NOW that fines are being reinstated for non-attendance of school this autumn, education in England will once again be compulsory.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced a £1 billion fund which will help with England’s pupils’ learning while also instituting the creation of “bubbles”— class size limits — meant to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

While many parents worry of the dangers that exposure to Covid-19 presents both to their children and their own health, many parents around Britain express concern about the quality of education that is available to children through long-distance learning as well as the the ramifications of one parent having to give up her career and autonomy were lockdown to be extended throughout the coming school year.

From teachers to musicians to stockbrokers and copywriters lockdown has meant that parents have had to put on hold their professions and income gained in order to protect and care for their families, both within the country and beyond. 

Moreover, while parents have suffered lack of sleep and exhaustion during lockdown, they are faced with the starkly different reality of those under lockdown who have no children. The one thing parents have learned during lockdown is that there are two lockdowns — one for those with school-age children and one for those without. 

Many parents are living lives of no free time as they undertake home lessons, childcare, cooking and cleaning and act as gym instructor and arts teacher, while many of their peers without children are engaged in learning a new language, undertaking training courses and even de-cluttering the garage. For many without children lockdown has given them space to be creative.

Unsurprisingly, the parents who bore the weight of lockdown were predominantly mothers and their voices have been at the very periphery of the wider debate on the harsh climate faced by people in Britain during lockdown.

I spoke with women who have had to take on the burden of their children’s safety and education during this spring’s lockdown. Here are their voices. 

Kate is a single mother who delivers community arts training courses and whose life was thrown into chaos with the arrival of Covid-19 as her work came to a stop.

She tells me: “My son is seven so I feel less pressure to have to deliver, however it is impossible to be a teacher on formal levels when wearing all the other hats. I am motivating him to pick up his socks, to eat his dinner, to be polite, to wash his hands, etc.

“With the schooling, things become impossible because he is tired of the sound of my voice. It’s not natural in normal situations to have one person provide everything. In the end I just realised I needed to make sure he reads and we did loads of outdoor stuff. Still, my son is really happy and healthy and has thrived in this time.” 

Kate notes the different attitudes of lockdown among those without children: “When speaking to childless pals about the frustrations, fears and challenges economically and socially to parenting and working under these conditions, their response was ‘but people are dying!’ as a way of saying that none of this matters. I depend on social networks to allow me to function, and lockdown essentially closed down all means of support, making me a prisoner in my own home. Plotting shopping became a military operation.”

Elizabeth, a university lecturer relates: “I’m a single mum of a one-and-a-half-year-old in a new city where I don’t have much support. I’ve been getting up at 5am every morning to work before he wakes up and working again at naps and after he goes to bed. It feels like every evening I want to do several things: clean up the house even to a basic level of cleanliness (I am not a clean freak!); do my paid work so I don’t lose my job; take care of my personal hygiene, and relax. I can choose about two of these things on any given evening. Needless to say I haven’t showered in a while.”

Ruth, an engineer, tells me: “The biggest challenge has been working with teenage children at home so much. In the early days, I got used to planning weekly large shops, rather than going out several times a day.”

She expresses her frustration with the fact that she was expected to provide all the entertainment due to the closure of all the regular activities: “I began to feel more anxious about the children because they have had so little contact with friends. So, while working, I have had to try to make life as interesting as possible. Educationally, my children are in years which aren't critical (although my oldest daughter was meant to have done GCSEs).

“I worry what might happen if schools don’t reopen in September. My girls will be so bored and sad.”

Ruth also notes that her youngest daughter has missed key vaccinations, echoing what many medics have warned — there would be a huge number of children who have missed their MMRs, risking a measles outbreak.

Emma, a stay-at-home mother to a toddler, recounts how she initially thought that lockdown would not affect her family given that her husband works in food production and continued his shifts as an essential worker.

She reports: “It was only yesterday that our local playground opened. Before that our only option to use up energy was going for a walk or wrecking the house. As we come out of lockdown, I am worried about my child’s socialisation. She’s hardly had any interaction with children her own age for four months, so more than one-fifth of her life.

“I’m worried about the amount of screen time she’s had and that baby and toddler groups will be the last things to open. My mental health is suffering and I don't have people to bounce off other than my husband.”

Elizabeth tells me about the challenges of caring for her six-year-old with severe receptive language disorder: “We had just fought to get him into an appropriate school five days before lockdown. He could not access the ABA (Applied Behavioural Analysis) therapy that he depends on to progress in his education, social targets being a large part of this.

“Lockdown has basically been a massive worry trying to keep him learning and entertained while his behaviour has got more and more challenging. It has driven me to absolute distraction. His lack of language means that he cannot access stories or television. It has been awful. I live in the country with lots of outside space. I simply cannot imagine the awfulness of parenting a child with special needs in a town with no garden during lockdown.”

As horrifying as the prospect of future lockdowns are for women and children across Britain, the government’s recent announcement signalled that this group’s freedom and education might hang in the balance as it ponders the choice between keeping pubs or schools open. It’s all quite worrying to think that the mark of freedom in 2020 is put on the same level as a pint.