Anecdotes go here
July 5, 2024 8:11 AM Subscribe
The Youngest Pandemic Children Are Now in School, and Struggling Teachers this year saw the effects of the pandemic’s stress and isolation on young students: Some can barely speak, sit still or even hold a pencil. By Claire Cain Miller and Sarah Mervosh for the New York Times
Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children remains a critical text, imo [worldcat]
posted by HearHere at 8:43 AM on July 5 [3 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 8:43 AM on July 5 [3 favorites]
It’s hard not to see articles like this as part of a concerted push to prevent future public health mitigations. Week after week, I see hand wringing about the effects of pandemic closures on kids. What about the consequences of repeat infections with a vascular disease known to have neurological effects? Where is the call to improve prevent infection? To improve air quality in schools?
posted by Il etait une fois at 8:44 AM on July 5 [86 favorites]
posted by Il etait une fois at 8:44 AM on July 5 [86 favorites]
It’s hard not to see articles like this as part of a concerted push to prevent future public health mitigations. Week after week, I see hand wringing about the effects of pandemic closures on kids.
I have no time for anyone complaining about them who doesn't then support proper ventilation and filtering -- and the funding to go with it -- in the schools if they absolutely must remain open.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:52 AM on July 5 [24 favorites]
I have no time for anyone complaining about them who doesn't then support proper ventilation and filtering -- and the funding to go with it -- in the schools if they absolutely must remain open.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:52 AM on July 5 [24 favorites]
"can barely speak, sit still or even hold a pencil". I'm 57 and this has been me for my entire life.
posted by srboisvert at 8:55 AM on July 5 [23 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 8:55 AM on July 5 [23 favorites]
“babies whose mothers had COVID-19 while pregnant were more likely to be diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders in their first year than babies of people who did not have COVID-19 during pregnancy.”
“SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure“
We don’t need to rely on anecdotes. We have data. The decision to allow COVID’s unlimited spread was a decision to accept ubiquitous and repeated brain damage.
We could have improved indoor air quality. We could have worn N95 masks strategically. We still could.
posted by Dimpy at 9:01 AM on July 5 [55 favorites]
“SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure“
We don’t need to rely on anecdotes. We have data. The decision to allow COVID’s unlimited spread was a decision to accept ubiquitous and repeated brain damage.
We could have improved indoor air quality. We could have worn N95 masks strategically. We still could.
posted by Dimpy at 9:01 AM on July 5 [55 favorites]
I was, and would be again, very pro-mitigation and lockdowns if necessary.
My kids were in grade 3 and 9 when things shut down. Context is that Ontario had some of the longest shutdowns in schools in North America and it was also very rocky - open, shut, open, shut.
I would have said at the time they were doing fine. We did some homeschooling things, read a lot, etc.
The impact on them long-term has been pretty devastating- and we’re a family with buffers to address those shortcomings. My older son developed performance anxiety in person which had a devastating impact on assessment his final exams in grade 12. He’s going back to high school this fall after a bad start at university, to work on the self-regulation part and also just…enjoy learning that he missed. His grades were fine in grade 10 and 11, but he did not retain the learning, especially not the fully online classes. He took this, despite us supporting him, as a personal failure. He is a very tactile learner, and a sculptor.
My younger son does better learning online. He learned quickly how to - not cheat, but enhance things. Installed Grammarly, uses Google translate. He lost his attention span and also his classes were brutal - I used to listen to 15 minutes a day of the teacher getting kids to turn their cameras on. One never did or ever responded. This child is in math and writing tutoring; at the start of grade 7 he was assessed at a grade 4 level in math despite getting a B+ in grade 6. He’s pulled that up but it’s been a lot.
All these are anecdotes but if you work in schools you see it. Universities are seeing it.
There is no reason to be so dismissive - it’s the equivalent of right wing reactionary thinking on masks.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:05 AM on July 5 [44 favorites]
My kids were in grade 3 and 9 when things shut down. Context is that Ontario had some of the longest shutdowns in schools in North America and it was also very rocky - open, shut, open, shut.
I would have said at the time they were doing fine. We did some homeschooling things, read a lot, etc.
The impact on them long-term has been pretty devastating- and we’re a family with buffers to address those shortcomings. My older son developed performance anxiety in person which had a devastating impact on assessment his final exams in grade 12. He’s going back to high school this fall after a bad start at university, to work on the self-regulation part and also just…enjoy learning that he missed. His grades were fine in grade 10 and 11, but he did not retain the learning, especially not the fully online classes. He took this, despite us supporting him, as a personal failure. He is a very tactile learner, and a sculptor.
My younger son does better learning online. He learned quickly how to - not cheat, but enhance things. Installed Grammarly, uses Google translate. He lost his attention span and also his classes were brutal - I used to listen to 15 minutes a day of the teacher getting kids to turn their cameras on. One never did or ever responded. This child is in math and writing tutoring; at the start of grade 7 he was assessed at a grade 4 level in math despite getting a B+ in grade 6. He’s pulled that up but it’s been a lot.
All these are anecdotes but if you work in schools you see it. Universities are seeing it.
There is no reason to be so dismissive - it’s the equivalent of right wing reactionary thinking on masks.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:05 AM on July 5 [44 favorites]
increased incidence of brain damage supplements the voting block that opposes strategies to mitigate the spread of a disease that increases the incidence of brain damage. brain damage is self propagating.
posted by roue at 9:07 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
posted by roue at 9:07 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
I guess what I’m saying is if you just blame a concept of brain damage, you are avoiding the reality that kids have needs to be in society - to have rich experiences in and out of the home. We didn’t provide that, for good reason, during lockdowns. But now there are deficits and needs and we should be figuring that out and providing them.
I personally believe schools here in Ontario should have reset and evaluated the kids’ actual learning and skills and put them in the right classes. The year before my so. Graduated was given a “victory lap” option; he wasn’t in the same way.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:13 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
I personally believe schools here in Ontario should have reset and evaluated the kids’ actual learning and skills and put them in the right classes. The year before my so. Graduated was given a “victory lap” option; he wasn’t in the same way.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:13 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
Remote school should have been a gap-filler until schools could be safely reopened with superb ventilation and daily pooled testing. This should have been a moonshot priority. Remote school instead became a target of Capital, for whom any delay in restoring day-care was intolerable and never to be repeated.
posted by Dimpy at 9:37 AM on July 5 [10 favorites]
posted by Dimpy at 9:37 AM on July 5 [10 favorites]
part of a concerted push to prevent future public health mitigations.
