It's an odd situation...

So here we are in an odd situation with many changes thrust upon us …

As a society we have got ‘very’ used to having everything on tap and popping out for whatever we need, whenever we need it. We rush around like mad squeezing everything in and whizzing from one thing to another. However, life as we know it has now put the brakes on and come to a screeching holt, and now there is time to reflect and we have to stop! Should we take this time to start to question why we rush around so much and who is benefitting from being on a constant roller coaster of ‘things we must do’?

At the present time everyone is more or less in the same boat ‘staying at home’, doing exercise, playing with children, caring for elderly parents, going for a walk, creating (you won’t believe the amount of furniture you can decoupage in a week), trying to work from home, trying to go to work, home-schooling, baking and staying up until 2am to get a shopping delivery slot. One of the best things for most of us is connecting with our families through facetime, WhatsApp or zoom. These connections are probably taking place more often than usual, with a new gratitude of being able to still see and hear each other and with lots of laughter plus at least one relative who can’t work their iPad. There is a sense of community building and national pride for our NHS and carers with heartfelt appreciative clapping every Thursday and neighbourhoods singing and dancing in the street (a safe distance apart). Friends who are furloughed (who thought this would ever be a popular word) and who are working from home send jokes and messages to each other, purely to just raise a smile or a laugh from each other.

Well we would like to try and approach this from a little bit of a different angle with the perspective and insight of adults who grew up as 70s children…

So how does this all fit in with a 70s childhood, well we may be seeing the past through rose tinted specs but here goes… In the 70s you would play outside and make dens, you could create, paint, get muddy, ride your bike and dance around with your nan to top of the pops on the radio. Most people went for a Sunday drive or walk with a picnic and then came home and had a roast dinner on a family table together, where they chatted, argued, fought, procrastinated, played games and then went to bed on time (even when it was light in the summer).

We sat in the back of the car outside the pub sharing a bottle of coke a cola and feeling fortunate. Children mostly knew that what they had for tea was it, you couldn’t choose to have something else because there wasn’t anything else. A Greens cheesecake or milk jelly (fluff) was as posh as it got. We weren’t unhappy because we didn’t have stuff, see we didn’t know we needed it. We were scared at times when there were strikes and it was cold and dark, but now all we remember is our mum making homemade bread and having candles on instead of the lights on (this would be called hygge now).

There were threats from unknown things, as there always will be, checking under the car for bombs was one if you had parents in any public profession but this became the routine and yes this made us more aware and probably hyper-vigilant, however we were ok because we had routine and we knew we were loved, there was also a great community feeling all around us.

So, at the moment how are we learning and adapting to live with this screeching halt; we are understanding it doesn’t just affect us it applies to many people and whole industries and businesses including those in childcare and education. We are learning we can’t rush around because we are caring for our own, our loved ones and basically everyone’s health in our country! We are learning to become less selfish and more focused on what we love, we are learning to be still and not get what we want when we want it. We are learning that we need to be cared for and care for those in our society who work ‘day in and day out’ in jobs that up until now have not been viewed as crucial, now we see that they are the lifeblood of our country.

Just maybe we will have managed to turn the tide to empower a future generation into a caring generation of people who remember the 20s as when ‘time stood still’ and it was alright to not want things we don’t need and to just be yourself!

If we are looking for safety in life, we may never find it, however if we are looking for love and living in the moment, well it is happening right now in front of us! Grab your chance to be part of the opportunity to turn back the tide to enable community living and having just enough to be content with.

So as a legacy let’s take any positiveness we can find, run with it, embrace the change we have right now and connect through quality interactions and love, let people know that they matter!

We send so much love to all those affected and huge gratitude to everyone working to make things better for our world. You are in our hearts and minds!