We are not doing enough to understand the severity of this situation. No I am not talking about washing our hands enough. I am talking about checking in with people on how they are doing? Lowering our expectations from families who are working and managing workloads that are not matched to the productivity that can be expected in such a situation.

There is a lot of dual message everywhere – from governments to corporations. IF you expect that my productivity is going to be impacted, then why are you piling on more tasks? I cannot be thinking of solving for bold ambitions when my urgent need is to solve for the meals on my family’s table and my daughter’s morale.

The human race has its priorities wrong. And this is not the time to be the heroes. But be humble about our situation and give the time the families need.

After 3 weeks of non stop madness, today I felt weak in my knees. I felt what is called stress. I also gave up. I stopped to care, even if it was just for a moment.

FWIW Google is giving 2 weeks of carer’s leave for working families. And wise folks are taking it and making this situation tolerable for themselves. More power to them for making a choice that is right for their families. I am not strong enough to make that call. But if there are more days like today, I will also succumb. Succumb to the pressure of being working Mom.

In the end this is a slippery slope, we can do it all for a short time period, but then we raise expectations by doing so, and then when we realize that it was not worth it, we withdraw our ambitions. And when we do that we start failing to meet expectations that we had set before. The fault is in you. And only you can fix it.

I knew there were going to be days like this. But today, I did not run out of energy. I ran out of purpose, and intent. And that’s why this hurts more.