Anyone else lose their groove during Covid with young kids and still not have it back?

[Anonymous]

*snarking

[Anonymous]

OP here. I was never looking for anyone to feel sorry for me.

I was looking for people who were experiencing similar things, hoping to get ideas for how to deal with it or just feel less alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Yeah but the pandemic shook up the delicate balance we had to manage. My kids’ preschool closed for a while and then drastically cut hours to put kids in cohorts when they reopened. Then instead of the usual burning through PTO for routine illnesses, we were all hemorrhaging leave for 10 day quarantines often while our kids were perfectly healthy. Or if we were “lucky” told we could catch up on work at night, which isn’t really sustainable. The icing on the cake was the total shutdown of places like playgrounds so we were truly stuck at home going crazy, no play dates, no mom group meetups, etc.

So not only did we not have support, but we also had societal factors coming together to make things even harder.

Some of you act like you were uniquely affected by the pandemic. Talk to families with teens and high school teachers…rampant mental health issues amongst that age group. High school and college years derailed.
Or talk to nursing home personnel (I volunteer at one)….the isolation and feelings of abandonment for many elderly, including people approaching death with no access to loved ones was horrible. I get that many of you are not in a good place, but so are other people. Please stop acting as if you were uniquely victimized by the pandemic. Some of you have no fricken clue.

Where have you read anyone say that other people didn’t have their own struggles during COVID? I have young kids but can empathize that teens went through unique struggles during a time when they need increased socialization.

Sharing the things I found hard during COVID does not negate others’ experiences.

This is a parenting forum, so it’s naturally going to skew toward discussion of parents. And many of the teens have now graduated and moved away, so I think that’s why parents of younger kids are going to be more responsive to a post like this. We’re still living through the burn out with young children or professing life changing decisions like having a smaller family than planned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Mmm, pretty sure my young school-aged kids could attend school before the pandemic. Suddenly, school became not only optional, but something no decent parent had a right to expect. As PPs have said, you weren't dealing with young kids during the pandemic - just as I don't know what it was like to parent teens during that time period, you don't know what it was like to parent toddlers or preschoolers or kindergartners.

They were in elementary. But I just find this whole younger generation of parents SO effing whiny. Everything is unfair and harder for them than everyone else. Blah blah blah. Deal with it.

And how old are you? Either you're in your 50s/60s with much older kids, in which case you have no idea at all what it was like to parent young kids through the pandemic, or you're in your late 40s and just a few years older but complaining about this "younger generation" of parents which is ridiculous.

I’m 43. And y’all are really whiny.

I'm the older NP from the prior page. I'm not at all whiny in my real life, but this seems like a safe space to share with others who are experiencing similar feelings. Perhaps you should find another thread.

The PP needs to find another thread to commiserate with other people who are so unhappy that they feel better by sneering at people who are struggling with something. Of everyone who has posted on here, the 43 year old calling other parents “whiny” for sharing their feelings is the person who needs help the most. This is truly abnormal and not something happy people do.

It’d be like someone with a high metabolism gloating when others are sharing their struggles with weight gain. Or someone claiming mental illness is just made up when someone talks about their depression.

I find people who lack empathy (and even worse, enjoy sneaking on others who are down) to be sad human beings.

I’m not the 43yo. I’m the 45yo. My only point is that I had many similar struggles as OP when I was younger with 2 kids. There was no pandemic back then. There was a blizzard and I had 2 kids who took turns being sick all winter long. Back then, I couldn’t work from home at all. I had to fight through traffic. I would not expect anyone to feel sorry for me back then being a working mom. I don’t really feel sorry for OP now.

Oh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Mmm, pretty sure my young school-aged kids could attend school before the pandemic. Suddenly, school became not only optional, but something no decent parent had a right to expect. As PPs have said, you weren't dealing with young kids during the pandemic - just as I don't know what it was like to parent teens during that time period, you don't know what it was like to parent toddlers or preschoolers or kindergartners.

They were in elementary. But I just find this whole younger generation of parents SO effing whiny. Everything is unfair and harder for them than everyone else. Blah blah blah. Deal with it.

And how old are you? Either you're in your 50s/60s with much older kids, in which case you have no idea at all what it was like to parent young kids through the pandemic, or you're in your late 40s and just a few years older but complaining about this "younger generation" of parents which is ridiculous.

