Learner Dad: Sometimes I need to be left on my own with a packet of biscuits

Picture: iStock

How do you know if you’re experiencing pandemic parental burnout?

A recent survey by the Action for Children charity found that 82% of parents are still struggling with at least one of the warning signs of burnout. These include anxiety, disrupted sleep, depression and overwhelming exhaustion.

I can put my hand up for one or all of those in the past couple of months. Another one that gets a mention in the survey is loss of fulfilment, which I tend to get every weekday around 7.50am. There’s nothing like emptying the same things out of the same dishwasher on a school morning to make you feel that something has gone wrong in your life.

And then you read about kids growing up in hotels and thank your gods that you even have a dishwasher.

I felt a bit like that during the week. On the one hand, I feel drained and demotivated, on the other hand, I'm aware there are parents trying to cope with much bigger challenges than feeling a bit flat in the morning.

And don’t forget, it’s early December. I always feel a bit icky at this time of year. It’s been ages since I had a bit of sun on my skin and the cosy novelty of autumn closing in is wearing a bit thin. I feel like a need a holiday from my kids. That’s me in early December, and I’d say I’m not alone.

But this time does feel a little different. The main warning sign that something might be amiss is during sunrise. This is Epic Sunrise season. (The sunsets aren’t shabby either.) The first blast of winter air fills the sky with orange and purple and a splash of melancholy turquoise. I’m blown away every year – I love it so much that I don’t even stop to take one of those ‘my sunrise is better than yours’ photos that people plaster all over Facebook and Instagram.

However this year, I’m not feeling it as much. This is odd because we live in the countryside now so the views are even better. (Sorry, but my sunrise might actually be better than yours.) We stopped breakfast this morning to look out at the sun sliding up out of the sea – I could see that it was amazing, but I could also see that my seven-year-old had barely started on his porridge, so that kind of ruined the moment.

We probably all brush up against burnout during the morning rush, pandemic or no pandemic. I honestly can’t tell if this year is any worse. I do know that a great calm comes over me when they finally leave on the school bus.

The tiredness is on a different scale this year and that’s probably down to the pandemic. I hit a wall after dinner last night and felt like I couldn’t go on. The kids hovered around looking for a bit of crack, but I wasn’t up for it.

I did what any parent would do in that situation – I ate a packet of Custard Creams. They didn’t work so I cracked open a box of Fox’s biscuits that we had lying around the place. That seemed to do the trick.

All that sugar wasn’t enough to stop a really good night’s sleep. I feel like a totally different person today – I feel bad for sending the kids away last night, but sometimes Dad needs to be left on his own with a packet of biscuits.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that people worried about their mental health should self-medicate with biscuits or any other substance. But I’m getting to know myself as well. Sometimes, when you’re finding parenting hard, you just have to hack through to the other side.

This pandemic can’t last forever. It will be Christmas soon and my son can take all morning over porridge if he likes. I probably won’t see a sunrise because who gets up at that time on their holidays. But the sunsets will be amazing. And there will be no shortage of biscuits around the house.