Long Island families ease into juggle of home schooling, remote working
And so it begins.
For most families on Long Island, Monday was the kickoff of an extended period of kids home from school as New York strives to keep the coronavirus from spreading. And it’s coupled with the double whammy of many parents trying to work from home with the same goal.
For Lauren and Benjamin King of Port Washington, that means four children — ages 7, 5, and twins at 2 ½ — to keep occupied while they try to carry on as the co-owner of a financial investment firm and the chief strategy officer of a philanthropic organization respectively from inside their house.
“This,” Lauren King says, “is the Super Bowl of parenting.”
Sticking to a schedule is the key as this period of hunkering down begins, parents say. “They need to have some structure in their lives or they go crazy,” King says.
But the long haul has just begun and it’s hard to predict how things will play out once schoolwork is added to the game plan, families say.
“We made everybody get up at 9 a.m. today and eat breakfast,” says Jackie Bodner, 42, of Port Washington, who has three sons ages 14, 12 and 10. “They were shocked when [my husband] and I were like, ‘Up and at ‘em.’” This is not, Bodner told her boys, a period of 12-hour marathons playing video games.
Some families are planning to follow a multicolored schedule that has been making the rounds on Facebook parenting groups, with the day broken up into periods such as academic time, creative time, chore time and afternoon fresh air. “Children thrive on routine,” says Alicia Lam, 41, of Nesconset, who has two children, Liam 7, and Owain, 4. She says her family will follow the routine at home or else "it'll just be chaos."
Amy Shaberman, 42, of Oceanside, has two children, Ruby, 8, and Cooper, 6. Monday went smoothly, she says, but "this is Day One for them." Shaberman was able to help the children with packets the school sent home so far — her daughter had to do 30 minutes of reading in her favorite spot in the house (she chose her bed) and write a story pretending she found a magic ring.
Having to keep that going is “a bit daunting,” Shaberman says. “I work full time.” Her employer — she’s a senior medical director for a company — has been understanding that family will need to be cared for at some points during the workday. Shaberman has a babysitter who comes in the afternoon. “If it wasn’t for her, it would be extremely challenging.”
Even the Kings, who have a live-in nanny, say they needed to make changes to keep up. They've enlisted Lauren’s parents to come over from Dix Hills to play board game or catch in the backyard with the older kids while the nanny works longer hours on “twins duty.”
Angelina Pinkhasova, 29, of Hewlett, is home alone with her four children, ages 7, 5, 4 and 2. She's off from her school job but her husband is a pharmacist and is still working outside the house. She says she doesn’t know how she’s going to help her older kids navigate their school assignments when her 2-year-old is clamoring for her attention. The quality of instruction her kids get from her won’t be the same as a family that can devote more attention to each child. “It’s totally me,” she says.
Danielle Adams, 39, an insurance agent from Patchogue, is more sanguine about her family’s new normal, trying to look at a bright side amid the gloom. She and her husband, Dustin, 38, who works for a lawn care company, have two children, Charles, 2, and Sarah, 6. “I am a self-proclaimed introvert,” she says. “Not having any demands on my time or energy and being able to worry about my own well-being and my family, is really a blessing.”
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