I see it as nearly the opposite, part of a push for increased school and spacial-needs/early-childhood funding.
posted by bq at 9:45 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
I see it as nearly the opposite, part of a push for increased school and spacial-needs/early-childhood funding.
posted by bq at 9:45 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
I personally believe schools here in Ontario should have reset and evaluated the kids’ actual learning and skills and put them in the right classes. The year before my so. Graduated was given a “victory lap” option; he wasn’t in the same way.
This experience is relevant, and was cited my my local schools' administration in their decisions: https://curriculumsolutions.net/blog/2020/08/16/return-to-learn-covid-19-and-lessons-from-katrina/
* Skill recovery programs (remediation) in elementary produced very poor scores on state accountability tests.
*Acceleration (emphasis on grade level instruction) produced better scores.
*High school students in purely remedial courses did not make progress as rapidly as elementary students.
*High school students performed much better in courses that utilized a spiraling method where prerequisite content was re-taught before the teacher went on to teach regular course content.
When kids were given remedial teaching they never caught back up.
Where is the call to improve prevent infection? To improve air quality in schools?
This was a major focus of pandemic funding in my district so I don't know what to tell you.
posted by bq at 9:52 AM on July 5 [1 favorite]
This experience is relevant, and was cited my my local schools' administration in their decisions: https://curriculumsolutions.net/blog/2020/08/16/return-to-learn-covid-19-and-lessons-from-katrina/
* Skill recovery programs (remediation) in elementary produced very poor scores on state accountability tests.
*Acceleration (emphasis on grade level instruction) produced better scores.
*High school students in purely remedial courses did not make progress as rapidly as elementary students.
*High school students performed much better in courses that utilized a spiraling method where prerequisite content was re-taught before the teacher went on to teach regular course content.
When kids were given remedial teaching they never caught back up.
Where is the call to improve prevent infection? To improve air quality in schools?
This was a major focus of pandemic funding in my district so I don't know what to tell you.
posted by bq at 9:52 AM on July 5 [1 favorite]
can barely speak, sit still or even hold a pencil
In other words, a five year old
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:58 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
In other words, a five year old
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:58 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
. for the kids who are struggling and for the parents for whom this is not an anecdote but a source of grief.
posted by demi-octopus at 10:00 AM on July 5 [11 favorites]
posted by demi-octopus at 10:00 AM on July 5 [11 favorites]
I half-joke that no-one ever fails in my (university) classes*, but this year I was a little worried until the last moment, when everyone passed again. BUT there are clearly effects of the pandemic. During the pandemic, everyone passed, maybe even with slightly better grades than normal, but when those students returned to uni there were deep holes in their knowledge. More like craters, actually. And some brilliant students had gone missing. So they had been able to perform online, but not to actually learn much or find joy in their studies.
The kids I taught this semester were in (the equivalent of) high school during the pandemic, and they clearly have no clue about going to school. A group of about 10-15 students didn't even come to classes until the second time I scolded them harshly in front of their peers. Something you never, ever do as a university professor, but I felt I needed to. When they did come into class, their learning curve was steep. They are good kids, they just don't know what to do.
My grandkids were born during the pandemic, but they and their cohort seem good about all the stuff. We had a different approach to lockdown than in the US and I think the little kids were mostly well protected and well taught. Among other things, being outdoors all year round is highly valued here, so all preschool institutions were prepared to spend even more time in parks and playgrounds. To this day, my grandkids really love everything nature, much more than their mother did at the same age. Just the other day my daughter told me about a whole day the kids had spent in a park, learning about the wildlife and making jam out of wild blueberries they picked there over an open fire. Great! And safe. The teachers sent pictures, and they all look like something out of Astrid Lindgreen: little kids with blue mouths holding little snakes in their hands.
I think this might even end up being a bonus, after decades of focus on rote learning from books.
*It would be a derail to explain why, but I promise it isn't because my classes are easier.
posted by mumimor at 10:02 AM on July 5 [11 favorites]
The kids I taught this semester were in (the equivalent of) high school during the pandemic, and they clearly have no clue about going to school. A group of about 10-15 students didn't even come to classes until the second time I scolded them harshly in front of their peers. Something you never, ever do as a university professor, but I felt I needed to. When they did come into class, their learning curve was steep. They are good kids, they just don't know what to do.
My grandkids were born during the pandemic, but they and their cohort seem good about all the stuff. We had a different approach to lockdown than in the US and I think the little kids were mostly well protected and well taught. Among other things, being outdoors all year round is highly valued here, so all preschool institutions were prepared to spend even more time in parks and playgrounds. To this day, my grandkids really love everything nature, much more than their mother did at the same age. Just the other day my daughter told me about a whole day the kids had spent in a park, learning about the wildlife and making jam out of wild blueberries they picked there over an open fire. Great! And safe. The teachers sent pictures, and they all look like something out of Astrid Lindgreen: little kids with blue mouths holding little snakes in their hands.
I think this might even end up being a bonus, after decades of focus on rote learning from books.
*It would be a derail to explain why, but I promise it isn't because my classes are easier.
posted by mumimor at 10:02 AM on July 5 [11 favorites]
Global trauma is a total mindfuck prosperity gospel.
posted by bindr at 10:04 AM on July 5 [2 favorites]
posted by bindr at 10:04 AM on July 5 [2 favorites]
When kids were given remedial teaching they never caught back up.
That is really interesting. I don’t know if I believe the spiral approach (which is what supposedly happened here) was any better, especially as the length of time out of school was so much longer. But it is interesting. I still feel we could have done better rather than (not teachers, but structures) deciding to just pretend everyone going back to school is fine.
I do think trauma has an impact.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:14 AM on July 5 [1 favorite]
That is really interesting. I don’t know if I believe the spiral approach (which is what supposedly happened here) was any better, especially as the length of time out of school was so much longer. But it is interesting. I still feel we could have done better rather than (not teachers, but structures) deciding to just pretend everyone going back to school is fine.