I’m 43. And y’all are really whiny.

I'm the older NP from the prior page. I'm not at all whiny in my real life, but this seems like a safe space to share with others who are experiencing similar feelings. Perhaps you should find another thread.

The PP needs to find another thread to commiserate with other people who are so unhappy that they feel better by sneering at people who are struggling with something. Of everyone who has posted on here, the 43 year old calling other parents “whiny” for sharing their feelings is the person who needs help the most. This is truly abnormal and not something happy people do.

It’d be like someone with a high metabolism gloating when others are sharing their struggles with weight gain. Or someone claiming mental illness is just made up when someone talks about their depression.

I find people who lack empathy (and even worse, enjoy sneaking on others who are down) to be sad human beings.

“My kid just started kindergarten and it feels like I should be moving forward, but I'm still just kind of getting by regarding work, parenting, and a bunch of other stuff (financial planning, deciding if we're going to move or fix up our current house, deciding if I'm going to make a turn in my career I've been contemplating for a while), I am just making no progress on. Same story regarding stuff like my health, maintaining friendships and building our social network, developing a hobbie, etc. I just feel kind of stuck?”

Absolutely none of this has to do with Covid. OP can’t just sign up for a hobby or call up a friend?

Literally every single parent hits this type of crossroad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Yeah but the pandemic shook up the delicate balance we had to manage. My kids’ preschool closed for a while and then drastically cut hours to put kids in cohorts when they reopened. Then instead of the usual burning through PTO for routine illnesses, we were all hemorrhaging leave for 10 day quarantines often while our kids were perfectly healthy. Or if we were “lucky” told we could catch up on work at night, which isn’t really sustainable. The icing on the cake was the total shutdown of places like playgrounds so we were truly stuck at home going crazy, no play dates, no mom group meetups, etc.

So not only did we not have support, but we also had societal factors coming together to make things even harder.

Some of you act like you were uniquely affected by the pandemic. Talk to families with teens and high school teachers…rampant mental health issues amongst that age group. High school and college years derailed.
Or talk to nursing home personnel (I volunteer at one)….the isolation and feelings of abandonment for many elderly, including people approaching death with no access to loved ones was horrible. I get that many of you are not in a good place, but so are other people. Please stop acting as if you were uniquely victimized by the pandemic. Some of you have no fricken clue.

Where have you read anyone say that other people didn’t have their own struggles during COVID? I have young kids but can empathize that teens went through unique struggles during a time when they need increased socialization.

Sharing the things I found hard during COVID does not negate others’ experiences.

This is a parenting forum, so it’s naturally going to skew toward discussion of parents. And many of the teens have now graduated and moved away, so I think that’s why parents of younger kids are going to be more responsive to a post like this. We’re still living through the burn out with young children or professing life changing decisions like having a smaller family than planned.

I have a kid OP’s kid’s age. She doesn’t play with toys as well as other kids. She has gone on more walks and been outside a ton. We have visited almost every playground in the DMV. At first, she was so used to avoiding people that I was worried she would be socially isolated forever.

She is loving elementary school. She is making new friends. I read tons of books with her during Covid. We would do curbside weekly pick ups from the library.

We all struggled. It has been YEARS. Move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Older two were in K and 2nd when everything shut down; thankfully the youngest was in preschool and that opened up more quickly than the public schools did. I've also struggled with lack of family support and the realization of how much contempt American society has for working mothers, in particular. I kind of knew that before, but damn - now I REALLY know that.

And I do all the real self-care things: exercise, meditation, maintaining close relationships. I have a cynicism now that I wish I didn't, but it's hard to ignore reality.

I totally feel this. It was like working mothers were the punching bag of the pandemic and NOBODY cared.

Tell doctors and nurses about working mothers being the 'punching bag' of the pandemic and let me know what they say.

Many doctors are nurses are working mothers you know. They also dealt with the stress of school closures and needing to find childcare for essential employees (which meant the stress of finding a nanny or having to fear exposing their kids to COVID in a group setting). I have mom friends in the medical profession and can tell you they experienced a lot of the working mom burnout that other posters have shared (albeit with extra stress of working in healthcare, in-person).

