We are all so tortured by the question of what to do with our kids for the next academic year, the grade school parents, the high school parents, the college parents. ALL. OF. US.
The news makes your head spin, and not in a good way. There is so little we know for certain, actually almost nothing. And, there is nothing about any of this, especially about the back to school decision that is business as usual.
We want our kids to go back but we are scared
We want our kids to go back to school-of course we do-but we don’t want them to get sick or to be the cause of others getting sick, the teachers, administrators or fellow students. One day we read that kids are unlikely to get sick and the next we read that they are vectors of illness, unknowingly spreading the disease. Then we read that their mental health is damaged by not going to school and then that there is a syndrome that kids get about which little to nothing is known. But, it’s certainly not good.
The decision is impossible, so when Meredith Masony did a video expressing her angst the video quickly went viral. Because she speaks for all of us when she says that there are no right choices and THERE AREN’T EVEN GOOD CHOICES.
There are no easy decisions
Basically, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. “Our kids have to learn, but at what cost?” she asks.
And when your school includes in its packet of forms to sign a waiver that says that if your kid gets sick or dies, you won’t sue the school, that’s a whole other level of terror.
What? What? What?
How are we supposed to make any decision when there is no good decision to be made.
Meredith wants to know how the kids are going to socially distance and wash their hands? “Have you met children?” she asks. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying and Meredith wants to let us all know that this decision is “hard and that the ‘decision fatigue’ and constant heartburn we are feeling is normal and we are all going through that.”
So we all hope that things will turn around. But this is not easy. NONE. OF. IT.
Nothing about parenting is easy but the current situation has catapulted us into a new sphere of impossible decisions and Meredith assure us that “If you feel exhausted and overwhelmed…there are a lot of of us right there with you feeling the same way.”
And we are so, so tired
I personally honed in on the word exhausted because man am I exhausted??? Exhausted by the fear, the lack of clarity, the heaviness of the decisions we make for ourselves and others. Exhausted by the terror of what was once normal and no longer is.
Thank you, Meredith, for letting us know we are not alone.
More to Read:
The author of this piece is a mom of four and she has thoughts about whether kids should go back. 5 Reasons to Send Your College Kid Back to Campus Even if Classes Are Online
