Is the Pandemic Bringing Unity to the Family?

The Coronavirus pandemic brought multiple negative consequences to the world, but I asked myself the question: Is the pandemic bringing unity to the family? I believe it did. Today I want to focus on the ONE positive outcome from the pandemic—It brought unity to the nuclear family! People realized that the family, in the end, is all we got. Our family members are the ones who are there for us when we need them most. Why do we not hear more about this exciting consequence? Because the media may consider that as boring news and may think people are not interested in hearing about it. But that’s not true.

The family:

The family nucleus represents the strength of a community and the power of a nation. When you have forces attacking the family and creating division, families dissolve and there goes the strength and power of an entire nation along with it. You destroy the family. You destroy a nation!

Whether I’m meeting with clients, friends, or family members, I often ask the question: How has the pandemic affected your personal life and your family? Here are some of the responses I get:

Is the pandemic bringing unity to the family? – responses:

• I didn’t realize how exhausted I was from running around from work to a kid’s game to a volunteer meeting to working at night again to catch up and tomorrow – push the repeat button!
• My kids have enjoyed staying home and spending more time with us. They love having my focused attention.
• We took out board games we haven’t played in a long time. We also did a puzzle together!
• I took online cooking classes and I’m enjoying my old passion for cooking. We can finally have at least a couple of dinners together as a family without rushing out the door.
• Our dog loves having us all around. The cat is not very sure about it!
• I decided to stay home with my teenagers. I realized how much they need me during these years of their life.

What COVID-19 caused to American families – more fun testimonials:

• I love working from home now even though the adjustment period was very hard. I want to keep this flexibility in my life.
• I’m saving two hours a day in commute that I am now using to help my children with homework and make dinner.
• I now have time to exercise in the morning before I start my workday. I feel great and I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been!
• I sleep more and, therefore, I’m not so cranky anymore.
• We bought a cabin! We realized how much we enjoy our family time together and wanted to create more memories. We can work from the cabin or from our home in the cities. It doesn’t matter where we are. We are now more available to our children and are enjoying nature!
• I now have time to pray. Each morning I spend time Experiencing God. I feel so much more connected to God now.

Going forward:

So what’s next? I already heard a parent comment to me that just the restarting of the kids’ sports practice was creating stress in her life. The kids were also stressed out due to being out of shape since they haven’t practiced the whole summer until now.

Now it’s time to make choices in your life. If you figured out a productive and effective way to work from home, now is the time to ask for that flexibility going forward.

Take this opportunity to reach out to others with the extra time saved from not commuting. In addition to being with your family, reach out to those who don’t have a family. Sometimes the “blood family” may not be available or the ties were broken a long time ago. For some people their family are close friends, their community, or their church.

The adjustment period is gone. As you prepare to go back to somewhat of the “old normal” choose wisely which activities to keep, restart, or stop. In my personal experience what COVID-19 did to my family is that my travel stopped completely. I love traveling for leisure but traveling for work is physically exhausting for me, even though I enjoy meeting my clients and conference attendees where I speak. I’m hoping many events will continue to be held virtually and slowly go back to speaking in person. This time allowed me to spend more quality time with my husband, my grown children, and with our grandson. We have created memories that will last a lifetime.

Is the pandemic bringing unity to the family? Yes, absolutely. In the end, unity is what’s most important to create a strong family and ultimately a powerful nation. And that unity is founded in love for each other that starts at home in the family.