Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

Well put. Yes, some of the isolation was a personal choice, and I was one who definitely erred on the side of caution. Why? It was a combination of fear and genuine concern about the well-being of the community. I thought that if we all hunkered down and did our part to minimize spread, we would get through this more quickly. In hindsight, I was too cautious and my kids suffered for it. I thought I was teaching them about being good citizens, but it no longer seems worth it when return to normalcy seems years away.

same. I live with some heavy guilt that I kept my kid home - he started to go downhill right after I made that decision.

the only bright spot is that the experience taught me a lot about being overprotective and forced me to look more objectively at what my kid needs.

OP again. I also have guilt about my kids being home last year when their school was fully virtual. Other families did a pod (which our school discouraged) and we did not - first because we weren't comfortable with the safety of that last August and second because were were holding out waiting for their school to reopen, which we expected to happen much sooner than late Spring. I wish there had been a structural option for us to send our kids back into school, but since there wasn't, maybe we should have made the choice to do a pod. We learned that our kids really needed the peer social interaction and started making that happen regularly in late winter and it made a huge difference. We sent them to camp this summer and that made a huge difference.

So, in hindsight I regret that one personal decision (pod) although my spouse remains firm that was the right decision at the time. From late winter, we have righted the ship and are doing everything we can to get our kids' social needs met, but we as one family don't control the overall structure of the pandemic. I am really happy the direction has come out that kids need to be in school in person full-time this fall. That's a huge structural change that's going to make a big difference for kids and families. But it feels like this is never going to end unless people get vaccinated because without herd immunity there will be more and more variants and we could be dealing with this for so many precious years of childhood. It makes me long for the simplicity of my childhood and 2 years ago where we didn't have to constantly remind Larla to put her mask back on/over her nose or fight with Larlo about wearing a mask in the first place.

I would like to see more structural changes like vaccine mandates that shift some of the burden of keeping kids safe off of the backs of parents and teachers and onto the society as a whole.

IMO herd immunity doesn’t matter. Covid is not going away, ever, and we should all just learn to accept it (yes, like the flu). Yearly vaccines maybe, but this whole never ending over reaction is complete and utter insanity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

Well put. Yes, some of the isolation was a personal choice, and I was one who definitely erred on the side of caution. Why? It was a combination of fear and genuine concern about the well-being of the community. I thought that if we all hunkered down and did our part to minimize spread, we would get through this more quickly. In hindsight, I was too cautious and my kids suffered for it. I thought I was teaching them about being good citizens, but it no longer seems worth it when return to normalcy seems years away.

same. I live with some heavy guilt that I kept my kid home - he started to go downhill right after I made that decision.

the only bright spot is that the experience taught me a lot about being overprotective and forced me to look more objectively at what my kid needs.

OP again. I also have guilt about my kids being home last year when their school was fully virtual. Other families did a pod (which our school discouraged) and we did not - first because we weren't comfortable with the safety of that last August and second because were were holding out waiting for their school to reopen, which we expected to happen much sooner than late Spring. I wish there had been a structural option for us to send our kids back into school, but since there wasn't, maybe we should have made the choice to do a pod. We learned that our kids really needed the peer social interaction and started making that happen regularly in late winter and it made a huge difference. We sent them to camp this summer and that made a huge difference.

So, in hindsight I regret that one personal decision (pod) although my spouse remains firm that was the right decision at the time. From late winter, we have righted the ship and are doing everything we can to get our kids' social needs met, but we as one family don't control the overall structure of the pandemic. I am really happy the direction has come out that kids need to be in school in person full-time this fall. That's a huge structural change that's going to make a big difference for kids and families. But it feels like this is never going to end unless people get vaccinated because without herd immunity there will be more and more variants and we could be dealing with this for so many precious years of childhood. It makes me long for the simplicity of my childhood and 2 years ago where we didn't have to constantly remind Larla to put her mask back on/over her nose or fight with Larlo about wearing a mask in the first place.

I would like to see more structural changes like vaccine mandates that shift some of the burden of keeping kids safe off of the backs of parents and teachers and onto the society as a whole.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

Well put. Yes, some of the isolation was a personal choice, and I was one who definitely erred on the side of caution. Why? It was a combination of fear and genuine concern about the well-being of the community. I thought that if we all hunkered down and did our part to minimize spread, we would get through this more quickly. In hindsight, I was too cautious and my kids suffered for it. I thought I was teaching them about being good citizens, but it no longer seems worth it when return to normalcy seems years away.

same. I live with some heavy guilt that I kept my kid home - he started to go downhill right after I made that decision.

the only bright spot is that the experience taught me a lot about being overprotective and forced me to look more objectively at what my kid needs.

Anonymous wrote:It pisses me off that adults are refusing the vaccine and because of them Delta is spreading. We could have been through the Worst of it by now.

+1

It also pisses me off that my kids have to experience dumb a$$ MAGAs in our society as well. The pandemic is just one aspect of how they are worthless POSs.

