pushed by both major parties over the past two decades: mass-casualisation of the workforce (aged care workers); outsourcing and privatisation of services (aged care again; hotel security); offshoring of local manufacturing (every bloody thing we’ve needed but not been able to get).
Let’s hope on the other side of this thing, governments put the right policy settings in place that allow local industry to flourish and, should something of this nature hit again, we’re ready to stand on our own two feet and not be at the mercy of fragile global supply chains.
Home is where the workplace is
Everything continues at home for us as it did before. I feel that if you were doing everything right in stage 3, stage 4 shouldn’t have been a huge imposition for you. If you were travelling more than 5kms to visit the supermarket, you were doing lockdown wrong.
My work continues as a permitted industry: ‘Printing and support services’. Though ‘book publishing’ must now move offsite (not a big impost as the entire office is working from home now). It’s actually been a pretty challenging few weeks with work, with our American overlords making substantial demands of us (and my marketing work in particular). As I’ve conveyed to them, I’ve essentially been working two full-time jobs for the last 130-odd days without break: one as a marketing manager, the other as a parent and I am utterly spent.
I was not surprised this British study found the UK’s strict lockdown had the greatest impact on the mental health of those aged 18–34 and living with pre-school age children. It fits with our lived experience 110%. To say it’s been, in the bland parlance of the corporate world, ‘challenging’, would be a touch trite. It has been—forgive my French—fucking hard. I know everyone’s experience of this lockdown is different and everyone faces their own ‘challenges’, but if you had to choose your lockdown circumstances, you probably wouldn’t pick to spend it with children and certainly not with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old who require constant supervision and attention. It’s relentless. It’s exhausting.
But society tends to think poorly of those who discard their children, so I’ll keep them for now (also Maddie might have something to say about that). I tend to like them most of the time, even if they are sending me to an early grave. With all care options off the table until the end of stage 4 (at least), we have no choice but to both chew through annual leave to make sure the kids are looked after throughout the week. Whatever veneer the concept of ‘work/life balance’ used to have has thoroughly worn off since March. As I said way back in...March(?)...‘getting by’ is nothing short of extraordinary in the age of a global pandemic. There are more important things than work and commerce.
‘Dale dug a hole. It’s filling with water.’
With playgrounds out of action and activity outside the home limited to 60 minutes, we’re spending much more time in the backyard. Prior to the imposition of stage 4 restrictions, I even bought a footy and a basketball from Rebel Sport to kick around the yard. I figured this was necessary when Archer, without irony, referred to a soccer ball as a ‘sports ball’ and congratulated me on a kick with ‘good sports, Dad’. Apparently my apathy towards organised sports has rubbed off on him, so I thought it time to correct that. He’s coming to grips with the round ball and the not-so-round one.
The kids also spend plenty of time in their ‘construction site’—a hole we’ve dug that they continue to dig and fill. They have their shovels and their various pieces of construction equipment and move dirt from place to place (‘...then dump it with a happy face.’)
Archer was completely convinced he would find a dinosaur fossil and lo, he did! At first he was shocked to find the top half of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull but he’s far too smart for us dullard parents. He quickly surmised that it wasn’t a real dinosaur skull and that it must have been a toy some other boy threw away over the fence. Why? Because it had ‘writing’ on the back and a real fossil wouldn’t have writing. Well, fine. Ruin the fun with your smarts, kid.
No, it was not a real fossil, but it wasn’t a discarded toy, it was an Exo Terra T-Rex skull reptile ornament designed not for fossil fossicking, but to be a home for your pet lizard or something. Of course life being as it is at the moment, Finn promptly picked it up and dropped it, smashing it into a few pieces, before my attempts to glue it resulted it in breaking into even more pieces. So back to the shops I went (‘Look, Archer! How good is that gluing? The cracks have COMPLETELY disappeared!’) and that’s how I spent $40 on reptile enclosure ornaments in one week even though we do not own a reptile.
August 2020 video
Footprints
Speaking of dinosaurs, I thought I’d do a little activity outside with Archer involving a tape measure (what fun!). I got him to walk ahead and measure out various lengths, make a mark at each end, then I’d join them with a familiar shape—dinosaur footprints! It was quite something seeing the actual size of these things, particularly the Brachiosaurus at some 206cm in length. You certainly wouldn’t want one of those stepping on your toes!
Go see a Star War
Over the past couple of weekends, Archer and I have sat down to watch Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in their entirety. It’s quite something that they hold his attention for so long—it doesn’t seem that long ago that a 10 minute cartoon would barely keep him entertained.
This was, of course, one of those formative and seminal ('I am your...') father/son moments, though it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Archer took issue with the iconic opening crawl of each film, complaining that it was ‘too many words’ and vowing to skip the text of the next film. His frustration was both palpable and hilarious as the first paragraph ended and he saw the second begin: ‘Is it over? NOOOOO’.
It’s quite something watching these films for the first time with a four-year-old. These are films I have seen literally hundreds of times, but in many ways, it was like watching with fresh eyes. Some bits made me wince a little (the charred remains of poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, for instance 😬), while others were pure joy (the TIE Fighter attack and C-3PO ‘melting’ ).
Empire was no less interesting, but it is a much darker film. Parental guidance was certainly recommended to explain key plot points and what the heck the Dagobah cave scene meant. Archer was asking questions all the time and constantly seeking reassurance, though just like the audiences who first saw it in 1980, he was none-too-pleased the Han Solo in carbonite plot thread wasn’t resolved ('Will they get Ham out of the brick?' Archer asked the following day). I also had to reiterate that if you lose your hand in a lightsaber duel in real life, you’re not going to get a prosthetic one anywhere near as good as Luke’s. The main plot twist of the film passed with only a casual mention: ‘Is he his father now?’. Probably not the impact this galaxy-shaking revelation was intended to have, but there you go.
Next weekend we’ll finish it up with Return of the Jedi—he’s dying to see ‘IT’S A TRAP!’—and we'll see where (or if) we go from there. I haven’t watched the prequels for years and I don’t really want to. Maybe I can convince him there are absolutely only three films and there are no others anywhere whatsoever at all. The end.
Photos and such
You know the drill by now. Pictures below; click to embiggen.
Conclusion
Well, the end of another period of time. Hooray. Congratulations for doing that thing.