«Dear Mrs Villa Braslavsky, what is the crisis doing to families?»

For the German-Argentinean sociologist Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky, not being able to travel as usual, attend conferences, meet friends and discuss things with colleagues is one of the most difficult personal challenges during the coronavirus crisis. Due to the lockdown in Germany, the interview with Fritz+Fränzi also had to take place digitally. What is this crisis doing to us as a family? Claudia Füssler equipped herself with this and many other questions and a chai for the interview in Freiburg, while Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky made herself comfortable in her flat in Munich with a coffee - black - in her study.

Mrs Villa, as a scientist, how are you experiencing this phase of an unprecedented crisis?

With the normal schizophrenia that many people in different disciplines are currently experiencing. As a private person, I find it all difficult and am not coping well with all the changes, even though we are very privileged: We live with plenty of space and our children are teenagers. However, I am a very communicative, sociable and active person, which I miss.

«We realise how difficult it is to fill the time in such a way that you can endure yourself.»

And as a sociologist?

From a professional point of view, I find it exciting and very interesting what has happened in the past few weeks and what is still happening. None of us have ever experienced crisis management on such an ongoing basis. We have no experience of it, so there are no certainties and no reliable answers to all the questions that are bothering us in connection with the novel coronavirus. However, we sociologists can provide good pointers and reflections and perhaps also offer enlightening and plausible interpretations of the social reality of this crisis.

Let's give it a try. In your opinion, how great is the potential for families to be shaken by this crisis?

On the one hand very strong, but on the other hand also less strong than in other structures or institutions that we deal with. Let's start with the strong shake-up: Many of us overlook how much family, as we understand it - i.e. as a private, demarcated space - depends on connections. This exclusive privacy is not the normal case of family. In order to be able to experience it in the way we usually perceive it, a great deal of interconnectedness is necessary: shopping, kindergarten, media, friendships with other families, school, jobs, playgrounds. These are many public or other elements that are part of our private sphere.

Many things have suddenly fallen away, such as school or friends.

That's right, families were thrown back on themselves in a way that made them realise: that's not how we work. Instead, privacy works through complexity and interconnectedness. As a result, many people are now experiencing cabin fever at home, realising how difficult it is to fill their time in such a way that it never gets boring, that they feel sufficiently free and that they have to be able to cope on their own. But all this is the nice, bad side.

There is another not so nice?

Yes, unfortunately. In many families, issues such as violence, addiction or financial hardship have become worse due to the prescribed confinement.

They said that, on the other hand, families were also less shaken by the crisis than other structures.

Exactly. Because the structure that we perceive as private can still be activated and kick in, we perceive it as a resource. We can often withdraw into our family, it endures, while other areas such as schools, public institutions and companies are clearly shaking for us. But there is another point that is important to me.

Namely?

That we don't lose sight of the families that live in constellations other than the traditional ones: Patchwork families, partners with children who do not live in the same place, queer families, separated, i.e. multi-local families that function together, especially in times of crisis. For all of these, such changes are once again a very special challenge, as they are often denied the legitimacy and normality that makes family possible under the given measures.

Is what we are experiencing in the crisis something like the true face of the family, which is otherwise overshadowed by other people and activities?

No, because it is not the case that the truth is only where everything has been taken away and there is nothing left but the nuclear family. During the crisis, many people have realised what the true face of the family is. Friendships, the mother's job, the neighbourhood, grandma, the kindergarten - that is the truth, not this extreme reduction to our biological and spatial confinement.

«With us, the children experience for the first time that their own future is uncertain.»

What does this reduction do to us?

That depends. We sociologists know that it has very different effects depending on a family's social position. Has one parent lost their job or is very precariously employed? Does the family perhaps worry about their health on a daily basis because someone is at risk or works in a job with increased risks, such as a parcel deliverer or nurse? What are the living conditions like, do people tend to live close together or does everyone have enough space - in the real sense of the word - for themselves? This has a decisive influence on how people interact with each other, and the children also feel this.

In what way?

They can see and feel whether a parent is insecure and perhaps even anxious, or whether the adults are dealing with the situation in a humorous, relaxed and creative way. After all, it's the same for everyone: we are all at a loss when faced with the new circumstances. It is inhumane to have to reduce contact and social life in this way and organise it via the media. It is normal to feel helpless and overwhelmed. The decisive factor is how we deal with it.

What options do I have?

You can be open and honest, even with children, and say: this is how it is now, and I don't have the answers to all your questions either, but we'll work it out together somehow. Or you can allow your own fear to turn into anger, aggression, depression or violence. Children also experience the uncertainty of their own future for the first time, which can be overwhelming.

In other parts of the world, this is much more common.

For the vast majority of children in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, however, such feelings and realities are new. The long-term cancellation of school, for example, is an unsettling crisis for children. Here, too, adults need to be there and communicate: 'I, we recognise that this fear is there and is bothering you, we support you in your fear. That helps, even if you can't offer a solution.

What about the nice phrase that every crisis also harbours an opportunity?

I don't find this entirely wrong in principle, but factually difficult. For scientific reasons, too, I have a lot of resistance to this heroic rhetoric of self-optimisation. I think it's ideological rubbish. What we can say, however: We can see that such exceptional situations can enable certain insights and reflection.

Which ones, for example?

One that sounds quite trivial: there is society. What I do, what my neighbour does, is relevant to the fabric of society. It's not just about me, my partner, my job, my children, but what I do - whether I adhere to certain hygiene measures, for example - always has an impact on everyone. This solidarity and willingness to limit oneself for the common good is remarkable from a sociological perspective. The realisation that one's own actions have such effects has been frowned upon in recent years and has only survived in a few areas such as ecology. In this respect, the crisis perhaps harbours the opportunity for learning effects.

