The great debate about whether you should keep your kids home from school has been weighing heavily on our family.
I am the mother of a beautiful four-year-old boy who has a heart of gold and an absolute zest for life.
Unfortunately, from a very young age, he has suffered from bronchiolitis and viral-induced asthma and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has become an all too familiar place for our family with us having visited four times in the past year alone.
In the few days leading up to his third birthday last year, he had a slight cold, however, still spent his birthday playing with his friends and running around. The next day we paid for it, with our first of many overnight visits to the hospital that year.
The decision was made last week that I would work from home for the rest of the month relying on a mix of child care between my mother-in-law and kinder, which is his normal routine anyway. However his nanna then became unwell with gastro so I couldn’t take the risk of sending him to her house. She needed to rest and I didn’t want my son to get sick either.
On Saturday night the choice was made. He was also going to stay home in lockdown with me. The option to send him four days a week to kinder was there, however with the state of emergency right now, I listened to my mothers intuition. More from a preventative aspect than any fear or concern that he could catch COVID-19.
Hospital beds right now are needed for emergencies, they are not needed for young kids, where we can help prevent the spread of germs and infection. We can prevent the spread of the virus. He doesn’t need to be a further drain to our health system, when there are people who desperately need the support of our doctors and nurses.
My family is now in lockdown officially from March 17 until at least April 1. I acknowledge our privilege, in that we are able to work from home and make this decision.
Before deciding to self-isolate, I ensured we had adequate supplies (without hoarding) of food, toilet paper and the Ventolin my son needs to manage his asthma. (There’s also plenty of wine and chocolate to keep me sane, too).
We will use this time at home to do some arts and crafts, some educational preparation for school next year, practice his footy skills (as his dad is hoping he plays for St Kilda one day!), watch all the new Bluey episodes (we are both equally as excited as each other) and this mumma is going to catch up on the Bold & the Beautiful (yep, I know) and ride out this virus. I hope we all do our bit to help flatten the curve, and support our economy where we can. See everyone on the other side!
The current health crisis is evolving rapidly. If you suspect you or a family member has coronavirus you should call (not visit) your GP or ring the national Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080.
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