And also many teachers are mothers and struggled with childcare while trying to teach virtually.

If anything I think COVID was more complicated because of how many female-dominated professions are important to the functioning of society, and many of those women are also mothers. There are now shortages in these professions, and it isn’t a surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm pissed this thread became a pile-on of a bunch of people telling anyone talking about their struggles that actually they don't have struggles and should stop talking about it. I think a lot of you have MAJOR issues that this is how you choose to spend your time.

Anyway, I'm going to go through and report a bunch of these comments as off-tope and ask Jeff to clean up the thread because I actually do think it could be a source of support and commiseration for people who need it. If that's not you, you can go away. Thanks!

I'm convinced these are the same people who, during the height of pandemic shutdowns, daycare closures, indefinite remote learning, etc., were telling anyone who had a hard time that their children were "thriving." Completely pathological.

To OP and the rest of us who feel similarly: you/we aren't alone. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Older two were in K and 2nd when everything shut down; thankfully the youngest was in preschool and that opened up more quickly than the public schools did. I've also struggled with lack of family support and the realization of how much contempt American society has for working mothers, in particular. I kind of knew that before, but damn - now I REALLY know that.

And I do all the real self-care things: exercise, meditation, maintaining close relationships. I have a cynicism now that I wish I didn't, but it's hard to ignore reality.

I totally feel this. It was like working mothers were the punching bag of the pandemic and NOBODY cared.

Tell doctors and nurses about working mothers being the 'punching bag' of the pandemic and let me know what they say.

Many doctors are nurses are working mothers you know. They also dealt with the stress of school closures and needing to find childcare for essential employees (which meant the stress of finding a nanny or having to fear exposing their kids to COVID in a group setting). I have mom friends in the medical profession and can tell you they experienced a lot of the working mom burnout that other posters have shared (albeit with extra stress of working in healthcare, in-person).

And also many teachers are mothers and struggled with childcare while trying to teach virtually.

If anything I think COVID was more complicated because of how many female-dominated professions are important to the functioning of society, and many of those women are also mothers. There are now shortages in these professions, and it isn’t a surprise.

Lots of hospital workers called out like any other job. At one point, an entire department had Covid.

Dh is a physician and while physicians don’t call out often, Dh says front desk, techs, nurses, etc often call out. It is actually fairly common. They just work with less staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Mmm, pretty sure my young school-aged kids could attend school before the pandemic. Suddenly, school became not only optional, but something no decent parent had a right to expect. As PPs have said, you weren't dealing with young kids during the pandemic - just as I don't know what it was like to parent teens during that time period, you don't know what it was like to parent toddlers or preschoolers or kindergartners.

They were in elementary. But I just find this whole younger generation of parents SO effing whiny. Everything is unfair and harder for them than everyone else. Blah blah blah. Deal with it.

And how old are you? Either you're in your 50s/60s with much older kids, in which case you have no idea at all what it was like to parent young kids through the pandemic, or you're in your late 40s and just a few years older but complaining about this "younger generation" of parents which is ridiculous.

I’m 43. And y’all are really whiny.

I'm the older NP from the prior page. I'm not at all whiny in my real life, but this seems like a safe space to share with others who are experiencing similar feelings. Perhaps you should find another thread.

The PP needs to find another thread to commiserate with other people who are so unhappy that they feel better by sneering at people who are struggling with something. Of everyone who has posted on here, the 43 year old calling other parents “whiny” for sharing their feelings is the person who needs help the most. This is truly abnormal and not something happy people do.

It’d be like someone with a high metabolism gloating when others are sharing their struggles with weight gain. Or someone claiming mental illness is just made up when someone talks about their depression.

I find people who lack empathy (and even worse, enjoy sneaking on others who are down) to be sad human beings.

“My kid just started kindergarten and it feels like I should be moving forward, but I'm still just kind of getting by regarding work, parenting, and a bunch of other stuff (financial planning, deciding if we're going to move or fix up our current house, deciding if I'm going to make a turn in my career I've been contemplating for a while), I am just making no progress on. Same story regarding stuff like my health, maintaining friendships and building our social network, developing a hobbie, etc. I just feel kind of stuck?”

Absolutely none of this has to do with Covid. OP can’t just sign up for a hobby or call up a friend?

