Dear capitalist world, I am returning to you

Dear Joe,

Thank you for your previous email informing me that I am to return to work on Monday. I shall be there at 9am sharp. 

Kind regards,

Iona.

The fear that swept upon me as my laptop pinged with an email from my manager is one that has been unparalleled throughout my life. I have experienced many daunting moments, attending university, getting married, even giving birth, but the call back to work filled me with a dread that I cannot express. 

The whole country has been in lockdown. A mysterious virus has swept across society, not just nationally but internationally. Being a communications officer at work, my mind does not work in a scientific way, so I cannot pretend to know much about this virus. They say it is a respiratory disease, one that attacks the lungs and can leave you with lifelong damage, but all I can tell you right now is that my lungs feel tight. I feel like I am suffocating. 

Twelve weeks ago, I turned BBC news on and the Prime Minister told me that the country had gone into lockdown. I was told to stay in my house and refrain from seeing anyone from outside of it, to ease pressure on the NHS for looking after those who had unfortunately already caught the virus.

In a capitalist world, where motivations are driven by money, I regularly feel like a headless chicken, trying to work to provide my family with food, shelter and love, and so work becomes my main focus in life. I love my children and my husband so much that it makes my heart hurt, but with my husband unemployed currently, it falls upon me to make sure that food is put upon the table. Work has to dominate my life, because without it we cannot survive.

My children, Jasmine and Thomas, hold large pieces of my heart, and when I look at them I fill with joy, I feel proud at how they are growing up. Aged ten and seven, respectively, they are carving out their own identities, and my job is to support them through this. 

But evidently, work means that I cannot always spend valuable time with those who I love so dearly; work can prevent me from being there for them. When their father picks them up from school, he tells them that mummy should not be late home tonight. He tells them that mummy will be back in time to cook tea, share a meal with them, and then go on a family walk before they are put to bed with a goodnight kiss. But life does not work out that way. In fact, life gets in the way of the love I want to show them. 

As a communications officer, I can get called on at any time. If social media causes a stir for one of my clients, I have to drop my life and go and save their reputation. I literally stop them from having their lives torn apart by the media, but the cost of this is the tearing apart of my own family life. 

Many a time, I get home at 11pm, way way way past my children’s bedtime. Drew, my partner, repeatedly tells me as I walk through the door, my hair a shambles and my stomach rumbling for some food after a fourteen hour day, that my children asked why mummy was not here again to put them to bed. 

I wish that I could show them how much I care about them, I really do, but money makes the world go around. Without my job these precious, dear children would not be able to go to school in clothes without holes in, they would not be able to have a packed lunch with their favourite biscuits in. It is not Drew’s fault he cannot work, but if money can create security for these children, why does it stop me so regularly from spending time with them?

Being furloughed allowed me to spend some time with these children that need showering with affection. After Boris told our household that we could barely leave the house, ten minutes later, Joe messaged me to say that I would not be working for the foreseeable future. He told me not to worry because he knew that my husband’s illness meant that I would have to shield to look after him. He is vulnerable, and this mystery disease could kill him; I would be paid for not working. 

Time is precious, it really is. But this statement is never true so much as watching your kids grow up. One day they are unable to hold their head up themselves, the next they are crawling, and before you know it they are about to finish primary school. Where does the time go? 

Time flashes past you in a series of laughter and tears, but for a lot of the time I missed so many special moments. I missed the first time Jasmine walked, the first time Thomas talked. I missed the first time that Jasmine went to school, the last time that Thomas ate baby food. I missed it all because I was at work, flogging away for someone else’s profit, so that they could line their pockets and buy that flash car that they wanted, so that they could take a cruise to the Maldives, or so they could buy that new golf club that would not even make them win their competitions. I lost out on my children becoming the wonderful people they are for these materialistic possessions for someone I do not even like very much. 

Being at home and shielding tested me at times, but I will be forever grateful that I managed to spend such valuable time with my family. Ensuring that Drew did not catch any germs from anyone outside of our house was hard, of course it was. Not even being allowed for a walk on certain days certainly tested me, but it was worth it. I managed to watch my children smile, and I watched my husband’s anxiety about his illness translate into love for his children. As I watched my family function for the first time in many years as a full and complete unit, I felt, for the first time in years, happy. 

And so, when the email came asking me to return to work I could not breathe freely anymore. With the pushing of the enter button on my email reply came the pulling away from spending time with my family. Fear and frustration filled my body, not because I was scared about going back into outside world, away from the cocoon that I had carved for myself in my house, but because I knew that with work meant the missing of my children’s most important moments. Work meant being a distanced mother, and the repercussions of that physically made me feel sick.