Why Guys are Struggling with 30 Days of Forced Family Time Quarantine
The phones are ringing off the hook.
They don’t need face masks, ventilators, or rubber latex gloves.
They need to get out of their house.
They think a virus and ICU for 21 days might be a better deal than 30 straight days locked in their house with their family.
As one CEO wrote me, “I am surprising ill-equipped for 21 straight days locked in my house with my wife and kids!” The text and DMs come flooding in, all from men, all from Dads, all from people who are used to some morning time with the wife and kids, some afterwork time, and weekends.
“Hi, it is day #1 of homeschooling and I was wondering who to get this one kid transferred out of my class?”
Can cannabis help this new family reality show? You bet, but first, why are guys and Dads having such a hard time with 21 straight days locked in a house with their wife, kids, and assorted older relatives?
Evolution
We aren’t made for this, men are “hunters and gatherers” traditionally. We hunt buffalo, kill lions, bring home raw meat. Women and elders have taken care of kids through thousands of years of village life and evolution, so it is not in our DNA to want to spend endless hours (more than Saturday and Sunday) with toddlers and kids. They require patience, patience to wipe noses, change diapers, make milk bottles, constantly entertaining unless you tap out and pull out the IPAD. Is it chavenistic or sexist to say that, maybe in today’s PC world, but just look at the role of men, women, elders, and kids in civilizations over the past 5,000 years? It may be offensive today but it least it is backed by fact and history.
As kids get older, tween and teens, they get rude, obnoxious, and loud. Being trapped in a house for 30 days with a few teenagers is misery, let alone your own kids, who usually act the best with outsiders and treat you the worst. As someone once said, I love my kids, I just don’t like them.
Lack of Independence
The historical role for men has been to be the leader of the household, or pack. We have testosterone running our bodies, an aggressive and dominant hormone. We like our independence. Not only do I mean making money and calling the shots in our pack, but I mean being able to go get our Dunkin or Starbucks when we want, picking our own lunch each day, even deciding when to pull over and get a snack or candy bar at a gas station. With corona-lockdown, as men, we not only lose our independent job routine, we lose our independence to get a coffee, stop at a gas station, talk to a friend openly on the phone, the little stuff. We feel caged up, stir crazy, with basic life pleasures taken away from us during this 3-week lock down.
Life Wasn’t Great before the ‘Rona
Around 50% of marriages end in divorce, and another 25% of people report that they would divorce if they could afford it or if money were not an issue. Needless to say, not every marriage, especially those with multiple kids and the stresses that come with that, is a happy Disney movie. Each partner in the relationship knows their role and time schedule for helping, being home, driving the kids around, making dinner, going to work, going to the gym, flip flopping on the weekend, etc. When we get thrown into a family blender with the doors sealed shut for 30 days, those things we don’t like about each other tend to come out, and be in the open, all day and night, for 30 days. Someone does not do the dishes, someone talks on the phone too long, someone watching too much TV, it all manifests and builds with no exit or relief like leaving the house or going to work.
Stress at Every Corner
The headlines are saying to work from home and life will be all fine, expect, how many people don’t really have a job that equates to working from home. Are you a lab tech? No lab at home to prepare solutions and do field work. Are you a PA? Not many people in your house to prep for the doctor meeting and get the blood pressure and heart rate. Service industry workers are already being laid off, travel industry professionals are staring down the barrel of a long recovery, all malls, bars, restaurant are closed. Million of hourly and part time workers can’t just “work from home”. Financial stresses are usual during recessions, and they can cause heart attacks and hypertension. Throw in a virus risk that could kill your parents, grand-parents, or god forbid a child, and the stress and anxiety level can go through the roof. It is one thing losing your job, but watching a father or mother die due to overcrowded hospitals or lack of a ventilation machine is a whole new level of worry and stomach knots. Put a recession and virus together and you have the making of a mental health breakdown, stress pandemic. Stress makes the patience level go down, makes us get irritated quicker, pushes us to find someone to blame. The blame game starts with the Chinese, then to Trump, and then trickles down to our spouse.
Cannabis Can Help
Alcohol is an agitator, an aggressor, a “ramping up” drink. Cannabis is calming, THC binds in the brain, it makes life look better, it lowers stress and anxiety. While millions of Americans are using alcohol to get through these stressful nights, maybe after the kids go down, they should actually be turning to cannabis. Smoke a joint, get caught by the kids? Nope, you don’t have too. Edibles are discreet, tinctures under the tongue are fine. Don’t want to go down the THC road due to work or drug testing? Fine. Go get hemp-based, lab tested CBD. CBD has all the calming effects of the cannabis plant, but without the psychoactive elements of THC. In English, you will get body relaxed and sleep great, but you won’t get high. Better yet, thank to the 2018 Farm Act, it is 100% legal in America and the Federal government can’t even step in and tell you not to do it.
Honorable Mentions in Responses for this Article
“I have nowhere now to watch PornHub, I am locked in my shower like I am 14!”
“My wife won’t stop talking to me all day even though I am remotely working”
“I secretly think my wife, the general caregiver in normal life, is loving the fact I am miserable and the kids are annoying me all day.”
“I am started home schooling and holy shit are my kids dumb, WTF regular school!”
“Please give me the virus so I have to go into solitary quarantine anywhere but here…”
“I have to hide in the garage to hit my vape pen, hope the kids don’t find me”
“I got caught drinking milk from the bottle out of the fridge, kids everywhere!”
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