Covid. The big shift

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One daughter was a senior in HS in ‘20-‘21, the other was an eighth grader. Lack of socialization and more time spent online pretty much ruined their lives. They are not the same.

One of my kids graduated high school in 2020 and it's similar for him. His freshman year of college was a disaster with online classes, literally barriers at all the dining hall tables so you couldn't even see the people sitting near you, no in person activities like clubs or organizations.

Interesting. I have a college senior and his freshman year was similarly very tough, but I was just visiting him last weekend and was struck by how well he and his friends are all doing. I took him and 3 friends to dinner and we discussed this very topic, and the recurring theme was “we came through.” He and his friends all studied abroad last year, are doing clubs and sports and traveling and volunteering and applying for grad school and fellowships and jobs—all of it. My son and many of his friends are in serious relationships and they all seem to have active social lives, going to parties, concerts, etc. They know what they have to lose and don’t take their opportunities for granted.

I don’t doubt that there are many people who are still struggling but it’s certainly not a universal experience.

DP. To me, the fact that there was no universal experience partly explains why many people whose lives were deeply affected by their pandemic experience are still working to come to terms with a new normal. It's great that your kid and his friends are doing great, but many aren't. Much of this depends on the kid, the family, the community, and the specific schools involved. I have one kid who has the same group of friends she has had since grade school. That friend group, plus her sport outside of school and the fact that she was a high school freshman in 2020, made her pandemic experience much easier than one of my other kids. He was a 2021 high school graduate. His best friend moved away during high school and he has always been prone to anxiety. However, before the pandemic, he could manage it on his own. He was just starting to come into his own during his junior year when schools shut down. The year-plus of isolation and lack of in-person school really hurt him. He is still working to get back on track.

To the PP who had a 2021 high school grad and an 8th grader, I feel your pain.

[Anonymous]

Nothing changed for me. My "essential" job never slowed down. It was actually good for business. I got Covid last year. It wasn't fun but no big deal compared to bad flues I've had before. Just a little different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not the same. It changed me, us, everything. I feel much less grounded and sure - in our institutions, in my fellow humans, the future. Everyone around me seems to teeter between anxiety/anger and being checked out. Everyone is overwhelmed. Or maybe it’s just me.

I don’t see this at all.

[Anonymous]

Meh. Everything in my world is different post-COVID and yes, it's because I was hardcore about following the guidelines and isolating. I knew the consequences I was signing up for when I chose to isolate and enroll my kids in remote school. I would rather be working to recover from these consequences than the consequences of disability or the death of a loved one. But yes, it sucks.

I have enough self-awareness to know my choices were profoundly shaped by my social context, temperament and luck/privilege--not briliance, wisdom or the correct world view. I live in a blue state. My great-grandmother died in the 1918 flu pandemic and my grandfather who was 4 at the time never recovered from that loss. My husband and I were able to work remotely. My in-laws are pediatricians who worked in leadership at a major hospital system and with children hospitalized with COVID. My mother-in-law has very fragile health. Why on earth would I ignore the information and advice I received within this social context? Why would I say COVID is no big deal and refuse the vaccine when I operate within a family and community that thinks it is a very big deal?

Just two decades ago, I lived in a very different social context. Red state. Surrounded by people who voted for GW Bush. My job at that time could not be done remotely. No smart phone. No social media. No kids. I suspect if the pandemic had hit in 2000, I barely would have paid attention. I probably would have gotten the vaccine as an afterthought. I probably would have gotten COVID. And I probably would have thought COVID was overblown. Again, why would I have been hypervigilant about COVID in that context?

All due respect to everyone who sees it their own way. Does anyone here hold an opinion about COVID that was NOT at all influenced by temperament, luck, privilege, your community, friends or family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

Modeling from anxious parents.

The kids were told they couldn't go to school to save adults lives and missed social connections they needed to not feel lonely. No wonder they're anxious. The longer the schools stayed shut the worse.

In DC, the teens whose parents couldn't work from home/slash have chaotic homes are now completely degenerate stealing cars and killing each other and truant.

The kids of this pandemic paid a huge, huge price

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband got COVID at work as a health care provider in June 2022. He had no significant health conditions, had been fully vaccinated, and took Paxlovid. He has been disabled since. He just won a worker’s comp case at trial, in fact—that is how disabled he is.

For the mental health of our household we cannot join in the transition to behaving as though COVID was nothing and the mask mandates and school closures were the problem.

Those measures protected my child’s remaining healthy parent (I am the one we thought was “high risk”) and the opportunity for our kid to grow up with one healthy parent.

If you have not experienced this kind of disability in your family because of COVID, I am glad for you, but uninterested in your views on whether I or anyone else am too anxious, too in the basement, whatever nonsense is going on here now. I wish you had more regard for the fact that there are people in your community whose experience was not as rosy as yours, and that you could put aside your propensity to judge to be human about it. We are moving on without you either way.

My kid has one healthy parent. I am that person and I do everything I can to avoid COVID. Changed jobs to stay remote, N95 in all indoor spaces. No restaurants, no air travel.

Does it suck? Yes. There is every reason to believe that my husband getting COVID again would suck even more.

Wow does your doctor tell you to do all this to this day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to have so many friends. I had book club, a moms group and would meet up on the weekends with friends.

When Covid happened my mom friends still got together but they wouldn’t get together with me because my Dh was essential and working in person even though I was remote. It stung. They’d check in every few months and see if he was still in person. After everything was over it had been like 2 years since they’d seen me so I’m still not invited to anything (and now it’s been 3.5 years) I really don’t know how to make new mom friends. they don’t even have to be moms. My hobbies were hanging out at friends houses, bbqs, holiday parties and outings to pumpkin patches.

I feel like Covid made me kick it into high gear at work. I got a big promotion and two new jobs.

These women are catty. So mean

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to have so many friends. I had book club, a moms group and would meet up on the weekends with friends.

When Covid happened my mom friends still got together but they wouldn’t get together with me because my Dh was essential and working in person even though I was remote. It stung. They’d check in every few months and see if he was still in person. After everything was over it had been like 2 years since they’d seen me so I’m still not invited to anything (and now it’s been 3.5 years) I really don’t know how to make new mom friends. they don’t even have to be moms. My hobbies were hanging out at friends houses, bbqs, holiday parties and outings to pumpkin patches.

I feel like Covid made me kick it into high gear at work. I got a big promotion and two new jobs.

These women are catty. So mean

This was my family too. We were labeled as “risky” because we had to work. Ironically, all my friends who took all their “precautions” but not interacting with my family got Covid long before we did. And when we did get it, it wasn’t from work.