blogcutter

In November of 1980, we had been in our new home for a few months. If we had been in the midst of this pandemic back then, life would have been a nightmare, what with house hunting and moving and getting all the paperwork in place.

I was working at a job at the national Archives, cataloguing materials related to film, television and sound. I'd been in the job - basically an entry-level job - for over three years, and was eager to move on, even with a lateral transfer to diversify my experience. But it pretty much needed to be somewhere in the federal public service since the new demands of mortgage payments at usurious interest rates required that my job be something reliable and secure. My partner was in the highly volatile high tech industry, which meant good money when there was work, but a punishing work schedule and unreliable future steam of income and benefits. Moreover, techie types tended, at least in those days to be notoriously individualistic and anti-union which left me feeling distinctly uneasy.

If I was facing an uncertain future in 1980, that was even more true of 1981, most of which I spent pregnant with my daughter. Back then, the only paid time off a new mother could take was 15 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits after a 2-week waiting period with no pay. Needless to say, the question of how long the in utero creature was willing to wait was an unknown quantity! We were allowed up to 6 months leave after the baby's birth, but it was all unpaid once the 15 weeks of benefits were exhausted. There was also a small monthly family allowance payment, not contingent on employment status. In the end, I opted to return to work when our daughter was just over 4 months old.

But leaving aside the financial aspect, the logistics of regular obstetrical and paediatric appointments would have been overwhelming if a pandemic had been added to the mix. We didn't have a car in those days and neither of us even had a driver's licence. There are lots of appointments to juggle during a pregnancy and early years of a child's life, even without any serious medical problems! Oh, and did I mention that technically, midwifery was still illegal in Ontario back then? I was a member of the Midwifery Task Force and thrilled when everything became legal and above-board.

I know our daughter felt at times that it would have been nice to have siblings. Looking back on it now, I can understand why I at least was less than keen on the idea. It did force her to carve out her own social life and become an independent thinker and overall self-sufficient human being. But if a pandemic had intervened some time in there, just as she was in the process of forging a social life and gaining an education? I can imagine that she might have been pretty bored and unhappy, shut off from her peer group and anyone else outside our little household unit.

Perhaps that's where I'll take up the story next week, if I decide to attempt a Covid-90s.