Maria Bamford has a great show on Netflix called Lady Dynamite and the theme song had the following lyrics, “I don’t know what I’m doiiiing, more than half of the tiiiime.” It’s brilliant. The show was brilliant. She’s brilliant. We saw her on our honey moon. She wasn’t, like, invited on our honeymoon, but we watched her onstage at “Just For Laughs” in Montreal.
Anyhow, the Lady Dynamite theme song is how I feel as both a human and a parent. I felt this before COVID and I feel it intensely now that COVID has hit and I have a child under five. I am faced with impossible decisions daily. If you are a parent, you know what I mean:
I don’t know what I’m doiiing more than half of the tiiime.
I am no statistician. I took Statistics in undergrad and made a “D.” I would also like to mention that I took it again two years ago when I was thinking of getting a PhD and got an “A'” but that was only because all the tests were open book, and I am charming. Anyhow, I am ill-equipped to reason out the potential benefit versus calamity that these daily decisions seem to call for. Only an insurance-adjuster seems to be the right person to parent these days.
Husband and I have weekly meetings to discuss if my child should go to daycare. Not because we want to, but because some sh!t is always complicating things. Possible complications include: my provider’s child has been in contact with a classmate who has COVID, or a daycare classmate has a mom who has COVID but the classmate tested negative and is in quarantine Or my provider’s adult child who lives at home works with someone who tested positive. Or my child’s Pre-K has a person in the building who tested positive. What are the risks? What are the chances Boychild will get COVID? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doiiing more than half of the tiiime.
Couple that with the fact that I work hourly. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. Now, I am paid well for my hourly work, and I like what I do, but there are no paid days off. So, if Boychild’s classmate’s mother tested positive, but he’s negative and hasn’t been at daycare for four days, I have to weigh the odds that he will be fine versus what are the odds that I can get all my sh!t done and still be a wonderful loving parent while he stays home with me? I don’t know what I’m doiiing . . .
Y’all, it’s a lose/lose. And I feel that many of us are facing this, especially with kids under five and especially in hourly jobs. I’m sorry for us. Once again, my thoughts go out to the single parents. I love y’all and I’m so sorry that you all are in this position. You should not have to choose between exposing your child to a potentially deadly virus in order to make enough money to live, but here we are.
I am really lucky. I make a fine hourly wage and I have a Husband and family to help. But I know a lot of folks who don’t have these supports and to them, it’s really not a choice between working and not. They have to work. The kid or kids have to go somewhere.
I know some people are like, “you shouldn’t have a child if you can’t care for it.” And that’s fine thinking if you’re a monster. It’s also sexist, as most single parents are moms. A nice variant on the “you shouldn’t have a child if you can’t care for it” is “you shoulda kept your legs closed.” Yep. She opened her legs and got pregnant on her own (or by Zeus?). How irresponsible. Now she has as human to take care of on her own and can’t. She shoulda thought about that before she engaged in parthenogenesis. *eye roll*
But I digress.
Human beings need a lot of support to raise a kid: mental, physical, financial. And none of us talk about how hard raising a child is, so most people don’t know that they can’t care for their child until they have it and are thinking, “How am I going to make this work? This sh!t is impossible!” And that’s for a two-parent household! Add to that very little social support, lack of appreciation for women’s labor, a system built which praises profits over people and then add on top of THAT a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. How could I know what I’m doiiing . . .
Nowadays, how could anyone prepare for the absolute day-to-day chaos and uncertainty that we’re enduring during the pandemic? Also, people who are like, “blah blah be prepared” live in a fictional world where they thing that they can control everything. They can’t. We can’t. I have bottled water in the basement. I have extra food. Yet I have little control over my situation. That guy in line coughing with no mask while my son is 2 feet away from me? He’s putting my child, the person I hold most dear in the universe at risk. And there’s not a lot I can do about it. Some people have no sense of connection or responsibility to others. It’s a selfish way to live. We are all in this together, and your actions have meaning, Also, being prepared is nice, but it’s not useful when you never imagined the thing you’d need to be prepared for, i.e. a global pandemic.
So I limp along. Should the grandparents from Georgia to visit for Christmas? Even though one of them is sick? Event though they have to travel through airports where other potentially ill people dally?
Should Boychild go to the holiday party tomorrow at daycare even though the caregiver’s daughter may have been exposed at work?
Yes. The answer to both of these is yes. But, we say yes while taking precautions: we asked the grandparents to get tested and Boychild wore a mask all day at daycare. We have to live, man. We have to live. But we can do everything in our power to make sure our lives are spared from this deadly virus. When Boychild can get the vaccine, we will celebrate the hell out of that day. But ’til then, we don’t know what we’re doing. More than half of the time.
Update: Boychild’s daycare recently closed for a week due to COVID. He’s back now, but the future is uncertain. Here are some recent articles I found which perfectly reflect what I’m feeling.
Yep Again: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/opinion/parents-school-omicron.html
And yep some more: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/covid-parenting-challenges-stress/621322/?fbclid=IwAR1FZmcYf-mn90qdvLugIxXkca2npadCETOoqAeLnSpMj4NLCeEC0keUE5o
Fussy Pantz 