I do think trauma has an impact.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:14 AM on July 5 [1 favorite]
Before mocking, please RTFA: "This year, for the first time, she said, several students could barely speak, several were not toilet trained, and several did not have the fine motor skills to hold a pencil." Yes, this is anecdotal, but I doubt there are large datasets on the ability of kindergarteners to speak, use the toilet, and hold a pencil. And the data on academic achievement they report is consistent : "The pandemic had lasting effects, particularly on our youngest children, whose foundational learning opportunities were disrupted. Students who were in pre-K when the pandemic began—today’s second graders—show a significant departure from pre-pandemic growth trends in both reading and mathematics."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:23 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:23 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
Please pause and think a moment before commenting along the lines of "Sounds like a normal five-year-old!" or "I can't sit still either!" I think those are supposed to be jokes, but it sounds like you're minimizing a really crappy situation for some children. We already know that some kids got to go to private school and their schools never shut down at all, while other kids were struggling in homes without enough resources. This is very much a situation where we will see diverging outcomes, I am confident, based on family income. Let's not make light of it.
(Unless it's your own family and you're whistling past the graveyard, in which case come sit next to me and we'll tell each other the most tasteless jokes.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:26 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
(Unless it's your own family and you're whistling past the graveyard, in which case come sit next to me and we'll tell each other the most tasteless jokes.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:26 AM on July 5 [15 favorites]
Or, on not-preview, what Mr. Know-it-some said.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:27 AM on July 5
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:27 AM on July 5
The next pandemic, when it comes (not if), what if it has a 10% case fatality rate (instead of Covid's 1% ish). How will the internet civilization handle it? I suspect not well....
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:29 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:29 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
Of course the experience was damaging! The world went through a pandemic, were we supposed to be what? Trauma free? Thriving? Completely resilient?
Families were able to compensate and meditate in various ways, or not. collective trauma, and etc. Other's couldn't. No one was at peak. Our society has changed. There will be lasting trauma as a result of our experiences.
I think this should be acknowledged. Kids post-pandemic have different needs, and we absolutely need to address those needs, and I'd like to seen a serious discussion on that, despite being skeptical that we /our societies (in the US at least) have the capacity to do that.
But these articles don't seem to be addressing that, or acknowledging concerns around testing, attendance and ancedata...
I'm getting "broken window" and "lost generation" vibes and handwringing from these articles, and objecting to that.
It's the separation of pandemic stress and isolation or discussions of attendance in connection to going remote that gives me think of the children vibes and rejection of the framing.
posted by bindr at 10:43 AM on July 5 [14 favorites]
Families were able to compensate and meditate in various ways, or not. collective trauma, and etc. Other's couldn't. No one was at peak. Our society has changed. There will be lasting trauma as a result of our experiences.
I think this should be acknowledged. Kids post-pandemic have different needs, and we absolutely need to address those needs, and I'd like to seen a serious discussion on that, despite being skeptical that we /our societies (in the US at least) have the capacity to do that.
But these articles don't seem to be addressing that, or acknowledging concerns around testing, attendance and ancedata...
I'm getting "broken window" and "lost generation" vibes and handwringing from these articles, and objecting to that.
It's the separation of pandemic stress and isolation or discussions of attendance in connection to going remote that gives me think of the children vibes and rejection of the framing.
posted by bindr at 10:43 AM on July 5 [14 favorites]
That isn’t what this article is saying at all? It’s pointing out these kids weren’t even in school.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:59 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 10:59 AM on July 5 [4 favorites]
Universities are seeing it.
I half-joke that no-one ever fails in my (university) classes...
Indeed, this problem has started to appear in higher ed and might be chronic.
It's an open question how colleges and universities other than the elite will find the resources to handle it.
posted by doctornemo at 11:01 AM on July 5 [2 favorites]
I half-joke that no-one ever fails in my (university) classes...
Indeed, this problem has started to appear in higher ed and might be chronic.
It's an open question how colleges and universities other than the elite will find the resources to handle it.
posted by doctornemo at 11:01 AM on July 5 [2 favorites]
kids have needs to be in society - to have rich experiences in and out of the home. We didn’t provide that, for good reason, during lockdowns
I disagree with the “for good reason” part. We absolutely could have had provincial education systems work with parents to create lower risk bubbles of classrooms (we did a little bit of this in my province), or made it a priority to improve school buildings (especially the ventilation, but also overall), and set up outdoor social activities both for young people and for isolated adults. There are so many potential creative options. ‘Course, in Ontario you were dealing with a Ford-headed provincial government, so that limited what was politically achievable.
I’m kind of with bindr in my frustration with the lack of vision and creativity around how we could, in future pandemics (which will happen, probably sooner rather than later given climate change and human encroachment on wildlife habitat), meet both physical and mental health needs for more people.
posted by eviemath at 11:41 AM on July 5 [10 favorites]
I disagree with the “for good reason” part. We absolutely could have had provincial education systems work with parents to create lower risk bubbles of classrooms (we did a little bit of this in my province), or made it a priority to improve school buildings (especially the ventilation, but also overall), and set up outdoor social activities both for young people and for isolated adults. There are so many potential creative options. ‘Course, in Ontario you were dealing with a Ford-headed provincial government, so that limited what was politically achievable.
I’m kind of with bindr in my frustration with the lack of vision and creativity around how we could, in future pandemics (which will happen, probably sooner rather than later given climate change and human encroachment on wildlife habitat), meet both physical and mental health needs for more people.
posted by eviemath at 11:41 AM on July 5 [10 favorites]
But yeah, in an ideal world this would lead to a realization of “gee, Head Start and similar early enrichment programs are really important” or “wow, we really need to ensure that all children, regardless of family socioeconomic status, race, immigration status, or what have you are given the resources for a healthy start in life”. Unfortunately, US politics and to some degree Canadian politics seem to be going in the opposite direction, including doubling down on racist myths about kids’ abilities or potential behavior. Or some of my university colleagues who want to return to how we taught pre-pandemic, but with more strict and invasive oversight around student cheating, rather than looking at what students learned instead of the historically standard curriculum and how we could build on that, or build accessibility into the foundations of our pedagogy. (I mean, I’m still learning about how to do that - I certainly don’t expect any of us to get there overnight. But we can at least head in that direction instead of the opposite direction.)
posted by eviemath at 11:48 AM on July 5 [13 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 11:48 AM on July 5 [13 favorites]
Yeah. I'm trying to validate the changed landscape and the need to adapt to it. We have a large, imperfect body of evidence surrounding education loss (and impacts/, importance of early childhood education/intervention). Like the article about Katrina, the outcome books and etc.
