“I just want to see people,” says my 12-year old daughter during another family dinner. It’s been lovely to have so many dinners together, whereas often we would have been en route to or from different activities during dinnertime. Before coronavirus, my husband wouldn’t be home for dinner during the week. Now he’s not only always home, but he’s usually grilling dinner. Still, he’s frequently working after dinner and on the weekends. He can work from home, but he gets distracted by our presence. For our part, we are tired of having to be quiet most of the time. Our house feels too small to be a school, office, and music studio simultaneously (we still have online piano lessons and the oldest girls need to practice their band instruments for school). We have started wondering why we pay so much to live so close to an office that my husband can’t use. 

When the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders started, my husband’s office closed and his work-load evaporated. He managed to set up a home office in the basement, and he shifted his focus toward whatever clients needed in the uncharted, COVID-impacted business environment. Some of his previous work revived recently, but the shut-down has introduced significant uncertainty and anxiety. We have enjoyed occasional family movie and game nights, but many nights he is focused on emails or conference calls instead.