Politicians telling us to stay inside clearly don’t live in apartments
People leaving their homes amid COVID-19 aren’t doing it because they enjoy breaking rules or disregarding the safety of others. We’re doing it because we have no other choice, writes Bianca O’Neill.
Rendezview
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The other day I was watching the morning news.
These days much of the morning airtime is spent rehashing coronavirus updates; how many new infections, how many new deaths, whether we are on track to flatten the curve.
Nowadays, guests no longer appear on the studio couch, instead preferring to adhere to social distancing rules by dialling into the program via choppy feeds straight from their home office. A parade of different experts deliver hot takes via poor internet connection speeds. There is much hand-wringing commentary about how long we may be in isolation for, how best to manage the crisis, and criticism of the latest measures — whether they be too strict, or too lenient.
After their allotted time, one thing still remains: the end-of-segment banter. Usually it consists of a lighthearted run down of how each guest is dealing with their new iso-life — from juggling parenting and working from home to tackling long-forgotten DIY projects and baking banana bread. (Why are we all baking banana bread?)
Besides a penchant for channelling anxiety into baked goods, the banter has also become overwhelming proof of the staggering lack of awareness these highly-paid TV journalists have.
“Oh, I’m spending a lot of time mowing,” laughs one correspondent, as many of us under 40 without a hefty deposit contribution from wealthy parents gaze on in wonderment, considering just how much grass one has to own in order to need to ‘spend a lot of time mowing’ it. “Ah, yes — mowing!” snorts the other, “A fine way to spend time in isolation!”
Similarly, as us apartment dwellers tune into the daily updates from the government about the newest restrictive lockdown measures taking place from our concrete boxes in the sky, this lack of awareness extends to our politicians as they speak of ‘selfish’ people sitting in parks, barely 100m away from the next living soul. Again, they lay bare their property-rich privilege.
Because, of course, when one owns all that grass, why go out? Why not just sit in the sun at home before shaking up a martini and taking a quick nap on your ten-piece lounge set? Surely you’d have to be selfish to want to venture outside your allocated confines to get some fresh air and a little sunlight.
As someone who lives in an apartment with a postage-stamp-sized balcony, my daily walks are a desperate source of fresh air and the space to stretch my legs. But with police reportedly threatening fines to anyone sitting stationary in a park it seems that those making the rules clearly don’t know what it’s like to live in an 80m2 box with two people, a baby and a dog.
And with six months of isolation looming, and lockdown measures only likely to get worse, it’s enough to send most of us who didn’t have the luxury of a once-in-a-millennia property boom’s worth of equity under our belts running to our weekly Zoom counselling session.
Meanwhile, memes make the rounds declaring that we are all overreacting to our government imposed isolation rules (“Just remember that your grandparents were called to war. You’re being called to sit on the couch and watch Netflix,” one reads) are severely misrepresenting the emotional and mental toll that self-isolation can have on the less privileged individuals in our society.
For every joke telling us to get over it, there is a family struggling to work from home, teach their kids, entertain their infants, pay their mortgage and reduce their screen time all at once. For every person declaring that ‘we are being called to watch Netflix and chill’, there is someone who lives alone in a studio apartment, without a slice of outdoor space, teetering on the brink of depression due to mandatory isolation from their family and friends.
These memes smack of the kind of ‘just choose to be happy’ rhetoric that is often levelled at people with complex mental health issues. Sometimes the repeated ‘just stay at home, it’s simple’ orders aren’t quite that simple at all.
I speak from a position of privilege too. I still have a job, and can pay my mortgage. I have a safe space from which to isolate. Here in Australia, we are lucky to have started flattening the curve without the kinds of devastating death tolls seen in Italy and the US.
I’m privileged to have a tiny space to steal a little fresh air, should restrictions become worse. Hell, some of us don’t even have a balcony, let alone a backyard.
And it must be said that self-isolation is important. The measures that have been introduced in Australia are working (for now). But the idea of the entire country moving into lockdown measures that further inhibit our outdoor movement, or our ability to connect with another single human being (only one!), just isn’t plausible for many of us. Particularly those living on the east coast, where property prices mean that a million dollars might buy you — at best — a small paved courtyard where your dog can crap.
Given that we’re already being moved along by police for sitting still in a park for ten minutes, anything more and we may have a riot on our hands.
Unless we consider house swapping. I’d be more than happy to appear on national TV and talk about how I spent my weekend mowing the grass.
For that kind of space and freedom I might even consider learning how to use a lawnmower.
Bianca O’Neill is a columnist for RendezView.
Originally published as Politicians telling us to stay inside clearly don’t live in apartments