There is a need to adapt and apply that knowledge and this should be part of the national/policy for discourse.
To protect the conversation I believe we should be having, I'm simultaneously trying to discuss how I'm uncomfortable with the framing of the issue in the media based on dynamics and experiences, that I'm poorly articulating. ... Like, don't relitigate pandemic, apply theory.
Anyway, I don't think I'm succeeding and am going to sit my ass down, so as to not derail further. :)
posted by bindr at 12:18 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
There is a need to adapt and apply that knowledge and this should be part of the national/policy for discourse.
To protect the conversation I believe we should be having, I'm simultaneously trying to discuss how I'm uncomfortable with the framing of the issue in the media based on dynamics and experiences, that I'm poorly articulating. ... Like, don't relitigate pandemic, apply theory.
Anyway, I don't think I'm succeeding and am going to sit my ass down, so as to not derail further. :)
posted by bindr at 12:18 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
I guess what I’m saying is if you just blame a concept of brain damage, you are avoiding the reality that kids have needs to be in society - to have rich experiences in and out of the home.
Kids under three years old don't really have much in the way of social circles. Their world -- and this has been true for most of human history -- is their immediate family and their home. So I'm rather skeptical that developmental issues appearing in kids newly in school has to do with the lockdown qua lockdown. Though I'm pretty sure that certain forces will be very interested in pushing that narrative.
posted by tavella at 12:30 PM on July 5 [8 favorites]
Kids under three years old don't really have much in the way of social circles. Their world -- and this has been true for most of human history -- is their immediate family and their home. So I'm rather skeptical that developmental issues appearing in kids newly in school has to do with the lockdown qua lockdown. Though I'm pretty sure that certain forces will be very interested in pushing that narrative.
posted by tavella at 12:30 PM on July 5 [8 favorites]
I think the comments about older students, while relevant for the bigger picture, are less relevant when looking specifically at the youngest cohort, who are what this article is about.
If anything I hope that if a lot of data is being collected about the detrimental effects of not having access to daycare or preschool, it will be used to build support for universal, fully funded early-age childcare. Because too many kids don't get those things even when there's not a pandemic.
posted by trig at 12:37 PM on July 5 [5 favorites]
If anything I hope that if a lot of data is being collected about the detrimental effects of not having access to daycare or preschool, it will be used to build support for universal, fully funded early-age childcare. Because too many kids don't get those things even when there's not a pandemic.
posted by trig at 12:37 PM on July 5 [5 favorites]
Their world -- and this has been true for most of human history -- is their immediate family and their home
Citation needed.
posted by bq at 12:54 PM on July 5 [12 favorites]
Citation needed.
posted by bq at 12:54 PM on July 5 [12 favorites]
> Though I'm pretty sure that certain forces will be very interested in pushing that narrative
I guess I'm one of those forces.
Thinking about when my kids were little: they were going to the playground every day, where we met all kinds of people. They came with me to the grocery store, on the bus and subway, to the library, on playdates at other people's houses, to the children's museums, to parks. They were stuck running all kinds of errands with me, during which they saw all kinds of things. This was all before they started preschool. And at least where I live, all of those things were taken away from little kids for at least some of quarantine.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:36 PM on July 5 [12 favorites]
I guess I'm one of those forces.
Thinking about when my kids were little: they were going to the playground every day, where we met all kinds of people. They came with me to the grocery store, on the bus and subway, to the library, on playdates at other people's houses, to the children's museums, to parks. They were stuck running all kinds of errands with me, during which they saw all kinds of things. This was all before they started preschool. And at least where I live, all of those things were taken away from little kids for at least some of quarantine.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:36 PM on July 5 [12 favorites]
Their world -- and this has been true for most of human history -- is their immediate family and their home
The flood of Jacob Riis photographs that populate every "historical images" Insta account beg to differ on this one.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:27 PM on July 5 [3 favorites]
The flood of Jacob Riis photographs that populate every "historical images" Insta account beg to differ on this one.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:27 PM on July 5 [3 favorites]
One weird part of most of these analysis is that they seem to completely ignore that 1.3 million Americans died.
That is a lot of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and classmates. In some tragic cases it was even the school aged children who brought the virus to their late relatives or even just made their parents really sick.
That's a lot for children to deal with.
It's 433 9/11s.
And even more disturbing is that culturally we have just completely memory holed the loss in a near universal case of denial.
So these kids have lived through a huge trauma and then they get to see adults being in crazy denial about it.
posted by srboisvert at 3:10 PM on July 5 [25 favorites]
That is a lot of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and classmates. In some tragic cases it was even the school aged children who brought the virus to their late relatives or even just made their parents really sick.
That's a lot for children to deal with.
It's 433 9/11s.
And even more disturbing is that culturally we have just completely memory holed the loss in a near universal case of denial.
So these kids have lived through a huge trauma and then they get to see adults being in crazy denial about it.
posted by srboisvert at 3:10 PM on July 5 [25 favorites]
There will be no next pandemic. Even when it's happening the powerful memory holing and magical thinking that is so scared of another lockdown it will kill another million or ten million using children, the economy, inconsistently applied science and a thousand other micro excuses to justify how we can't ask anyone to go through That Again.
Then, the third or fourth pandemic when that number gets an order of magnitude higher maybe - maybe - we'll consider some ventilation upgrades.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 4:24 PM on July 5 [6 favorites]
Then, the third or fourth pandemic when that number gets an order of magnitude higher maybe - maybe - we'll consider some ventilation upgrades.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 4:24 PM on July 5 [6 favorites]
Seriously where do you people love where they didn’t upgrade ventilation in schools? There was federal funding for that.
posted by bq at 4:55 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 4:55 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
Seriously where do you people love where they didn’t upgrade ventilation in schools? There was federal funding for that.
California, where the upgraded ventilation in my district was “uhhh, keep the door open, I guess?”
