Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s left me utterly confused. The politics… the masking… the vaccine… the public school parents… everyone seems completely intolerant of different points of view now.

Yes. I truly cannot relate to a lot of people. Not looking to debate here just saying I personally cannot relate to people who supported the school closures in dmv, who continue to outdoor mask on hikes etc. I look at them and see nothing in common. It’s unsettling to feel like our society has splintered into maybe 3-4 very distinct camps.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, this thread has gone in a sad direction.

For what it's worth, we are a middle class family for whom the burden of losing childcare/school was a genuine hardship. I don't care if you think it was easy or not, I know what happened. We do not have the finances to simply replace in-person school with paid childcare. We used some savings to pay for some childcare just to make it possible to get by. We both work. Our children are young (3 and 5). We were fortunate that one of us could always work from home, though we both had to work in person at times.

But this year was brutal and I have only just started to recovery. Even now, we are dealing with insane schedules just to get by. We were able to buy about a month of summer camp with our kids (normally we'd be able to afford more, but we paid for part-time care throughout the year and are just tapped out at this point). The weeks we don't have camp, I usually work until 1am and then my husband watches the kids until 9am so that I can sleep in, and then I take over until he gets home from work, and then he handles dinner/bedtime while I pull another night shift. This is one of those weeks. I'm so tired. I keep telling myself that September is the finish line. We will limp across it.

It is unreal how many people blow off what families like ours have been through, simply because we didn't die. Oh, and if you are wondering, we have lost 3 family members in the last year, including one to Covid, plus are supporting another who is so deep in grief she cannot care for herself.

Lots of ordinary families who aren't necessarily first responders or essential workers took it on the chin all year. Lots of us are hurting. The lack of empathy in this thread for us is par for the course, but still hurts.

Anonymous wrote:Lost my job (airline pilot) and my home. Had a suicide attempt from the forced isolation and will never work again as a pilot. My marriage is hanging on by a thread and I will likely lose that, too.

Anonymous wrote:

I’m sorry, but our country made its priorities very clear over the past 15 months and it’s apparent that children, particularly those with special needs/mental health issues/too young to benefit from virtual learning were absolute bottom of the barrel. Working moms a close second.

It’s not like the rest of the country was also hunkering at home along with the parents of young kids. I saw so many of my child free friends taking advantage of cheap flights, going out to restaurants, etc. while my 5 year old sat at home on an iPad trying to learn how to read and I tried to cling to my job. So sorry, but I think parents of young kids have a right to feel like we’ve been abandoned by society. We sacrificed the well-being of the young to by and large save the elderly (many of which I saw living their lives out and about on social media as if there wasn’t even a pandemic!).

I just wanted to pull this part out because it is 100% true. Pretty much sums it up.

Anonymous wrote:My husband died. And part of me died with him. Now I’m a sad person.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nanny and I realize how little my bosses cares about me, just as a human being. I’ve been with the family for 9 years and it’s soul crushing when I think how I’ve given almost a decade of my heart and soul to this family, and the parents didn’t care about exposing me to dangerous situations. I arrived at work after a week off for Xmas, to find out everyone had covid. I found out when the kids told me and I was already exposed. I was sick for a month and my boss didn’t pay me beyond my 5 sick days.

Im looking for a new job in September.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nanny and I realize how little my bosses cares about me, just as a human being. I’ve been with the family for 9 years and it’s soul crushing when I think how I’ve given almost a decade of my heart and soul to this family, and the parents didn’t care about exposing me to dangerous situations. I arrived at work after a week off for Xmas, to find out everyone had covid. I found out when the kids told me and I was already exposed. I was sick for a month and my boss didn’t pay me beyond my 5 sick days.

Im looking for a new job in September.