Those of us with kids in a pandemic are not ok
January is already almost half over, but this is my first post of the year so... happy new year!
Yeah, 2022 has been a weird one already. My family has been in various states of quarantining and isolation since 12/26 when my husband tested positive with a mild case of covid. A week later, my younger son and I tested positive on our day 7 PCR, although we have yet to test positive on our at home rapids and are thankfully asymptomatic.
My older son continues to test negative although even if he makes it out from our cases, it seems pretty iffy as to whether he’ll make it out of the next few weeks of school, although both my kids schools have thankfully put a lot of precautions in place and have low transmission up until now. And we are all fully vaxxed.
I share this only because when I posted it on Facebook, several people thanked me. I know a lot of people are testing positive and not sharing about it, and I understand that.
At the same time, when we don’t share, we can feel alone, and things that are systemic failings can feel like personal ones.
I’ll admit it has been demoralizing and disappointing to get it after being so careful for almost two years. But my husband has been required back in his office full time since Labor Day 2020 so in many ways I know we worked hard and were lucky not to get it earlier.
It’s disheartening to be quarantining when my boys have done so well these past few months back at in person school, but they’ve kept their spirits up surprisingly well which has been heartening, and I do hope we’re not facing longer term shutdowns.
I’m grateful for vaccinations and mild/asymptomatic cases, and that we have access to testing and can work from home.
But I've also been thinking a lot about the systemic and intergenerational roots of trauma, hyper-vigilance, anxiety, over-responsibility and depression.
I am becoming more and more aware of how, as women of color, we are socialized to make ourselves over-responsible for.... everything. And we don’t just make ourselves over-responsible - we are made over-responsible, used as workhorses while being undermined, dismissed, devalued and uncredited.
And those of us with kids in a pandemic are not ok.
Kids, if vaccinated, may be getting multiple exposures in school, or else if not yet fully vaccinated, or if they’ve tested positive, they are at home quarantining.
Some schools are closing, or will be or are remote for now - and it’s hard to know whether to hope they close or not.
Lines for PCR testing involve, in some cases, waits for multiple hours, appointments that are unavailable for days, or long turnaround times (luckily in NYC, LabQ has proven pretty quick for us most of the time).
At home test kits, which could help mitigate both health risks and disruptions, are sold out in pharmacies and hard to get quickly online, not to mention expensive.
Continual risk assessments have to be made to weigh mental health and disappointment over cancelled plans for our kids who have already been so much against individual, family and public health.
In some ways, I feel slightly liberated in that we already had it and so it doesn’t seem quite so scary anymore even though I know we could get re-infected and I’m still worried about long term impact. At this point, short of locking yourself down completely, the risks are there. I know we did our best.
Be gentle with yourselves and your team members these coming weeks. Acknowledge the current situation, challenges and fears. Offer support. Focus on needs. Advocate for prioritizing staff needs rather than corporate or organizational interests... because prioritizing staff needs ultimately IS prioritizing corporate or organizational interests.
Wishing you all the best for 2022... for all of us.
Banner photo by Rubén Rodriguez on Unsplash
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