Being a parent is (still) the worst right now
Being a parent is (still) the worst right now
We have to be strong for our kids, but who will be strong for us? How long do we keep going round and round this wacky merry-go-round, and when do we get to jump off?
Back in December, I wrote about how much it sucked to be a parent of little kids, due to the Omicron tidal wave and feeling left behind by society. It was my hope that that was the peak of pandemic parenting, and we’d soon be on the up and up. Our littlest ones would get their vaccines, immunity would be high, and poof! We’re back!
Now it’s more than four months later, and somehow things are actually—dare I say it—worse.
Ugh.
Two weeks ago, it was estimated that Ontario now faces over 100,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day.
100,000!
That number is mind-boggling. Remember when we worried that it was approaching 1,000? What’s next? 500,000? A million?
I’ve lost all sense of where this thing is headed and what’s to come. All I know is things are wild out there. And parents are once again losing their minds (not that we ever stopped. Maybe for a few minutes back in the summer of 2020? I honestly can’t remember).
So without further delay, here are some (more) reasons it sucks to be a parent of young children right now.
Mask mandates and most public health measures have been dropped
I admit I was excited about the idea of not needing masks anymore.
My kids would get to see their teachers’ faces for the first time! And learn about facial expressions! No more panicking over ensuring everyone has multiple clean masks every time we leave the house!
But unfortunately, we still very much need masks (see above—100,000! Per DAY!). But our government has failed us, and many of our fellow humans have failed us. People are taking off their masks and walking into the grocery store, and based on the math, some of them definitely have Covid.
Yikes.
So now my kiddos are at greater risk, which means more illness (of all kinds) and missed school and daycare and work, and general disruption to our lives. And ironically (thankfully), their teachers are still wearing masks. And my five year-old and his friends are still wearing masks. So they’re not even getting to benefit from the no-mask mandate. Nothing has changed for them, except the steep increase in cases.
Coooool. Cool cool.
It now feels even scarier to take our kids anywhere indoors
After two years of doing pretty much nothing, I was finally starting to feel somewhat okay with taking my kids to indoor places. With cases starting to drop and my eldest fully vaccinated, a bit of risk felt reasonable. We even took my two year-old to the Science Centre—his first-ever indoor public outing. And both of my kids had their first indoor playdates with a friend.
Hope was on the horizon! I saw it!
And now, as I stare at the many mask-less, coughing faces wandering through the supermarket, picking up prescriptions in drugstores, walking through the mall—I again feel torn about taking my kids anywhere. Especially the little guy. And on that note…
Our under-5’s still have no vaccines
A pediatric vaccine will be available in April! No wait, July! Okay, no, by end of year! Oops, nope, maybe this summer!
This promise of a vaccine for kids under five years old has been dangling in front of us for more than a year now, and we still don’t have it. And once we do, will it be good enough? How long will it last?
I’m so jaded at this point from the constant back-and-forth that I don’t even know how I’ll feel once it’s here. It no longer feels like there’s any real way out of this.
This entire vaccine narrative has felt incredibly anti-climactic. I think it’s safe to say we’re all pretty fed up at this point. There’s still hope, but it doesn’t feel as bright as it once did.
We made our kids give everything up so they wouldn’t get Covid. And now they’re all getting Covid.
We’ve gotten to a point in the pandemic where our choices appear to be:
A) Lock our children up forever
B) Allow them and their friends and all their families to get Covid
Obviously, I’ve simplified that a bit.
But also, that’s pretty much where we’re at.
The rest of the world has moved on and decided the pandemic is over, so our kids must pay the price.
They’ll probably be okay. Mostly. A few might not. And maybe some will have long Covid. Who knows! But hey, there’s not much we can do about it. So we have to find a way to accept it, after being told for two years straight that WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING WE CAN TO AVOID THE BIG BAD VIRUS (and telling our wee children the same).
The cognitive dissonance here is real. And it’s making my brain spin. I constantly waffle between, “Oh well, it is what it is, we did our best” to “WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHY WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!”
We are completely burnt out
I think every parent with young kids that I know of has reached a new low over the last couple of weeks.
Our kids are in an endless cycle of illness and exposure to illness.
The rules are changing every week and no one really knows what’s happening anymore.
People are flinging off their masks mid-flight and cheering… next to unmasked, unvaccinated infants and toddlers.
We’re all trying to hold it together, but there’s nothing for us really to hold on to. We are on edge, anxious, stressed, depleted, confused, apathetic, angry—some combination of all of the above.
We have to be strong for our kids, but who will be strong for us? How long do we keep going round and round this wacky merry-go-round, and when do we get to jump off?
I truly want to believe that after this monstrous wave, we’re nearing the end of the worst of it and the never-ending flip-flopping will stop. But I don’t know what I believe anymore. I no longer start sentences to my kids with, “When the virus is over…” because I don’t even know what that means anymore. The promise of last spring and summer seems like a fever dream.
So, parents, here we are, once again. Stuck in this strange in-between world. It’s weird and lonely. But we have each other. I’m both sorry and grateful you’re here with me, as I am with you.
Hang in there.
Things will get better.
(They have to… right?)
Things I’m enjoying right now 😍
If you haven’t already watched The Dropout, I highly recommend you do, mostly for Amanda Seyfried’s bonkers performance
Some good tips here for the doomscrollers among us: “We believe that if we have all the facts, we can make better decisions and protect ourselves from danger. This illusion of control and safety is a fallacy, though. There is a never-ending supply of information to consume, so we never feel like we have all the information—because we don’t, and we can’t.” 🤯
This dad’s audition on Britain’s Got Talent is a nice break from all the chaos in the world (but also, if my kids ever did this to me, I’d probably die)