Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

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

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

I’m sorry about your aunt, really I am. But please be honest- how old was she? What other health conditions?

Not the person you're responding to. But my aunt also passed during Covid, after having caught the virus. And I find it revolting that you would diminish or dismiss the significance of that just because she was old or had underlying conditions. Her life was every bit as valid as yours. And was more valuable than the opinions of douchebag paranoids who couldn't be bothered to get a vaccine or even simply wear a mask. Frankly, I blame those people and rightly so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

This. Exactly. There is no excuse, for example, for young people to think at all now about covid, let alone still be anxious about it in any way. If your kids are still afflicted by covid worry it is 100% the fault of their parents.

While I agree with you, it's not so black and white.

I feel our family was very measured in our response to Covid. After April 2020, we were never in super shutdown mode and have been socializing, going to the grocery store, etc. all along. There have been times when our socializing has been mostly outside. We wore masks most of the time prior to vaccines (this was standard in our community and it was as much to help others as it was for ourselves). We got vaccinated when they were made available to us but we also didn't freak out when vaccines weren't available to us or our kids immediately. I think we're pretty middle of the road -- we took Covid seriously and are not anti-mask or anti-vaccine, but we're also measured and don't view Covid as some amorphous terror. We've also balanced concerns about Covid against believing it's important to be social and maintain family and community ties, to get out, etc.

BUT I still feel the impacts of Covid because we live in an area where a lot of people are very intense about it. Our school is not back to normal, there is still a TON of anxiety around Covid in our community, there's still a lot of very black-and-white thinking and prejudiced attitudes about it, some people are still very much defining themselves by their approach to Covid and evaluating others by theirs. It's crazy to me but here we are. We loved this area before Covid, now we're thinking about moving. Plus there are these other externalities that are worse since Covid -- crime is worse, teacher turnover at our school is worse, city services are worse. Then add in stuff like inflation... the idea that if you are just really balanced in your personal approach to Covid, then everything is great, assumes that everything around you is really balanced and easy too. It's not realistic.

Don’t tell me, let me guess. You live in a major blue city.

Nothing, literally nothing, in my life is the same as it was before covid. But there's a confounding factor - I had my first child in January of 2020. He was eight weeks old, and I was still out on maternity leave, when covid hit.

What's so weird is, for me, it's impossible to separate what is different because of covid, and what is different because of becoming a parent.

I'm worse at my job. Part of it is that's it's a lower priority now because of the kids. But part of it is that I really, really miss office life. Don't get me wrong, remote has a lot of advantages (I do laundry during the workday, kids have a shorter day in childcare). But I find it much harder to focus, much harder to care, easier to procrastinate when I'm remote. (That was true even in my rare work from home days pre-pandemic).

We moved. Driven by the pandemic, but we probably would have anyway once kid #2 arrived. But it means living in a different neighborhood, different routines. We ended up doing a nanny share instead of daycare because of the pandemic, and that continues to this day and our second child. Totally different than what we were planning.

My social circle is completely different. Part of it, again, is due to becoming a mom, but part of it was loosing people because of the pandemic and not having luck rekindling. I use social media and my phone WAY more. A lot of this, I think, was actually nursing. I had an app to track feedings, and I was using it so much I just got used to having my phone on me. But a lot of it was also non-digital communications falling away with the pandemic, and doom scrolling. This is a change I see EVERYWHERE, where life is now based on your phone, in a digital world, and not in the real world, and I think it's terrible for almost everyone's mental health.

I had a bad case of PPD with my second child, that still impacts both my physical and mental health. At least some of this I attribute to the rollercoaster of newborn, pandemic, move, pregnant, newborn, all in 18 months. I've finally had some time the last year to regroup and recenter and process - but damn. That was A LOT all at once.

And we were lucky to not have serious covid health issues or to know anyone who died or is seriously struggling from covid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had Covid last November. I'm a long-hauler, and it has been very rough. I overheard my DH telling a friend "She hasn't been the same since, and I'm afraid she never will be." So yeah, for me personally life is not the same.

But the societal shifts are huge, of course. The vast numbers of folks who are still WFH, and the folks who will only be willing to do remote work going forward. Oh, and remember how going to work sick was a badge of honor? Lol, those days are over. Also, someone went to shake my hand the other day and it felt awkward and I couldn't put my finger on why and I realized it is because post-Covid we don't do it anymore. Probably good riddance on that one.

I’m sorry you’re having a hard time but this is very extreme. I shake hands all the time now, as does everyone I work with.

I didn’t shake hands before pandemic and I don’t now. It’s extremely rare if I ever get a cold. Hand shaking is gross since you have no idea what people do with their hands. I see people leave bathroom all the time without washing their hands. No thanks

Suit yourself. But if you want to operate normally in a business setting and not have other people immediately peg you as a nutcase, you’d do well to get over this fear of handshakes. Touching another person will not kill you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had Covid last November. I'm a long-hauler, and it has been very rough. I overheard my DH telling a friend "She hasn't been the same since, and I'm afraid she never will be." So yeah, for me personally life is not the same.