Literally every single parent hits this type of crossroad.

OP here. I do struggle to sign up for a hobby. I feel so tired. All I want to do is sleep. I don't have the same friend supports as I did pre-Covid -- the pandemic changed my relationships and have made it harder for me to maintain those friendships. Or maybe I was so stressed I just dropped that ball.

I don't understand what the point is of telling me over and over that "Covid has nothing to do with this." I'm just sharing my experience, which is that I felt things were moving forward before Covid, and then Covid was a big, stressful pause, and now I'm in a different place and I don't know which way is up.

Why is it so important to you that this NOT be about Covid? What is helpful about your comments. I'm sure a lot of it is just stage of life and have said as much multiple times in this thread, even thanking a poster who said it was just having a kindergartener because that makes me feel more normal.

I don't understand why this thread is now a referendum on whether I'm allowed to feel the way I do. I'm thinking about just asking Jeff to delete the whole thread because I posted here because I was feeling pretty crappy and looking for an outlet, but these comments are just making me feel worse.

Thanks for nothing, DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm pissed this thread became a pile-on of a bunch of people telling anyone talking about their struggles that actually they don't have struggles and should stop talking about it. I think a lot of you have MAJOR issues that this is how you choose to spend your time.

Anyway, I'm going to go through and report a bunch of these comments as off-tope and ask Jeff to clean up the thread because I actually do think it could be a source of support and commiseration for people who need it. If that's not you, you can go away. Thanks!

I'm convinced these are the same people who, during the height of pandemic shutdowns, daycare closures, indefinite remote learning, etc., were telling anyone who had a hard time that their children were "thriving." Completely pathological.

To OP and the rest of us who feel similarly: you/we aren't alone. Hang in there.

Thank you.

I don't get what's happening in the thread. I feel like I became a punching bag for people who are mad about something but I don't even know what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Yeah but the pandemic shook up the delicate balance we had to manage. My kids’ preschool closed for a while and then drastically cut hours to put kids in cohorts when they reopened. Then instead of the usual burning through PTO for routine illnesses, we were all hemorrhaging leave for 10 day quarantines often while our kids were perfectly healthy. Or if we were “lucky” told we could catch up on work at night, which isn’t really sustainable. The icing on the cake was the total shutdown of places like playgrounds so we were truly stuck at home going crazy, no play dates, no mom group meetups, etc.

So not only did we not have support, but we also had societal factors coming together to make things even harder.

Some of you act like you were uniquely affected by the pandemic. Talk to families with teens and high school teachers…rampant mental health issues amongst that age group. High school and college years derailed.
Or talk to nursing home personnel (I volunteer at one)….the isolation and feelings of abandonment for many elderly, including people approaching death with no access to loved ones was horrible. I get that many of you are not in a good place, but so are other people. Please stop acting as if you were uniquely victimized by the pandemic. Some of you have no fricken clue.

Where have you read anyone say that other people didn’t have their own struggles during COVID? I have young kids but can empathize that teens went through unique struggles during a time when they need increased socialization.

Sharing the things I found hard during COVID does not negate others’ experiences.

This is a parenting forum, so it’s naturally going to skew toward discussion of parents. And many of the teens have now graduated and moved away, so I think that’s why parents of younger kids are going to be more responsive to a post like this. We’re still living through the burn out with young children or professing life changing decisions like having a smaller family than planned.

I have a kid OP’s kid’s age. She doesn’t play with toys as well as other kids. She has gone on more walks and been outside a ton. We have visited almost every playground in the DMV. At first, she was so used to avoiding people that I was worried she would be socially isolated forever.

She is loving elementary school. She is making new friends. I read tons of books with her during Covid. We would do curbside weekly pick ups from the library.

We all struggled. It has been YEARS. Move on.

So everything is great with you. Cool!

Why are you here again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Yeah but the pandemic shook up the delicate balance we had to manage. My kids’ preschool closed for a while and then drastically cut hours to put kids in cohorts when they reopened. Then instead of the usual burning through PTO for routine illnesses, we were all hemorrhaging leave for 10 day quarantines often while our kids were perfectly healthy. Or if we were “lucky” told we could catch up on work at night, which isn’t really sustainable. The icing on the cake was the total shutdown of places like playgrounds so we were truly stuck at home going crazy, no play dates, no mom group meetups, etc.