The people making those choices were conveniently shielded from student contact in their offices.
posted by corey flood at 6:23 PM on July 5 [9 favorites]
California, where the upgraded ventilation in my district was “uhhh, keep the door open, I guess?”
The people making those choices were conveniently shielded from student contact in their offices.
posted by corey flood at 6:23 PM on July 5 [9 favorites]
The flood of Jacob Riis photographs that populate every "historical images" Insta account beg to differ on this one.
Fascinating to discover that Jacob Riis was taking pictures 50k years ago. I mean, children's museums, libraries, parks, grocery stores? None of those are needed for normal human development because *they didn't exist for nearly all the time modern humans existed*. For the vast, vast majority of human existence, if 1 and 2 year olds went anywhere, it was strapped to their mother or an older sibling's back - if for no other reason than they needed to be nursed, since hunter-gatherers normally nurse for extended periods. And they lived in very small bands, 20 or 30 people for the whole group. When kids got older and fully mobile, sure there might be daycare in terms of one grandmother or aunt looking after the several children of the group, but that's beyond the range of kids who would be in kindergarten now.
Kids need stimulation, sure, but you can get plenty of stimulation from a family, toys, a yard or even a balcony when you are talking about kids that small. So I would guess that if anything, it was secondary effects rather than the lockdown itself.
posted by tavella at 6:42 PM on July 5
Fascinating to discover that Jacob Riis was taking pictures 50k years ago. I mean, children's museums, libraries, parks, grocery stores? None of those are needed for normal human development because *they didn't exist for nearly all the time modern humans existed*. For the vast, vast majority of human existence, if 1 and 2 year olds went anywhere, it was strapped to their mother or an older sibling's back - if for no other reason than they needed to be nursed, since hunter-gatherers normally nurse for extended periods. And they lived in very small bands, 20 or 30 people for the whole group. When kids got older and fully mobile, sure there might be daycare in terms of one grandmother or aunt looking after the several children of the group, but that's beyond the range of kids who would be in kindergarten now.
Kids need stimulation, sure, but you can get plenty of stimulation from a family, toys, a yard or even a balcony when you are talking about kids that small. So I would guess that if anything, it was secondary effects rather than the lockdown itself.
posted by tavella at 6:42 PM on July 5
Current evolutionary theory, which is supported by ethnography of current hunter-gatherer tribes is that ‘allomothering’ is common and the extent to which it is used varies significantly between cultures, as is demonstrated by the table on page 2 of this pdf. Your assertion that babies have primarily experienced their immediate families and home throughout most of human history is not supported by existing data.
posted by bq at 7:24 PM on July 5 [7 favorites]
posted by bq at 7:24 PM on July 5 [7 favorites]
I feel very lucky that my child born in late 2019 is the youngest of three. She got a lot of socialization at home when a lot of kids her age weren't. She started preschool this past fall and she definitely had classmates who started the year shy beyond what I'd consider normal. They seem to have mostly caught up by the end of the year though, at least by her reckoning. We were just thinking back to how terrified one of her little friends was at her birthday party in October, and how she was playing like a champ at someone else's party in late May
posted by potrzebie at 7:25 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
posted by potrzebie at 7:25 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
demonstrated by the table on page 2 of this pdf.
Exactly two of those examples have non-relatives even as an option.
posted by tavella at 7:39 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
Exactly two of those examples have non-relatives even as an option.
posted by tavella at 7:39 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Comment removed. Let's avoid looking up where people live and using that in a prejudicial way, thanks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:43 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:43 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]
I lost a pregnancy during the pandemic and in retrospect that was a really good thing. Kids learn so much more from being around other, slightly older kids than they learn from being around adults. Really really really. And some parents are not equipped to teach the skills (like toilet training) they teach in daycare, especially not the ones who had to go to work and leave the kids at home with an older sibling taking online classes, and the TV.
posted by subdee at 7:58 PM on July 5
posted by subdee at 7:58 PM on July 5
Here's my anecdote. I'm a high school math teacher, we went remote here for 2.5 years. The first four months, at the end of 2020, we didn't even have virtual classes, just work (of varying quality) posted online for them to do for a grade.
The second year, we had classes and that worked okay for maybe 1/3 of my honors students, and maybe 1-2 of my general students. Some never turned on their cameras because they were working at the grocery store with zoom on in the background, some turned on their cameras and I could see the baby brother they were also watching while going to class, most never got out of bed and were in pajamas all day with the TV on in the background.
Plus side, that year summer school was the easiest I've ever taught. We did it in person. Students who would never normally attend summer school were there, they made it fun to teach everyone.
That's high school, where if anything, online learning should work better. You can't online teach a second grader (let alone kindergartener) unless their parents are on the call with them helping them with the computer. Very few of the parents in my district had the ability to stay home from work to do that.
And yeah, many grandparents (who are primary caregivers for families where the parents are working and daycare costs too much) died during the first few years of the pandemic.
posted by subdee at 8:09 PM on July 5 [6 favorites]
The second year, we had classes and that worked okay for maybe 1/3 of my honors students, and maybe 1-2 of my general students. Some never turned on their cameras because they were working at the grocery store with zoom on in the background, some turned on their cameras and I could see the baby brother they were also watching while going to class, most never got out of bed and were in pajamas all day with the TV on in the background.
Plus side, that year summer school was the easiest I've ever taught. We did it in person. Students who would never normally attend summer school were there, they made it fun to teach everyone.
That's high school, where if anything, online learning should work better. You can't online teach a second grader (let alone kindergartener) unless their parents are on the call with them helping them with the computer. Very few of the parents in my district had the ability to stay home from work to do that.
And yeah, many grandparents (who are primary caregivers for families where the parents are working and daycare costs too much) died during the first few years of the pandemic.
posted by subdee at 8:09 PM on July 5 [6 favorites]
FWIW, they did use the federal money to install better ventilation and get us all portable air filters here.
