Mami Rhedeg

Back in 2015, a couple of years after the birth of my eldest, I stumbled across what was then a new blog on Facebook.  My initial reaction of "Oh Gawd, not another perfect Mummy blog" was soon thrown in the bin.  Since then, I have followed Totes  and her dedicated running blog.  Why?  because it's a refreshingly honest portrayal of family life. Scroll forwards 5 years, and, just in the nick of time, up pops a picture of Totes brandishing the book in the picture ... so I ordered it.  Why?  Well, given that I've had a combination of Postnatal depression and Postnatal anxiety after both my pregnancies, giving birth in a global pandemic, 24 days into the UK's national lockdown wasn't exactly ideal timing.  The lockdown didn't trigger the anxiety, it's likely that would have happened anyway, but, the circumstances surrounding the birth this time heightened all the anxieties that would likely have surfaced, albeit probably to a lesser extent. ...

Raising children is never easy.  But raising children in the midst of a global pandemic which shows no sign of easing adds another layer of difficulty for parents.  Because every day is essentially one huge risk management project on top of the things we were expecting to deal with.  All of a sudden, the thought of a trip to the playground brings its own interesting thought processes into play.   The original lockdown in March was actually easier to understand, compute and navigate than the restrictions we currently have.  As with all aspects of parenting though, how we choose to categorise and prioritise activities, and how risky we deem them to be varies from person to person.  But managing the COVID risks is something new.  And as its so new, we keep having to change our approach, change our decisions, based on the latest guidelines and advice.   We are all currently managing the risk, the threat that COVID-19 brings to our own famili...