I have been working from home for a couple decades, so a number of things were new for me during the COVID pandemic, and the hardest was probably having everyone else at home with me. My husband and my eldest who was in college and studying remotely, and occasionally my youngest who was in off-campus housing at college in New Orleans, but ended up back at home due to COVID and storm evacuations.
During this time, I needed to change my routine. Sharing my office with my husband was difficult because he took frequent calls that broke my concentration and he’s a noisy typer. I moved my “office” to my son’s room and had to negotiate when I could and couldn’t socialize or use the kitchen, since everyone’s lunch schedules were all a bit different.
The other thing that was different was that my normally “out of the house” activities were also back in house. I teach at a local college that was online for several semesters. (I’ve been teaching on campus for the past semester, with some online weeks, but a lot of students are still in hybrid classes). The evening meetups and other professional networking that I used to go out for a night or two a week were still happening from home, which can be awkward when the family expects to eat and relax together normally at that time.
Posting the schedule on the door or through a shared calendar has been helpful for coordinating my family activities. My husband or one of my kids cook dinner and feed the cat on the nights when I have an evening meetup or when I am teaching online, just as they would have done when I wasn’t here. Taking calls outside when the weather cooperates was also helpful, though not ideal. The alternative to evening meetups was to find similar activities during the day, and I found quite a lot that fit my schedule, but it meant negotiating midday things again.
My students at CUNY City Tech, who are mostly college junior and seniors, are also only now getting to classes on campus. They have been under a lot of stress about finding internships and post-college jobs and generally negotiating their own living spaces with family. Having to attend school from home was one of the added stresses that pandemic lockdown caused for students. And negotiating hybrid schedules can be exhausting.
A few semesters ago at the beginning of the pandemic, I had a student I’ll call Fatima who was attending my class from home. Her brother was also at attending school from home and space was tight. Fatima complained to me that her mom was always on her to clean up and complaining about why she wasn’t doing her part. It was causing her a lot of stress worrying about sick relatives, schoolwork, and extra home chores on top of it all, when she would normally be taking classes on campus and have had the “excuse” of not being at home.
I think what was going on at her house and in the homes of many of my students at the time was similar to what was happening with household supply shortages at the beginning of pandemic lockdown, where things you would normally use at work or school were now being purchased and used at home. Only for Fatima, instead of a shortage of toilet paper and bleach, there was a shortage of liminal space, the time and physical passages between her school and home life, that allowed her to adjust to and negotiate the activities that happen in those spaces.
Fatima was at home. Her brother was at home. Her mom and dad were also at home. The stress of being the busy student, helpful daughter, and goofy friend crammed in one space was exhausting. When her mom was complaining about the mess, Fatima was operating in busy student mode, not helpful daughter mode, which caused conflict.
What seemed to click for Fatima and a lot of my students was the idea of the lost “Third Places” or those special places and conditions outside of home or school or work that define different aspects of our being, but that are now collapsed into a less private and more awkward home/Zoom life. Interestingly, Fatima’s mother was losing her third place, as well. She used to have space at home that was her own to be who she was when she was not surrounded by all the extra activity, people and messes that everyone, her children, her husband, living in the same space all the time created.
And with hybrid classes and workspaces continuing to conflate our work, home, social, spiritual, and mental lives, conflict and negotiation will likely continue as we sort out these disparate spaces. It is important to recognize these conflicts, and to be a lot more forgiving of ourselves and others as we negotiate this new way of living. Because we aren’t back to “normal” yet, if we ever will be.