So not only did we not have support, but we also had societal factors coming together to make things even harder.

Some of you act like you were uniquely affected by the pandemic. Talk to families with teens and high school teachers…rampant mental health issues amongst that age group. High school and college years derailed.
Or talk to nursing home personnel (I volunteer at one)….the isolation and feelings of abandonment for many elderly, including people approaching death with no access to loved ones was horrible. I get that many of you are not in a good place, but so are other people. Please stop acting as if you were uniquely victimized by the pandemic. Some of you have no fricken clue.

Please stop telling people how to feel, or rather how they’re allowed to feel, based on the fact that others may have had it worse. (And you truly have no idea the extent to what ANY posters have gone through.) Please try to have a little empathy.

I think that’s what saddens me the most about covid. What a missed opportunity for self-reflection and the development of a more functional, loving, supportive society. Instead, hypercapitalism has run amok and nobody knows how to function “normally” anymore, because it seems there’s no baseline anymore. It’s awful.

What does this actually mean and look like IRL for your average working parent? Free daycares? Relatives babysitting your kids? Long maternity leaves?

I don’t quite get the “support” everyone is saying that they need. Raising kids is hard work and I don’t see how support can make it all that easier. Maternity leave has to eventually end and even a free daycare has its many challenges.

If you want an easier life, be a SAHM but that comes with its own set of challenges.

Did you really just say that you don't understand why people want "support" or how it would make anything easier? WTF?

A lot of daycares did open back up. Parents just didn’t want to send their kids.

People with nannies kept their nannies.

The shutdown was relatively short. I think people are greatly exaggerating their childcare problems. The people who were scraping by before are still scraping by. Some people have very limited resources before, during and after Covid.

We live in an affluent area. Many working moms kept their nannies. A lot of families would have a FT nanny and PT preschool. We were going on walks, beaches, farms in the summer of 2020. Things weren’t shut down for years. Our preschool opened back up in the fall of 2020.

I don’t think the people posting on this forum are the moms with nannies going on beach walks. They are like me.

I had a 2 y/o and 4 y/o. My kids’ preschool closed over night and because the way the contract was written, I lost over 10k in tuition payments (what we had pre-paid for March and April 2020 + their deposits). The preschool did not reopen for 6 months and when it did, hours were greatly reduced (like part day cohorts for the full tuition price, which didn’t make sense for us).

I then had to put my oldest who started K into a pod in the fall, which was more of a financial hit right when we thought childcare costs would go down. And pod teachers were at a premium. I finally got my younger kid into a new preschool by winter of 2020, but hours were still reduced to a point that didn’t quite cover my entire workday not to mention constant close contact quarantining well into spring of 2022 because the youngest kids could not be vaccinated until then. Add in a special needs diagnosis and some learning loss for my oldest on top of it all.

There were no beach walks. We were not a family that could afford a nanny + preschool before COVID. We are not at an income level where losing 10k overnight (plus me having to cut to part time hours for a while) wasn’t a huge financial hit. There was no exaggeration regarding the extent to which our childcare was totally upended.

Not everyone who posts here lives in your affluent little bubble.

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread is comforting to me. Because it has been 3 years since the pandemic, but my general enthusiasm for life's "extras" are still low despite getting back into a great exercise routine (healthwise I'm probably better than where I was pre-COVID).

But I am less ambitious, I don't trust people as readily, the phrase about being an ambivert pre-COVID and now a full on introvert from a previous post really resonates with me.

I feel like the pandemic laid bare how selfish most people are. How hard it is for working parents when children are not prioritized at all.

On top of all this, we have aging parents that are now demanding a lot of our time even though we received very little help or support with our young children during COVID. A lot of it was to prevent spreading COVID to grandparents, which we also wanted to prevent. But it still feels like everything falls upon us. When they need help, we have to drop everything. When we needed help, no one could do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mom of older kids, I'm confused why everyone things the pandemic told them something new. Yes the pandemic sucked but we weren't supported before the pandemic either.