Anonymous wrote:Golly there’s never been a better time to live through a pandemic. Your kids take their cues from you. You set the tone and vibe for the whole family. They only know what they know so stop mourning things that they are missing. Their childhood never would have matched yours anyway. This is an opportunity to teach them how to make the best of a bad situation. How to adapt and persevere. You have a golden opportunity to give them valuable skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. Don’t blow it by focusing on things that are gone or cannot be.

This is how we’ve been living this!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop putting your own kiddies on your kids. Kids are resilient. My kids have really had a great time during the last 1.5 years - they were able to play outside almost every day and meet up with friends. Less structured activities. They’ve been thriving

That's great your kids are having such a good time. We have heavily limited ours seeing friends as the friends families are not being careful. Kids are resilient but at some point, only so much some of us can take due to others selfish behavior.

Well that is true that you have to be prudent with who they see if their families don’t vax or aren’t careful. I’ve let my kids do a lot more outdoor stuff year round in lieu of structured activities and they have really enjoyed it. They also have done a lot of things with one another. I’m just pointing out that there are benefits to this. They went to school in person every other week in the spring and that was also great for them.

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

Well put. Yes, some of the isolation was a personal choice, and I was one who definitely erred on the side of caution. Why? It was a combination of fear and genuine concern about the well-being of the community. I thought that if we all hunkered down and did our part to minimize spread, we would get through this more quickly. In hindsight, I was too cautious and my kids suffered for it. I thought I was teaching them about being good citizens, but it no longer seems worth it when return to normalcy seems years away.

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t feel like this to be honest. NP.

My kids played outside the whole time. This summer I have made sure they had as normal a life as possible. We’ve traveled the whole time. In the beginning by car and once adults were vaccinated we’ve ventured out a bit further. We all take precautions but the kids have adapted and they are happy.

I agree with others that our school systems really failed the kids last year. But that was a choice and it was wrong in my opinion. And I thought that from Day 1. Most other people in this world figured it out. We didn’t. Adults did what worked for them. The end.

I think some parents sincerely need to take a hard look at the choices they have made for their kids.

I agree. We did ok with virtual school for our first grader but it was really, really hard, and we are fully aware that most people didn't have our flexible schedules and ability to work from home. My nephew went to in-person kindergarten in Connecticut all year and was perfectly fine. They did everything outdoors when possible. They have smaller, more flexible school systems. My 3 year old and my 2 year old niece also went in person to their day care programs all year and were fine.

Agree the kids have largely adapted, and so have we, DH and I. Yes, I miss not seeing family as frequently as we'd like, but we've seen family and friends outside, or masked indoors. We did Thanksgiving outside. We did Passover outside. It was doable. We went back to playgrounds as soon as they opened. Kids learned to ride bikes. They swam in pools and splash parks. The main things we miss out on are indoors. I'm not sure I want to take them to museums, even masked, until they're vaccinated. Likely next spring. Don't want them to do as many indoor playdates or sleepovers with their friends as I'd anticipated they'd do at this age. But there is so much great outdoor stuff around here.

The first 5 months after everything shut down in March 2020 were awful (including because my parents both had covid and one was hospitalized for 4 months) but by October 2020, we knew enough to know what would be safe and that lockdown wasn't necessary. If people choose not to avail themselves of that info, it's a choice. Everything in life involves risk assessment. I'd never let my boy play football but tons of people do. I'd never drive one of those SUVs with no doors but people do. I'm not into extreme sports but lots of people are. If you want to do absolutely no human interaction until the whole world is vaccinated, you can, but recognize that most other people don't feel that way.

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty normal for over a year (except wearing masks but adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

This is the thing that OP and a couple of others are refusing to accept. That there was no need for no school and activities to happen in the DMV. It was a choice and, in my opinion, a very poor choice by people in charge and no outrage from parents. Nor was there any need to close the libraries other than librarians being spoiled snowflakes.
The fact that restaurants opened, bars opened, stores opened, but schools were kept closed for in-person never made any sense to me. Food factories were opened, car sales were open, and everything was open, and it did not cause spikes. If Indiana-based schools can manage the pandemic, this tells how our expensive budget school counties completely failed our kids. They are here to serve the kids, not the teachers but serve teachers' unfounded wishes they did at the expense of our kids.

In MoCo, that means saving the nasty grandma that flips you off every turn in traffic, yells at you at stores, but not our kids. The private schools were open too! I think this is what people in MCPS and FCPS are refusing to see, that it was not the pandemic. It was them.
And in OP's case and some other pp's case, not only did school administration fail our kids, but their parents failed their kids too! By locking them up inside. Remember, child cares were open.
Some parents found a way. In a subdivision next to mine, it is one of those close with parks and houses closer together, kids player together every day. It is a very diverse area, so you saw Indian parents sitting in nice chairs in driveways and their kids running the area and biking, you saw groups of parents of all backgrounds hanging out together too, and their kids playing football altogether. Kids signed up for childcare for kindergarten. I hate to say it, but there are cultures that put kids first. Sadly many in MoCo of all backgrounds did not put the kids first. Look at how many posts we had that a parent was half vaccinated and decided to lock everyone inside for 3 weeks before the second shot, just to be safe! And not just lock them up, as in no even going out biking! And similar insanities.
It allowed some parents with mental illness that was previously in check to let it run rampant! And they still think they did it for their kids' best interest! Look how it changed from saving the elderly to nothing is acceptable bcs now kids are not vaxed! Normal people were able to logically determine risks and were not debating the "plume" infection at the gas station and buying car funnels to pee during a short road trip!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Typical narcissist DCUM post by OP. Your snowflakes will be just fine. Be glad you’re not trying to flee Afghanistan.