Now I just need a janitorial staff to keep up with replacing the air filters, a much harder task than just spending money to deliver them new in the box to each room.
posted by subdee at 8:16 PM on July 5 [4 favorites]
Now I just need a janitorial staff to keep up with replacing the air filters, a much harder task than just spending money to deliver them new in the box to each room.
posted by subdee at 8:16 PM on July 5 [4 favorites]
> So I would guess that if anything, it was secondary effects rather than the lockdown itself
Do you believe that there's a new cohort of young children who are showing delays? If so, and if you don't think it was quarantine that did it, what do you think it was? You're hinting at something, and I wish you'd just spell it out.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:52 PM on July 5
Do you believe that there's a new cohort of young children who are showing delays? If so, and if you don't think it was quarantine that did it, what do you think it was? You're hinting at something, and I wish you'd just spell it out.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:52 PM on July 5
And they lived in very small bands, 20 or 30 people for the whole group.
I don’t actually feel like I know enough to have a strong position on the larger debate, but this doesn’t really feel like it’s making your case? Being part of a band of 20 or 30 people, or even just an extended family, is way less isolating than being stuck with the 2024 America definition of “immediate family.”
posted by atoxyl at 9:44 PM on July 5 [10 favorites]
I don’t actually feel like I know enough to have a strong position on the larger debate, but this doesn’t really feel like it’s making your case? Being part of a band of 20 or 30 people, or even just an extended family, is way less isolating than being stuck with the 2024 America definition of “immediate family.”
posted by atoxyl at 9:44 PM on July 5 [10 favorites]
if I’d had 14 relatives of varying degrees in my pandemic bubble that would have been a) awesome b) different
posted by bq at 10:34 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 10:34 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
I fee like these discussions always circle around an unstated "if only we'd tried harder, it would have been fine," and--no. Nothing was going to be fine. Many people love to trot out their favorite statistics and anecdotes in service of justifying their pet opinions, but a pandemic was always going to fuck things up. It was maybe a question of which things and how badly, but most of the Monday morning quarterbacking seems to me to be predicated on the non-existence of reality.
All these are anecdotes but if you work in schools you see it. Universities are seeing it.
Yes, they are.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:54 AM on July 6 [5 favorites]
All these are anecdotes but if you work in schools you see it. Universities are seeing it.
Yes, they are.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:54 AM on July 6 [5 favorites]
I am pretty sure that a lot of the lockdown toddlers went from having structured day care while their parents worked, to being asked please, please to be quiet and NOT INTERRUPT while their parent worked.
If the daycare notices that little Violet is just sitting there and has no idea what to do with the crayons, they come over and talk to her and put a crayon in her hand and demonstrate making marks and make soothing and reassuring noises. And Violet can probably look up and see a couple of other kids, one scribbling big round circles, one trying to fill in as much space as possible with up and down strokes on a figure on a colouring page, and one attempting to draw shapes and lines. She's got models for what to do with a crayon that she too can probably attempt with good success. It doesn't matter if what she does with the crayon looks more like obliterating the figure of Anna than colouring it in, it will be close enough to be satisfying.
But little Violet at home sits with her colouring book and maybe jabs at the paper a couple of times, and in her head she has a distant image of the printed page of a picture book which is in colour, not black and white, and clearly poking the paper with the crayon is not turning one into the other, so what's the point?
Forty five minutes later, the parent goes on break and has five minutes to pee, and look in on Violet before they have to get back into Zoom. They are not going to recreate the information on how to colour provided by three peers and one teacher in that three and one half minutes left after they pee, especially if they have to take Violet to potty because she's starting that stage.
But in this case, let's say Violet is especially intelligent and creative, and figuring out that poking the crayon on the paper is not producing any interesting result, she decides to experiment on her own. Forty five minutes later the parent is looking at the table, the floor and the wall, and wondering if they can get their damage deposit back, and little Violet will be strongly discouraged from taking initiative in future. She's going to get handed the stacking rings and the crayons are going on the top shelf.
A few more incidents like that, and facing the possibility of a manager telling them that of course they should take all the time they need with their child - only the manager has a brittle edge to their voice, and not being a parent they don't mean five and a half hours out of a seven hour working day - and the parent hands Violet the only tool they can think of that will hold Violet's attention totally trapped. They turn on a screen.
So of course the toddlers who went through this are screwed up and developmentally lagging and have missed some critical development windows.
What I remember about the pandemic is this: My friends with kids being absolute vectors for infection. One worked a forward facing job, dealing with desperate people. Everybody masked and she spent eight hours a day in a mask, dealing with extremely stressed people who were also wearing masks. And while she was doing this, as she had split custody of two children, she was playing musical childcare. One child spent time with the other grandmother, the father, two different friends of their own and their families, and two adult family friends in his own home all depending on who was available when and where. The other child spent time with her grandparents, one of her friends at their home and an adult family friend at home, as well as being left alone periodically while being at a borderline age where it was perhaps neither safe nor legal. Both kids also interacted with each other, but from their list the only adult they had in common was their father and the working grandmother I mentioned initially. Remember when we were supposed to bubble? This is how that one family bubbled and I was horrified. They had a twenty person leaky bubble, attached to half a dozen other leaky large group bubbles. But the alternative was for the adults to quit working, which would have resulted in the kids going into foster care, and the loss of the family home after a couple of months.
Remember how livid the pro lockdown people were about them reopening the schools too soon? They were furious because they feared dying, and they weren't wrong. Many of them did die. They reopened the schools because keeping children at home wasn't working. Either the parents weren't really working, or the family was in crisis, or their bubbles had become so porous as to resemble a forty person polycule. When we reopened the schools they were not yet sure that ventilation even would make a difference, and were only following the everybody mask and social distance rules. One school I know of held all their possible classes outside and took their kids on as many field trips to places they could get to on foot and social distance while there, which means that they spent a good two-thirds of the school day not actually offering instruction. They went through their entire year's budget for extra mural activities in one month. And all that happened before they even started talking about how to retrofit tightly sealed up schools to have ventilation. It seems to me it was many months after they had reopened schools that they got serious about ventilation. I think that had to wait until the next lockdown when they could get work people in to install HVAC ducting.
I think that for the kids the biggest issue with lockdown was the damage done to the ones who had only one caretaker. The thing about a little kid having only one caretaker is that that caretaker ends up doing all the emotional regulation for the kid. Bored? Kid has no way to figure that out, other than if the adult solves it for them. Scared? The kid has no model for how to deal with fear, unless they go to the adult. Angry? Any anger they express gets curated by the adult who will, naturally, attempt to defuse the situation and help them calm down, because it would be height of cruel to yell back, or lock the kid into their room and ignore their howling.
