Columnist: Alexia Rowley on certainty in a global pandemic

They answered my questions with conviction and knew the running of things. I knew what our plans were at the weekend, when we were planning on going on holiday, if I was having a birthday party, when I would be seeing extended family.

Life was certain, or at least in my six-year-old mind it was.

Now we live in the time of a global pandemic, I find myself as a parent looking into be eyes of my own six-year-old and can say very little for certain.

I can't tell her if she'll be able to have friends over for her birthday, if we will get to spend Christmas with her grandparents, when she can hug her friends, if she and her siblings will remain in school. I know nothing for certain and she knows this.

When I was a child, I found great comfort in certainty, even if this was never actually the case. Of course, no one could ever really be certain about anything as no one can predict what may be round the corner. However, I did not know that as a child. I wonder now what children make of us not being able to, unequivocally, tell them what next week will bring. I wonder if this will make them feel like everything is unstable. I would have thought this would be the case, but I think what is most surprising is that children seem to accept this. Without question or worry. I am starting to feel slightly liberated that it is not my job to know everything. It is OK not to know.

While there is a lot that I don’t know and I may not be able to tell them the big things, or what our plans may be in the near future, but I can be certain about many areas of our life.

Whatever the week brings I can tell them with certainty that they cannot have chocolate for breakfast (despite them still asking daily), that every night we read a bedtime story. That every day we have dinner together and that, whatever happens we will always love them.

That’s the thing about children, maybe they don’t need to know what the big plans are. Perhaps stripping back life to the more basic elements is enough. Who knows, maybe this

generation will be more easy-going because of this? They may be more able to adapt to change, to go with the flow, to accept we cannot plan or know everything all the time. The things that, in all honesty, scare me to death.

There is something to be said for not planning, not being so rigid, and accepting that things will change. It is freeing to know that, ultimately, we can’t control the big things, but we can control the day to day. Modifying our expectations and relinquishing some control, could give us all a little more freedom.

Pandemic or not, one thing we can all be certain about, is that life is full of change.