What could they be?

For example, it is very interesting to see how the recognition of care is changing in the private, friendly and neighbourly sphere as well as in the professional spectrum. The so-called system-relevant professions are currently experiencing an incredibly strong appreciation - let's hope that this realisation is a lasting one.

Are there also learning effects and insights for families in such a crisis?

That's a good question. On the one hand, of course, we learn how much our own family reality is connected to others, as we talked about at the beginning. The fact that for many people it is downright disastrous and they reach their limits when meetings with friends, neighbours, school and physiotherapy are cancelled certainly makes it very clear to some what all this means for them, I think you can definitely speak of a learning effect. On the other hand, we also realise very clearly what place we have in the family. Suddenly parents are supposed to be teachers - that's difficult for many, even if there are of course families who over-identify and say «We're doing maths next week».

But for the vast majority of people, this role is something new.

Exactly, and suddenly I have to be everything to my child or my partner because so much is falling away. That's when many people perhaps painfully realise what makes their own family tick. Although I don't want to be too dramatic, it can also be funny.

Because roles are shifting?

Sure, when siblings experience each other in a completely different way on a daily basis and parents are off the rails because they somehow no longer know what to cook or what film to watch, it can also be somewhat comical. However, I believe that we are all standing next to all these changes, looking at them with some bewilderment and hoping that it will all be over soon and that we will all wake up from this nightmare, this deeply unnatural situation.

Which won't happen any time soon. So we have to accept the changed roles.

Yes, and it's very different for everyone, from family to family and also within the family structure. Children are used to being outside, roaming around, meeting up with friends, going to playgrounds or skateboarding, things like that. Now they have to organise themselves digitally with their friends. That's not entirely new, but it is exclusive. Having dinner together via Zoom with a family of friends is fun, but it quickly becomes chaotic, nobody understands what the other person is saying when everyone is talking at the same time and clattering their cutlery. It's nice and sad at the same time. Personally, I travel a lot for work and haven't been at home as much in a row for years as I have since the start of the pandemic - this drastic change initially gave me a great sense of calm, but then - paradoxically - made me extremely restless, I was fidgety and very unfocussed. I missed my usual structure.

«We realised that we can also endure helplessness. That can be empowering.»

I'm sure many people feel the same way.

Absolutely, the familiar rhythm has been lost, everyday life is now more blurred. For many, there are no longer clearly demarcated areas such as school, work and home, but everything is one. Some people can't simply change rooms to switch roles from employee to father or husband, but have to cater for everything. The extent to which this becomes blurred in a family depends very much on how the family's days were previously structured. This can be remedied with clear agreements, daily schedules that provide structure, and also simply putting notes on the door if you don't want to be disturbed while you're doing something.

You have said that you don't like the image of the crisis as an opportunity. But does what we have been experiencing for weeks now at least make us stronger?

Yes, I think some of us do. How many of us would have thought it possible just a few months ago that we would be living without school for weeks on end, that we would voluntarily choose not to meet up with friends and family out of a sensible realisation? We realised just how much normality can change from one day to the next. We realised how overwhelming and difficult it can be, how helpless it can make us. But we have also realised that we can endure helplessness, even cope with it and carry on in this world that is no longer what it was. That shows us what we are capable of, and something like that can be empowering. But again, we must not forget that this is only one side.

What does the other one look like?

On the other hand, the new situation is exacerbating problems that we often pay too little attention to anyway: Violence against women and children, for example, has increased massively; we know that 80 per cent of cases happen in the immediate vicinity of those affected, i.e. at home. And that's exactly where youth welfare workers can't go now, so the changed circumstances are even more serious for these children. People with mental illnesses and their families are also suffering in particular, and they won't get much positive out of the coronavirus crisis. We must not forget such people, and perhaps we can include one or two of them in our own circles.

What do you mean?

In sociology, there is the important concept of «doing family». It says something like this: Family is what people make of it for themselves. Family is where people take on long-term intergenerational responsibility for each other. There have been many times, during wars for example, when you could observe how families have expanded and become interwoven. Farmers or refugees experienced the help and solidarity of a family. The family construct was expanded to include those you cared about and took responsibility for. We are seeing more and more of this again these days, even independently of coronavirus, and that is a positive development. On the other hand, we also know how little, for example, a biological or extended family automatically means solidarity and support. We can all see this in the present day, for example when a gay son is rejected by his parents or a politically active aunt is shunned by others.

Help for families, especially during the corona crisis
What does a single mother suffering from depression, for example, do when the all-important break from school, kindergarten or daycare is cancelled? The counselling team from the Institut Kinderseele Schweiz iks is now there for affected families even more than usual. In a special section, they have summarised everything that can help parents and children, especially in the current situation:
www.kinderseele.ch/corona-virus

Read more about the coronavirus crisis and the state of emergency:

• «Mr Süss, is more screen time OK because of coronavirus?»
  Since schools have been closed, children and their parents have been sitting in front of screens more than ever before. Does this also increase their understanding of media use? We asked media psychologist Prof Dr Daniel Süss about the advantages and disadvantages of the new family situation from a media education perspective.
• «Mrs Rösler, what is the coronavirus crisis doing to equal opportunities at school?»
  The coronavirus crisis and distance learning are putting equal opportunities in the classroom to the test. In this interview, Dagmar Rösler, President of the Swiss Federation of Teachers (LCH), explains what this means for children, parents and schools and draws an initial conclusion about remote schooling.