Learning emotional regulation requires kids to have different people who react differently to their emotional ups and downs - peers or tribe members that ignore them, peers or tribe members that get upset and cry, peers that smirk, peers that pat them on the back, peers that tell them they were mean, or that whoever distressed them was mean, peers that lose their temper and react with anger and verbally attack them, peers that tell them to get over it already, it was just a stupid crayon. Kids need to learn not to trust the peer that smirks, to not lose it in front of the one who will attack them when they get upset, to watch out for upsetting the over sensitive one, to find validation from peers who react in different ways. But when you only have one, or maybe two caretakers and no other people, you don't get to practice different methods of emotional self regulation, and you don't get to see that all the varying reactions to your emotional storms are all valid.
Kids who don't get to be around other people and who don't get to be alone unsupervised are only going to learn two methods of emotional regulation - dependency on a significant other to do it for them, and numb immersion in electronics. Neither of these is going to come with them when they leave the lock down bubble and get put into school.
What makes this even worse is that often you get a situation where a very little kid is dependent on the adult for stimulation. They want a constant companion and the adult wants to get adult stuff done. So the kid makes constant bids for attention while the adult fobs them off. "Just colour until I get through the Zoom call, Sweetie." The kid NEEDS interactions. Staring at a pictures of Elsa in a colouring book all day doesn't allow them to practiced speech and language comprehension, decoding context, physics, math, cause and effect, ability to mitigate consequences, whereas a scenario like - "...NO! Don't...! Aw man, are you hurt? You can't climb on the book case, it's not designed for that! Okay, you sure you not hurt? We got to pick the books up now. Let me make sure it's secure first. Can you put them in the bottom while I put them in the top?" - does give the kid the chance to practice all those things.
So the kid is going to have two primary ways of getting more interactions: Being bad and forcing the interactions by doing things that requires the adult to intervene (deliberately climbing on bookcase or scribbling on walls because they know those things upset the adult), or being upset and causing the adult to intervene in order to rescue them from the cause of the upset. This is the natural way we interact with babies. It sleeps, we beam. It howls, we leap to figure out what is wrong.
When there are not enough people to interact with a little kid, they can easily end up in a situation where lack of self regulation is reinforced. The worse the kid's self regulation, the more interactions they get. They get dependent and anxious if they can't get the adult to come and interact and sooth them, so any time the adult doesn't come they get even more upset, a vicious circle which leads them towards being needier and struggling with emotional regulation even more with every cycle. Either the adult is upset, or the kid is upset. And that's a terrible foundation for learning social skills. The kid attempts to gain regulation by upsetting the adult, and learns to equate an upset adult with an engaged adult. If the adult is not getting upset, then clearly they are not paying attention and the child is at risk of abandonment to their terrifying out of control emotions.
How well the kids are going to compensate for their early life experiences just brings us to the nature/nurture debate. Nurturing during lockdown, despite millions of parents' best efforts has been deficient. There is a generation that is going to live with that. How serious it is, who knows? But as a parent I don't believe that the toddler years don't make a difference. The interesting thing is that it's not entirely a class divide. While the people with fewer resources are going to be hardest hit, lock down for many middle class people involved voluntary deprivation. And I think in-person social interactions couldn't be replaced with aunts doing zoom calls, and more educational toys, or even a non working parent devoting themself entirely to providing stimulation and social experiences.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:42 AM on July 6 [9 favorites]
Stay at home parenting is not the same as staying at home. Kids under 3 normally go out everywhere, see a lot of people and different situations.
A nuclear family with 2.1 kids living some kind of individualistic 1950s suburban existence has also not been a historical norm at all and the myth that it is is not great to see repeated here. Even so, to go back to the 70s when I was 7 or 8 and my sister was 2-3 and our mum was a SAHM, she ran with all the neighbourhood kids and I was responsible for her...trust me that she got plenty of socialization, some of which was really shitty but sitting at home was simply not a thing. We were in and out everyone's homes, as my parents were themselves growing up in the actual 50s.
This is not the same as insisting on group care.
Also, these utopian parents are not stressed out trying to work on Zoom and probably handing them devices to get through the last 20 minutes of the presentation or whatever, which research is showing is detrimental.
It's extremely frustrating to continue to see people denying the damage done to all of us, even if that damage was necessary. And yes, that also involved loss and trauma and fear. Remember that kids under 2 couldn't be vaccinated for a long time, so those families often were the last to be able to do anything.
This isn't relevant except for context but the seniors in my life also lost a ton - cognitive abilities, social skills. It's still not great.
My wish is not that we continue to litigate the past response but that we recognize the gaps and help us all get over it, whether that's funding education better for 10 years, setting up study groups or heck, recreational experiences that will help people get their feet back under them.
You know the legion halls they created for veterans after the war? If we're spitballing, I wish for those for all of us - community centres that should have been there all along, to re-establish our connections and social contracts. But that doesn't help this cohort of kids, because it's a wish. What we need is funding. Vote accordingly locally, Americans, and provincially, Canadians.
On preview, seconding Jane the Brown.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:56 AM on July 6 [10 favorites]
A nuclear family with 2.1 kids living some kind of individualistic 1950s suburban existence has also not been a historical norm at all and the myth that it is is not great to see repeated here. Even so, to go back to the 70s when I was 7 or 8 and my sister was 2-3 and our mum was a SAHM, she ran with all the neighbourhood kids and I was responsible for her...trust me that she got plenty of socialization, some of which was really shitty but sitting at home was simply not a thing. We were in and out everyone's homes, as my parents were themselves growing up in the actual 50s.
This is not the same as insisting on group care.
Also, these utopian parents are not stressed out trying to work on Zoom and probably handing them devices to get through the last 20 minutes of the presentation or whatever, which research is showing is detrimental.
It's extremely frustrating to continue to see people denying the damage done to all of us, even if that damage was necessary. And yes, that also involved loss and trauma and fear. Remember that kids under 2 couldn't be vaccinated for a long time, so those families often were the last to be able to do anything.
This isn't relevant except for context but the seniors in my life also lost a ton - cognitive abilities, social skills. It's still not great.
My wish is not that we continue to litigate the past response but that we recognize the gaps and help us all get over it, whether that's funding education better for 10 years, setting up study groups or heck, recreational experiences that will help people get their feet back under them.
