In mid-June 2020 in Melbourne, Asher’s next door neighbour complained about the plants their 12-year-old son was growing in an empty car space in the apartment complex. The body corporate threatened to fine them. In the midst of solo parenting their son through lockdown number two, it was the last straw. Asher decided to move out. To the country. It wasn’t an easy decision - it meant leaving behind the career they’d carved out over a decade, but “it’s a compromise and being a parent is a relationship that’s two-sided”. The pandemic completely upended Asher’s plans for their son, and themselves. And while not all of us have moved the world for our kids, there are many things about the past two years that may well have changed how we parent, and our relationship with our children, permanently. John, a father of three from Melbourne, remembers back in the very anxious early days his 10-year-old daughter asked if they were going to die. He cried. “We changed then. Less news. More time spent focusing on our kids’ welfare.” Many parents are hollowed out by the anxiety they’ve carried for their children for the past two years while trying to mask their own. Hushed conversations about vaccines, diving to turn the news down as a kid’s eyes grow wider, attempting to empathise with a childhood plight we never had to deal with. There’s nothing quite like the rictus smile of a parent attempting to convince a child that another Zoom birthday is a really good time. “This is one of those times when the experience that children are having, parents are dealing with it themselves at the same time,” says the CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr Joe Tucci, a psychologist and social worker. “It’s a lack of being able to control and plan, and we’re dealing with this existential threat in front of, and alongside, our children. As a result, parenting has become a far more adaptive process.” But as parents continue to grapple with the fallout of trauma – their own and their kids’ – some are realising that what they’ve learnt over the past two years has real and lasting value. ‘You pick up things you never noticed’ “The pandemic reset the importance of just being able to spend time with your children,” says Nick Tebbey, national executive officer of Relationships Australia. “People drew real strength from that, and were almost surprised by how much they enjoyed their time together.” The national body, in partnership with Griffith University in Queensland, are in phase 2 of the Australian component of their Families Unlocked study to “look deeper at the medium- to long-term impacts of the pandemic on relationships and family life”. Some of the initial findings of the study show that while around two-thirds of people were anxious about their children’s wellbeing, those sorts of feelings weren’t mutually exclusive from a feeling of “we like being together”. “One of the things that we’re told over and over again is that people don’t want to lose that time,” says Tebbey. “Irrespective of all those other pressures and concerns and anxieties, there was something there that people really held on to.” Of course, not every family cuddled around a jigsaw together, and as has been well established, some experienced an uptick in acute stress, financial pressure and domestic violence during lockdowns. But the desire for a continuation of more time with kids, regardless of their age, seems to cut across the vast majority of parents, even accommodating for the vastly different experiences of the pandemic. For many, Tucci says, the pandemic has reminded us that time together can be a sanctuary, not just for kids but for their parents. “And doing nothing together is even better,” he says. “There was a dad that I would see at the park near our house quite regularly during lockdowns. All he was doing with his three-year-old was lying down in the grass. They’d pick up a leaf and then they’d put it into a pile, and then they’d pick up another leaf and put it into some other pile. This is all they did. The kid was delighted.” Some parents speaking to the Guardian had thought a lot about why they actually liked having their kids at home, given it was often also stressful and unpredictable. Some had a sense of making up for lost time, given their kids had spent a lot of time at daycare, other parents of older kids realised they genuinely enjoyed their teenagers’ company. Tebbey says there is now a much broader awareness of mental health among parents. They’ve been present to read the ripples, to observe their children far more closely. “Parents have become more attuned to their kids’ needs … because they’ll have noticed that small things set them off,” says Tucci. Patrick, a father of a seven-year-old, definitely feels “like I understand my kid more”. After home schooling one-on-one, “you pick up things you never noticed”. Intuition and letting go A 2021 study shows Australian fathers stepped up to do more childcare and housework during the pandemic, and as a result, more evenly shared the stresses and anxiety that comes with those roles too. Pre-pandemic, Patrick’s wife was the primary carer, but that changed to half and half during lockdown. Whether the more evenly distributed roles remains a trend across parents remains to be seen, but so far for Patrick it’s sticking. As for what Patrick learned about his son, who is autistic, the year taught him that his son is capable of more than he had thought. “Even small things to prove his independence, like getting his own dinner or being able to speak in more complex ways.” For Patrick, it’s been a wonderful thing to watch. “He is more capable than I give him credit for.” Extra time together taught Patrick to change his expectations of his son, and many other parents told the Guardian their kids surprised them in different ways, including realising they could be vulnerable around their children without the sky falling in. Emily, a single mother of an 18-year-old and a 10-year-old who did her fair share of home schooling while in lockdown in regional Victoria, feels like she’s learnt “to be more honest with my kids about my own feelings and circumstances”. “It’s been a realisation for parents to know how much their children know,” Tucci says. “You suddenly realise how much your life is on show to them.” Emily reckons she’s a more intuitive parent than she was, more inclined to centre her children’s needs. “Don’t want to go to school? Maybe that’s OK.” This is big for someone like Emily. She comes from a “very, very education-oriented” family – her parents are both teachers – but the past two years has taught her “the importance of understanding my kids as individuals rather than as part of the education system as a whole”. “A lot of parents gave up trying to maintain that school frenzy of doing everything,” Tucci says. “And schools were gentler, too. They just sort of … slowed down. They were noticing what their children needed and their children just needed space. They needed time. They needed to play and they needed relationships, which is what kids have always needed.” This combination of letting go and a faith in intuition may have resulted in a renewed sense of confidence among parents in their own skills. In a global study of more than 5,000 people across the US, UK, France, Germany, India, Singapore, China and Brazil, 61% said they felt much or somewhat more confident in their parenting skills now than before lockdowns. “Certainly during the pandemic, you could never subcontract out your responsibilities for your children to their teachers or their social groups or anything,” says Tebbey. “It really came down to you as the parents. We’ve seen now that we can play that more active role and be more invested in what our children are going through.” But can parents continue to carve out time, and go gently, as the world around them rapidly speeds up again? “If there’s opportunities for companies and businesses to think creatively about different work weeks or work hours for parents, for families, it’ll benefit everybody,” says Tucci. The Australian Childhood Foundation’s 2020 report A Lasting Legacy: the impact of Covid 19 on children and parents highlights the need for governments at all levels to have “a stronger focus on parental well-being and family functioning”. Support should come in different forms – ranging from online resources to connection with other parents through online communities, to professional advice at times when parents need it. “It’s a potential legacy,” Tucci says. “I don’t think parents did relax our expectations. We broadened our expectations. Now we can appreciate that ability to do stuff that’s just nonsensical, like just putting leaves into piles.” After a rocky start with the move, Asher’s son’s new veggie patch is thriving. And Asher felt their relationship with their son shift. He saw the effort Asher was making with the relocation – the tradies, movers, re-enrolling in school – and began helping. “Unasked. Sometimes bringing in laundry or helping with dishes.” “We grew closer,” says Asher. “I’m not sure if he knew before that he’d always come first no matter what. I think he thought he was part of my whirlwind, but didn’t know he was central to it all.”