Reply to Tired of people with older kids dominating the conversation around schools and COVID

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here. A lot to respond to. I'll just say this:

1) A lot of the responses have focused on academics, and pointed out that older kids have greater academic needs than young children. That's 100% true. I agree that the importance of the junior year of high school for a child's academic future is way more important than whether a 4 year old is academically stimulated. But basing an entire school district's decision on the academic needs of 17-year-olds ignores the many incredibly important needs of the 4-year-old. Small kids are not taking calculus, of course. But they are learning incredibly important life skills that they will need throughout their lives, like how to pay attention, how to transition between activities, how to handle conflict, disappointment, etc. SAH parents can provide that, if they have the means to do so. But many families need two incomes, and ECE professionals are amazing at doing that work. But you can't do it via DL. Either young kids are going to get it in school or their parents are going to need to forgo work to get it.

2) To the poster who said parents of young kids have "more options" because they can send kids to daycare or hire nannies, that assumes an income level that will support that. You can't assume that. My family's finances, for instance, was premised on DC's universal PK program. We can't just magic up the money for childcare. Families that can afford those options will take them, and I don't judge them for it at all. But we can't just ignore the fact that many families rely on school for childcare. They do. We can't ignore their needs altogether because they are different than your needs. Our needs are interdependent right now because the economy depends on people being able to work, which for many, many parents is premised on sending their kids to public schools.

3) To the many people who told me I should just focus on the DCUM forum for my kid's age group -- I'm not talking about DCUM. I'm talking about the policy-making conversation around whether or not to open schools. I'm talking about the attitude of coworkers with older kids who assume that, like them, I can get multiple hours a day of work time while my kids do DL or entertain themselves. I'm talking about the choice to either provide in-person instruction to all grades or none at all, ignoring the obvious fact that some grades need in-person instruction more than others. And I'm especially talking about the shaming attitudes towards parents who want in-person school for their very young kids, as though those parents want everyone to die of COVID.

I don't think we are talking enough about the dire consequences of school closures on the parents of very young children.
Signed,
A parent who has already put in 20 hours of work this weekend while barely sleeping so that I can be up with my toddler at 5am on Monday again, with no end in sight.[/quote]

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