You know the legion halls they created for veterans after the war? If we're spitballing, I wish for those for all of us - community centres that should have been there all along, to re-establish our connections and social contracts. But that doesn't help this cohort of kids, because it's a wish. What we need is funding. Vote accordingly locally, Americans, and provincially, Canadians.
On preview, seconding Jane the Brown.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:56 AM on July 6 [10 favorites]
Seriously where do you people love where they didn’t upgrade ventilation in schools? There was federal funding for that.
Canada
But also, my understanding is that a lot of Red states refused the funding, or a lot of it got redirected to cronies of their governor for various only tangentially related supposed projects, etc.
posted by eviemath at 7:31 AM on July 6 [5 favorites]
Canada
But also, my understanding is that a lot of Red states refused the funding, or a lot of it got redirected to cronies of their governor for various only tangentially related supposed projects, etc.
posted by eviemath at 7:31 AM on July 6 [5 favorites]
I fee like these discussions always circle around an unstated "if only we'd tried harder, it would have been fine," and--no. Nothing was going to be fine. Many people love to trot out their favorite statistics and anecdotes in service of justifying their pet opinions, but a pandemic was always going to fuck things up. It was maybe a question of which things and how badly, but most of the Monday morning quarterbacking seems to me to be predicated on the non-existence of reality.
There was actually a small window where if the Trump administration hadn’t dismantled Obama era pandemic monitoring and preparations, and hadn’t borked international relations, we might actually have been able to prevent covid-19 from becoming a global pandemic. But I agree that the point to take from that is more around what systems we need to build back up and further improve upon for the future.
I think this is part of what some folks who supported lockdowns are reacting to - a sense that some other folks who opposed lockdowns are claiming that if we just hadn’t done lockdowns, kids’ mental health and learning would now be fine. And yeah, no. That would have led to different traumas related to deaths of people in their lives. There are places around the world that didn’t do long lockdowns (including places around the US, eg. in rural areas or more conservative states where people didn’t follow the original short lockdowns much despite it being technically required, and any further lockdowns impacting the 2019-2020 or later school years were strongly opposed). It would be interesting to see comparative data on child socialization and educational outcomes.
But back to my original point: it’s easy to feel like there’s a generic internet straw man opposing whatever our viewpoint or concern is. When a bunch of comments pass by and the next ten comment after yours are reacting to something else from earlier or from outside the comment thread even, we naturally feel unheard. But most people are somewhere in the middle, understanding that there were risk trade-offs in both directions.
I think the really important take-away to focus on, though, is that any framing that pits physical and mental health concerns against each other is what we should be rebelling against. We should be looking to build economic systems and social safety nets that, to the best extent possible, don’t force such a choice. And it is possible to do far, far better in that goal than we have done - though yes that would require significant structural changes, especially in the US. Historically, major upheavals such as pandemics do provide opportunities for deeper structural change, however (a fact that disaster capitalists routinely take advantage of, but that could also be used for good).
posted by eviemath at 7:53 AM on July 6 [10 favorites]
There was actually a small window where if the Trump administration hadn’t dismantled Obama era pandemic monitoring and preparations, and hadn’t borked international relations, we might actually have been able to prevent covid-19 from becoming a global pandemic. But I agree that the point to take from that is more around what systems we need to build back up and further improve upon for the future.
I think this is part of what some folks who supported lockdowns are reacting to - a sense that some other folks who opposed lockdowns are claiming that if we just hadn’t done lockdowns, kids’ mental health and learning would now be fine. And yeah, no. That would have led to different traumas related to deaths of people in their lives. There are places around the world that didn’t do long lockdowns (including places around the US, eg. in rural areas or more conservative states where people didn’t follow the original short lockdowns much despite it being technically required, and any further lockdowns impacting the 2019-2020 or later school years were strongly opposed). It would be interesting to see comparative data on child socialization and educational outcomes.
But back to my original point: it’s easy to feel like there’s a generic internet straw man opposing whatever our viewpoint or concern is. When a bunch of comments pass by and the next ten comment after yours are reacting to something else from earlier or from outside the comment thread even, we naturally feel unheard. But most people are somewhere in the middle, understanding that there were risk trade-offs in both directions.
I think the really important take-away to focus on, though, is that any framing that pits physical and mental health concerns against each other is what we should be rebelling against. We should be looking to build economic systems and social safety nets that, to the best extent possible, don’t force such a choice. And it is possible to do far, far better in that goal than we have done - though yes that would require significant structural changes, especially in the US. Historically, major upheavals such as pandemics do provide opportunities for deeper structural change, however (a fact that disaster capitalists routinely take advantage of, but that could also be used for good).
posted by eviemath at 7:53 AM on July 6 [10 favorites]
> any framing that pits physical and mental health concerns against each other is what we should be rebelling against.
Ah, I am fully in favor of quarantines next time we find ourselves in this situation. What makes me furious is the priorities. Where I live, the goddamn casinos were open while the schools were closed.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on July 6 [7 favorites]
Ah, I am fully in favor of quarantines next time we find ourselves in this situation. What makes me furious is the priorities. Where I live, the goddamn casinos were open while the schools were closed.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on July 6 [7 favorites]
I think all you guys imagining children at home while mom and dad work on the computer are still being too optimistic. I am imagining children going to an under the table, at home daycare at a neighbor's house and the neighbor literally has them in a swing with the TV on for the entire day except when they are being bottle fed.
Too extreme? My child was at a "legitimate" daycare that was like this. Average age to crawl was 11 months old there. There are absolute horror stories out there.
posted by subdee at 9:20 PM on July 6 [4 favorites]
Too extreme? My child was at a "legitimate" daycare that was like this. Average age to crawl was 11 months old there. There are absolute horror stories out there.
posted by subdee at 9:20 PM on July 6 [4 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
-Kids these days. Pathetic, am I right?
-Kids these days, and why it's all [group's] fault.
-These kids need help. To stay sane in a woke world!
-These kids need help. The only solution is to give this billionaire/fundamentalist control over education and all our money.
On review, this seems like a collection of vague anecdotes (solid post title) so people can fill their own pick from that list. Efficient!
posted by Garm at 8:32 AM on July 5 [32 favorites]