I know. I guarantee that OP’s kids are in no way actually suffering.

This isn't the suffering olympics. My privileged, secure, healthy child had a serious bout of major depression last winter. It was heart wrenching and awful. I didn't want them to be in school then because numbers were so high, but now I realize they have to go for their wellbeing.

Maybe your kid is bi-polar.

Uneducated and unnecessarily cruel remark. Hope it brought you a warm fuzzy feeling being an a## on social media. -DP

Anonymous wrote:I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

THIS!!! same for California

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Typical narcissist DCUM post by OP. Your snowflakes will be just fine. Be glad you’re not trying to flee Afghanistan.

I know. I guarantee that OP’s kids are in no way actually suffering.

This isn't the suffering olympics. My privileged, secure, healthy child had a serious bout of major depression last winter. It was heart wrenching and awful. I didn't want them to be in school then because numbers were so high, but now I realize they have to go for their wellbeing.

Maybe your kid is bi-polar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Typical narcissist DCUM post by OP. Your snowflakes will be just fine. Be glad you’re not trying to flee Afghanistan.

I know. I guarantee that OP’s kids are in no way actually suffering.

This isn't the suffering olympics. My privileged, secure, healthy child had a serious bout of major depression last winter. It was heart wrenching and awful. I didn't want them to be in school then because numbers were so high, but now I realize they have to go for their wellbeing.

I live in the Midwest. I do feel sorry for DC area kids, they have had a terrible time. My kids were back in school in-person August 2020, we started hanging out with friends, eating in restaurants, etc. May 2020. Their lives have been pretty much normal for over a year (except wearing masks but they adapted fine to that).

The people arguing that that COVID decisions are a personal choice are right, sort of, but if your entire community has chosen to lock down, who would your kids hang out with even if you wanted to be more open? When I tell my DC friends the pandemic basically ended for my area a year ago, they act like I have 2 heads. Ang guess what, our numbers are on par to slightly better than DC area. What was it all for?

In hindsight, I do feel bad for you!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Covid sucks for all of us, but I'm really struggling with what it is taking away from kids. My kids have given up more than a year of early elementary school and all of the learning and socialization and guided activities and play. Their parents have been super stressed out having them home while working full-time to make ends meet, and it has changed our relationship. We have good times together, but a lot of the time we are just maxed out and don't parent well. They have to deal with so much worry about illness. One parent got asymptomatic covid and they worried the parent was going to die... but they also covered their mouths and held their breath when they were safely inside and saw the parent outside the back door (masked) coming up to get food left outside for them during a 10-day isolation. They have had to miss camp due to covid exposure. Through all of this, they have lost their sense of safety and a carefree childhood. And this is just the kids who haven't lost a loved one.

I'm really sad and scared because we don't know when this is going to be over. I was relieved when thought this school year might be semi-normal for them, but now we have delta. I don't know how to make this better for my kids when I'm overtaxed from work + parenting (quarantine) and burned out physically and emotionally from the last year plus. How do you work through these emotions and make the best of the situation?

Good God almighty, what a bunch of claptrap! Children only lost what their idiot parents, like you, keep telling them they have lost. Life is not perfect would you rather that they be dead? Shut up and stop whining and be bloody thankful they are alive and healthy instead of dead!

My God, you are ignorant.

+1 (wow). It's not true that my children only lost what I have told them they have lost. Objectively inaccurate. They missed spring 2020 of school. There was minimal virtual at their school so they lost hours and hours of interaction and instruction with their beloved teachers and friends that spring. They did not see most of their extended family for more than a year. My 3-year-old had a hard time maintaining attention on a screen to have a relationship with anyone virtually. That is a loss for my children to have limited relationships with our family who lives far away, who we otherwise would have seen multiple times over the year. They didn't get to go out and do trick-or-treating for Halloween. We had all of our holidays alone because we were trying to do our part and keep everyone safe, which is what public health officials told us to do.

The fact that other people are suffering more does not mean children like mine are not also missing out. We know we are fortunate to live in the US and have basics like a comfortable home and not in a war zone and we keep that perspective in mind all the time, but my kids and most others have suffered because of the pandemic. They have cried very real tears that they missed their friends, or when they couldn't do something we were able to do pre-covid because it wasn't safe anymore. Often those choices were not my choices as the parent, but for example they couldn't go to camp because they had to quarantine from a covid exposure. That sucks and it was a real loss. They're kids - it's not right to say, "well little Larlo, tough shit. Be happy you're not dead!" Kids have feelings and we should have compassion for what they are going through.

Pure male bovine excrement!