Anyone else lose their groove during Covid with young kids and still not have it back?
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Anonymous
It looks like school closures/virtual school strained the fabric of our society past the breaking point. It was a huge political failure and it should have been avoided at all costs. |
Anonymous
I posted above but my kid’s preschool opened back up in the fall of 2020. A lot of daycares opened before that. Our public school remained virtual for another 6 months but most/all privates were open. I know a lot of working parents sent their kids to Catholic or private so kids could go to school in person. |
Anonymous
Yep and my neighborhood was positively booming with people taking loooooong walks and mowing the lawn in the middle of the workday. Even now, people don’t use aftercare any more, they just pick up the kids at 3 and then “work” until 5pm. |
Anonymous
Yes, that is from March 2020 to Feb 2021- ish, for many, many people. Some of them losing jobs or running themselves ragged working 2 jobs - teacher/childcare for early elementary age kids plus their day job for 6 months to a year, all in an environment of fear, uncertainty and recrimination. It broke us. |
Anonymous
Every single family I know who truly sought in person childcare, found it. |
Anonymous
I honestly can't tell anymore whether comments like this are intentional trolling or if you are truly this obtuse. Not everyone can afford private school. Full stop. The idea that everyone enrolled in public school can simply shift to private on a whim is asinine. In some places (like where I live in DC), public schools were closed from March 2020 until fall 2021. A full year of school and then some. Especially for people with kids too young for virtual, this meant they had to figure out childcare and school options for a full year and change. And if you lived in an area like this, this also meant that there were more people looking for childcare spots for ECE-aged kids than there were options available, because where I live most people send kids to public for PK and K, so there is simply not capacity in the private programs to absorb everyone. A handful of daycares added classes for 4 and 5 year olds, but not all did or could -- Covid guidelines for daycares meant that even when the reopened (and not all did) they often had fewer spots available in order to accommodate social distancing guidelines, and had reduced hours as well, as many on this thread have pointed out. I don't know why I am even explaining this. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together understands why "private schools were open" or "why didn't you just hire a nanny?" were not solutions available to the vast majority of the population. Y'all are either idiots or you're trolling, and if the latter I guess I'm just giving you what you want. But telling people to stop complaining because, after all, your private opened up in fall 2020, is idiotic either way. |
Anonymous
(1) When did they find it? How long did they go without? (2) What does "truly sought in person childcare" mean? Do you think there are people who wanted/needed in person care but simply didn't try hard enough? Do you think it's possible they had restrictions you don't understand, like a limited budget? (3) How many of the people you know are middle or working class? If everyone you know has an average HHI of 300k, then I believe you but also think it's irrelevant to this conversation, because that's double our HHI. There are lots of problems you can solve by throwing money at them, and people in the top 1-5% of all earners generally have money to throw at problems. But the remaining 95% of the population does not, which is why you see a lot of people not his thread talking about the challenges of childcare during the pandemic. They aren't lying, they are simply more resource constrained than you and the people you know. |
Anonymous
1. - Definitely by the start of the Fall 2020 school year, and many were enrolled in outdoor camps that summer prior. And a ton of people I know sent their kids to places that were previously aftercare (TKD, Dance, Gyms, etc.) for a supervised virtual school day. 2. - Yes most people I know make at least 200k combined. Interestingly, it was the people in the lower end of this income bracket that were more likely to have in person care because they themselves had to work in person (Intelligence, teaching, nursing, hotel management, etc.) The wealthier $300k+ folks were less likely to have childcare because their jobs were more able to be WFH/Time shifted. |
Anonymous
So you mostly know wealthy and UMC folks and, amazingly, they didn't struggle as much to find childcare during the pandemic as people with less money. I'm shocked. |
Anonymous
I have 3 kids. 2 kids were in elementary and I also had a toddler who was in the 2’s program. Most or all preschools opened that fall. I know a church preschool by us just shut down and never opened. Those parents just switched to a different preschool. My older kids were in virtual school for almost a year. They did sports starting in June 2020. I don’t know anyone who couldn’t find childcare if they wanted it. It is more they didn’t want to expose their kids so they kept them home and didn’t want the nanny to come. I had friends who sent their kids back to daycare as early as May 2020 and they weren’t even essential workers. These were daycares they did not attend previously. |
Anonymous
That's you. I literally just explained that not everyone had that experience. In my area, we lost hundreds of in-person PK spots because public schools were virtual for over a year. There was no way for private preschools to absorb all those kids. Some people were able to put pods together but not everyone could afford it or had the space. Some people were able to squeeze PK kids into daycares where they already had younger kids, but not all daycares had availability. Some people moved into their parents homes for periods of time to get extra help while they worked remotely, but that's obviously not an option everyone had. Many, many people just muddled through, maybe with some part-time care, maybe one parent moving into a part time role or a leave of absence or just quitting their job, but all of these meant losing money and impacted careers. And so on. It's just frustrating and exhausting to say "this was my experience, it was hard" and to be repeatedly told "no that wasn't your experience because I didn't personally observe that in my own narrow experience." Like do you actually think that all these people are just lying or exaggerating about it? It happened. Many, many family spent a year plus with inadequate childcare, and if you had kids under the age 6/7, the burden was not insignificant. |
Anonymous
I'm an NP and I think there is a big distinction between daycare-aged kids and elementary school kids. My daycare did reopen in June 2020 and we sent my 2yo back (Bethesda). But there are 2 points that PPs are purposely being obtuse about. 1. These programs just didn't exist for school-age kids, especially not in the vast numbers required to absorb every public school elementary kid! It wouldn't have made sense for them to exist pre-Covid. 2. In DC, a lot of kids go to public pre-K and same - not enough private spots to absorb everyone. Yes some families also made choices to limit exposure. But others could not find anything reasonable or affordable. |
Anonymous
Hi OP- I think what might be contributing the most to your malaise is grief over not having a second kid. It wasn't really a choice, it was taken from you. I, too, missed our window during 2021-2022. I know we are out there. There needs to be a support group for us. I've really thought about starting one. Parenting your one while mourning, MOURNING your second/the possibility/the hope, is HARD. It's exhausting. The Crippling grief. The self-flagellation and feelings of failure-"why is it so hard, I only have one." The guilt over no sibling. The anger- lots of anger. And because it's so intertwined with COVID it's hard to tease apart. For a long time I thought my malaise was mostly due to COVID, but since winter of 2022, it's been grief. COVID was the crappy foundation from which everything else flows. It's taken me nearly two years and a lot of therapy to not cry everyday. And it's still hard. It sounds like you are doing better than I was, but I hope this is somewhat helpful and you consider finding a therapist/grief counselor. Hugs. You are not alone but I know it can feel that way. |
Anonymous
| Guys it’s been two years! 2 years! |
Anonymous
It’s been 3.5. |