Yeah but the pandemic shook up the delicate balance we had to manage. My kids’ preschool closed for a while and then drastically cut hours to put kids in cohorts when they reopened. Then instead of the usual burning through PTO for routine illnesses, we were all hemorrhaging leave for 10 day quarantines often while our kids were perfectly healthy. Or if we were “lucky” told we could catch up on work at night, which isn’t really sustainable. The icing on the cake was the total shutdown of places like playgrounds so we were truly stuck at home going crazy, no play dates, no mom group meetups, etc.

So not only did we not have support, but we also had societal factors coming together to make things even harder.

Some of you act like you were uniquely affected by the pandemic. Talk to families with teens and high school teachers…rampant mental health issues amongst that age group. High school and college years derailed.
Or talk to nursing home personnel (I volunteer at one)….the isolation and feelings of abandonment for many elderly, including people approaching death with no access to loved ones was horrible. I get that many of you are not in a good place, but so are other people. Please stop acting as if you were uniquely victimized by the pandemic. Some of you have no fricken clue.

Please stop telling people how to feel, or rather how they’re allowed to feel, based on the fact that others may have had it worse. (And you truly have no idea the extent to what ANY posters have gone through.) Please try to have a little empathy.

I think that’s what saddens me the most about covid. What a missed opportunity for self-reflection and the development of a more functional, loving, supportive society. Instead, hypercapitalism has run amok and nobody knows how to function “normally” anymore, because it seems there’s no baseline anymore. It’s awful.

What does this actually mean and look like IRL for your average working parent? Free daycares? Relatives babysitting your kids? Long maternity leaves?

I don’t quite get the “support” everyone is saying that they need. Raising kids is hard work and I don’t see how support can make it all that easier. Maternity leave has to eventually end and even a free daycare has its many challenges.

If you want an easier life, be a SAHM but that comes with its own set of challenges.

Did you really just say that you don't understand why people want "support" or how it would make anything easier? WTF?

A lot of daycares did open back up. Parents just didn’t want to send their kids.

People with nannies kept their nannies.

The shutdown was relatively short. I think people are greatly exaggerating their childcare problems. The people who were scraping by before are still scraping by. Some people have very limited resources before, during and after Covid.

We live in an affluent area. Many working moms kept their nannies. A lot of families would have a FT nanny and PT preschool. We were going on walks, beaches, farms in the summer of 2020. Things weren’t shut down for years. Our preschool opened back up in the fall of 2020.

I don’t think the people posting on this forum are the moms with nannies going on beach walks. They are like me.

I had a 2 y/o and 4 y/o. My kids’ preschool closed over night and because the way the contract was written, I lost over 10k in tuition payments (what we had pre-paid for March and April 2020 + their deposits). The preschool did not reopen for 6 months and when it did, hours were greatly reduced (like part day cohorts for the full tuition price, which didn’t make sense for us).

I then had to put my oldest who started K into a pod in the fall, which was more of a financial hit right when we thought childcare costs would go down. And pod teachers were at a premium. I finally got my younger kid into a new preschool by winter of 2020, but hours were still reduced to a point that didn’t quite cover my entire workday not to mention constant close contact quarantining well into spring of 2022 because the youngest kids could not be vaccinated until then. Add in a special needs diagnosis and some learning loss for my oldest on top of it all.

There were no beach walks. We were not a family that could afford a nanny + preschool before COVID. We are not at an income level where losing 10k overnight (plus me having to cut to part time hours for a while) wasn’t a huge financial hit. There was no exaggeration regarding the extent to which our childcare was totally upended.

Not everyone who posts here lives in your affluent little bubble.

OP here and I relate to so much of this, only one less child. The impossible hours, the sudden expenses that hollowed out our savings, the rolling quarantines, the lost wages from cutting back at work, all of it. Some of it is in the past now and I don't think about it anymore. But it's more like the collective impact has left me in this place where I feel ambivalent about work, like I'd like to move into a more challenging role and increase my income, but I think part of me feels like I need to stay flexible unless something like this happens again. And then just overall burnout from all of it that I don't think I ever recovered from, and trying to make decisions now in "normal" times when some part of me is still recovering from all the weirdness of 2020/2021 somehow.

I don't care that people are like "it's been years." It has been years. I thought I'd be totally past this by now, and I'm not. That's why I posted. I will say it does help to find out I'm not the only one struggling with this. I wish I could figure out what I need to finally put Covid and all of that in the rear view.