But the societal shifts are huge, of course. The vast numbers of folks who are still WFH, and the folks who will only be willing to do remote work going forward. Oh, and remember how going to work sick was a badge of honor? Lol, those days are over. Also, someone went to shake my hand the other day and it felt awkward and I couldn't put my finger on why and I realized it is because post-Covid we don't do it anymore. Probably good riddance on that one.

I’m sorry you’re having a hard time but this is very extreme. I shake hands all the time now, as does everyone I work with.

I didn’t shake hands before pandemic and I don’t now. It’s extremely rare if I ever get a cold. Hand shaking is gross since you have no idea what people do with their hands. I see people leave bathroom all the time without washing their hands. No thanks

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

What are you doing to re-start these things? This stuff always has a cycle of the next cohort needs to take the mantle and carry on. Being genuine. Start a book club. (I did post-pandemic. We have a great time.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

What community do you thunk is struggling the most? I think most of the people complaining here are actually very privileged.

On this thread, yes (PP here). But in my community there are a lot of people who lost family members to Covid who are not privileged. Also, in our school community, there's been massive learning loss due to school shutdowns, as well as real issues regarding socialization and behavioral problems with kids, because so many families in our community didn't have good resources during (or after) Covid. Even for those of us who are more privileged and were able to weather Covid more easily, we're impacted by the effect on other members of our community.

If you live in a privileged community where everyone has means, you may be more insulated. And in that setting, people who are still obsessive about masking and Covid issues are displaying, I think, some anxiety issues that have likely been facilitated by their relatives privilege.

But we're middle class and are in a community with a lot of working class and poor people. I think collectively we've been heavily impacted in a lot of ways, and it's not just self-imposed or due to health anxiety. It's real. We just had fewer resources as a community and it's been harder to come back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

This. Exactly. There is no excuse, for example, for young people to think at all now about covid, let alone still be anxious about it in any way. If your kids are still afflicted by covid worry it is 100% the fault of their parents.

While I agree with you, it's not so black and white.

I feel our family was very measured in our response to Covid. After April 2020, we were never in super shutdown mode and have been socializing, going to the grocery store, etc. all along. There have been times when our socializing has been mostly outside. We wore masks most of the time prior to vaccines (this was standard in our community and it was as much to help others as it was for ourselves). We got vaccinated when they were made available to us but we also didn't freak out when vaccines weren't available to us or our kids immediately. I think we're pretty middle of the road -- we took Covid seriously and are not anti-mask or anti-vaccine, but we're also measured and don't view Covid as some amorphous terror. We've also balanced concerns about Covid against believing it's important to be social and maintain family and community ties, to get out, etc.

BUT I still feel the impacts of Covid because we live in an area where a lot of people are very intense about it. Our school is not back to normal, there is still a TON of anxiety around Covid in our community, there's still a lot of very black-and-white thinking and prejudiced attitudes about it, some people are still very much defining themselves by their approach to Covid and evaluating others by theirs. It's crazy to me but here we are. We loved this area before Covid, now we're thinking about moving. Plus there are these other externalities that are worse since Covid -- crime is worse, teacher turnover at our school is worse, city services are worse. Then add in stuff like inflation... the idea that if you are just really balanced in your personal approach to Covid, then everything is great, assumes that everything around you is really balanced and easy too. It's not realistic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

This. Exactly. There is no excuse, for example, for young people to think at all now about covid, let alone still be anxious about it in any way. If your kids are still afflicted by covid worry it is 100% the fault of their parents.

Who said that their kids are still anxious about COVID? I didn't see anyone say that.

But young people, especially teens and young adults, are still impacted by COVID. I get that you think they are stupid if they test when they have symptoms and isolate when positive or wear a mask if their roommates or close friends have COVID, but many people still do that in accordance with public health advice guidance and their school policies. Many people, including their teachers, professors, and classmates, want them to do that, and there are consequences.

The holier-than-thou vibe on this thread is from people who did their own thing during COVID and have no compassion for anyone else who made different choices.

Still do not know if I had covid but a month ago now I had hives I could not get rid of for about 2 weeks with no other symptoms. All over body and bottom lip. Last week something told me to search covid and hives and I found a bunch of research and cases on patients presenting with what I experienced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

What community do you thunk is struggling the most? I think most of the people complaining here are actually very privileged.

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

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

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

I’m sorry about your aunt, really I am. But please be honest- how old was she? What other health conditions?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

This. Exactly. There is no excuse, for example, for young people to think at all now about covid, let alone still be anxious about it in any way. If your kids are still afflicted by covid worry it is 100% the fault of their parents.

Love the hybrid working model

Don't love my decreased lung capacity and my tendency to get bad asthma post-covid that I never had before. I too am worried I will never be the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.