It took just 78 days of lockdown for parents to turn against vulnerable people like my daughter

When one parent said 'f*** the vulnerable', I expected a rational, critical response. Instead I found women throwing their support behind the collective cold-shouldering of this country’s most at risk

Many vulnerable children have had to shield at home (photograph posed by models) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Around 10 years ago, I wandered onto Mumsnet for the first time. I was just out of my teens, a young mother living on a council estate. I tiptoed onto the busy forum looking for weaning advice amid the throng of nanny dramas and inheritance queries. A greenhorn with her ear to the door, I was buoyed by the combination of parental wisdom and intelligent discourse.

I have returned many times over the years, seeking advice at different stages of motherhood and hungry for thoughtful debate in times of societal uncertainty.

In our third month of the coronavirus lockdown, parental anxiety and social uncertainty are as indivisible as they’ve ever been. Personal relationships are fraying and, in a turn of events that should surprise nobody, desperate people are hellbent on finding a scapegoat.

Still, as I scrolled Mumsnet earlier this week, I found a thread that manage to stun me. "Am I being unreasonable," it asked, "to start to not give a f*** about the ‘vulnerable’ if my children can’t go to school?"

I took a sip of my coffee and looked over at my daughter, now 11 years old and "vulnerable". She lifted a glass of milk to her mouth with one arm and wriggled the other; she’d had a fresh cannula applied before breakfast and it is always a little sore afterwards. She laughed heartily at an episode of Golden Girls on the TV, milk around her mouth.

Of course my mistake was choosing to open a thread with such an inflammatory title. I have a paltry appetite for masochism that's normally adequately satisfied by watching the news. But I went ahead and clicked on the icon to open the comments with an uncharacteristic naivety, sure that the "OP" (original poster) would be a lone voice. That was my second mistake.

The opening post was a predictably flaccid diatribe about school closures, a textbook yawp of "what about our kids" and not much else. The responses, on the other hand, left me dumbfounded. I'd expected to find rational advocacy; instead I found whip-smart women throwing their support behind the collective cold-shouldering of this country’s most vulnerable people.

It wasn't long before Mumsnet removed the thread. It's taking quicker action these days, after previous criticism for struggling to find the line between encouraging meaningful debate and allowing a platform for intolerance. But for the time it stayed up, it opened a window on the inner views of others towards me and my child at such a difficult time.

I closed the tab, opened the calendar on my phone and began counting back to the beginning of lockdown. It had been 78 days. It took just 78 days of disruption for people to become emboldened in voicing their irritation at the most vulnerable members of our society. Just 78 days for previously compassionate people to find their views distorted by their own frustration and spill them out on a public forum.

Only 78 days?

I understand that people are feeling displaced. There is a unique anxiety that comes with uncertainty and fractured routines, but vulnerable people are your allies. They are old hands at this. Becoming vulnerable is not a luxury transition. It is not a gentle metamorphosis with complementary champagne. It’s a crush, an unyielding distortion, a breakaway from everything you once knew. That is what has happened to us all in recent weeks and months.

If you are angry about school closures, if you feel like your child has been "forgotten", remember that minimising the needs of one group does not create more space for you.

When Brexit was dominating headlines, the concerns of some about disruption on leaving the EU were countered with a call for the "spirit of the Blitz" and English resolve. Where is that spirit now, in lockdown?

A pandemic presents bigger risks than a few months of disruption to your child’s education. It's time to walk the walk. Keep calm, and carry on.