2021 has been a crazy and horrible year for the world.
The Delta variant is on the cusp of wreaking havoc where I live and my twins desperately want to go to school. They did remote learning last year for grade 2 so they haven’t seen their friends for almost two years now.
How can I deny them going to school?
How can I tell them again that they can’t attend birthday parties, go on field trips and have pizza parties?
I’m secretly dying inside and not many people are on my side.
One of my recent entrepreneur friends started sharing how she doesn’t use masks, doesn’t feel the COVID-19 vaccinations are effective or safe and that she will not send her daughter to school with a mask.
All in my local Facebook group the moms are desperate to send their kids to school. Many of them blame remote learning and how their kid is dumber now. Or that they don’t have the bandwidth for their 4 kids to do remote learning.
Or the hundreds of dollars for printer ink.
I don’t know if our situation was different, but my twins rarely printed anything and they learned so much that they are reading chapter books on their own, doing mental math and telling time. And they are 8 years old.
I’m sure moms who read this either feel the same way or don’t. I understand, this is my situation, my experience and my life that I share online.
Right now, my twins are registered to go back to school in September and right now – today – there are 3 active COVID-19 cases in town.
But, next week the government is opening the borders to the States. What I see in Toronto will come to our city in 6 weeks time.
My twins aren’t old enough to get vaccinated and every day it’s leaning towards remote learning…again…
But, I’m scared for my twins. I’m scared of what will happen to them emotionally and socially if they do another year of remote learning without friends, without parties, or without play dates.
I’m scared for sending them to school unprotected (i.e. without a vaccination), worried that the parents of the children in my twins’ class are hopefully vaccinated, worried that my son – if he does get COVID-19 will be gravely sick because any sickness he gets ruminates in his chest.
I’m just scared about the choice my husband and I have to make and disappointing my twins, hearing the judgement from my MIL since she thinks we are crazy for still doing Instacart for groceries, still not going places and just saying put.
We are fortunate that my husband and I are able to work from home indefinitely and that my twins do well with online learning.
I have a feeling we will be pushed by family to send them to school and I really do want to. If the cases in town remain low then they can at least go to school for a few weeks and see their friends and learn in a classroom.
I hope, I pray, I wish, I want….
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