I am having a lot of stress dreams of this sort: (1) I show up to babysit someone’s child, then suddenly realize this means we’re essentially combining our household bubble with theirs. I decide it’s not worth backing out of my commitment at the last second and I just won’t babysit again after this—and then the parents’ large group of friends shows up and I realize they’re not social distancing AT ALL!! and so I say I can’t stay, and they make fun of me and roll their eyes at how ridiculous I’m being. (2) I am hanging out with a friend, and suddenly remember WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO!! (3) I am at the library where I work, even though the director has specifically instructed all non-scheduled employees to stay out, and I am there by mistake, and she will know I was there because there are cameras, and in fact maybe I am the reason she had to send that email about staying out!! (4) I am back at work after the restrictions have been lifted, and I can’t remember how to do anything!! HOW DO WE DO MAGAZINE DISCARDS?? (I have not yet been involved with magazine discards, which is why my dream self couldn’t figure it out.)
I seem to have wrenched my shoulder/shoulderblade. It happened when, I am not kidding, I lifted my hairbrush to brush my hair.
Cleaning the house at first had a feeling of can-do spirit, but now that we’re on the second round of it (cleaning the same sinks again, vacuuming the same floors again), the thrill has worn off. I’ll say this: I am very glad we’re still paying the cleaners, not only because it felt like The Right Thing To Do in our situation, but also because I WANT THEM BACK AFTER THIS. (I wince as I proof-read this paragraph. The privilege! The whining! Yeek.)
We’re still taking near-daily walks. We go when it’s nice out. When it’s rainy, we say we really ought to go anyway, but then we don’t.
I’ve been tentatively placing more non-perishable grocery orders from Target (like, the kind of orders from the online site that come through the mail, not the pick-up or store-delivery kind), in an attempt to reduce how much I have to put into my cart at the grocery store, and to reduce how often we need to go there. I am conflicted about this and taking it order by order rather than trying to make sweeping household policy decisions. Food and other supplies must come to our houses in some way, and it is so hard to know what’s best. And I am seeing it framed so radically differently from person to person—everything from “Oh, so I guess it’s okay to RISK THE DELIVERY PERSON’S LIFE to save YOUR OWN!!!” to “We MUST support/protect these companies/employees/jobs by ordering online!” I’m still sort of waiting for us as a society to settle into what is the Right Thing To Do, but currently we’re still in the stage of hearing constant hot takes about how every single possible choice is wrong, which is unhelpful.
The kids are continuing to do their classes online. I don’t call it “homeschooling,” and I will tell you why: parents who do actual homeschooling (meaning they choose to do that instead of sending the children to school) have to figure out how to teach the information, and they have to develop lesson plans, and research/acquire supporting books/materials, and develop/find assignments and projects to support the lesson, and then grade those assignments and evaluate whether the information has been sufficiently learned, and then follow up with reviews of those lessons later—just the way teachers do. And my mom is a teacher so I know all that behind-the-scenes stuff is a MAMMOTH amount of work (especially with a whole CLASS of kids, with different learning styles), and it’s what teachers go to school to learn how to do. And I am not doing ANY of that. The kids are doing school at home, but they are not being homeschooled: the teachers are still doing the schooling. It reminds me of when my ex-boyfriend was telling me he was a stay-at-home dad, and I was surprised/impressed because I wouldn’t have thought he was the type—and then it turned out what he meant was that he had a job he could do from home, and he was doing it from his home office while a full-time nanny cared for his baby. The term “stay-at-home parent” means something, just as “homeschooling” means something: being at home + being a parent doesn’t necessarily make a person a stay-at-home parent, and having kids at home + having them do school from home doesn’t necessarily mean they’re homeschooled. Even though I think we can all plainly understand that having kids do school from home can involve a significant increase in involvement and work and hair-tearing on the parental side of things.
I am so conflicted on the deliveries! I don’t want to overburden our delivery people, but also I want to support businesses. I have tried to be sparing with the number of things I order, and yet here is what I have deemed “necessities” : a new pair of flip flops after my favorite/only pair broke, hand soap from bath and body works, after I tried and failed to find some at the store, and a new comforter from a department store, which was a total clearance impulse purchase. The mental gymnastics it takes for me to justify all of this is exhausting. Please someone declare what We as Americans should do, and I will do it.
We have been having our groceries delivered once a week. Here’s my thought on it—consolidating grocery delivery to once a week and having a Shipt employee do it helps people out of the store. One person can collect and deliver groceries for multiple people in a day, which reduces the potential for the virus to spread. Fewer people in the store means that the people who are there are able to social distance more effectively.
The Shipt people are paid a percentage of the order total, so one large order a week compensates them for their time more than many smaller orders. And because their service is so important right now, and they ARE risking their health, your tip can reflect that.
It’s one of those things that probably doesn’t have a right/wrong to it. It’s just what you think is going to do the most good.
To me it definitely seems like delivery people is a Better Option. It seems like the fewer people out and about in stores = less risk for EVERYONE, including those people who do need to be in stores – both the store employees and the delivery people. Especially for something like a Target delivery, my assumption (perhaps incorrect?) is that someone in Target is doing the shopping/collecting/bagging, then the delivery person is picking up thsoe bags and depositing them on your doorstep. That seems quite possible to accomplish with minimal social interaction / virus-spreading… although ONLY if the person collecting the items in Target is not meandering through a store full of shoppers. Plus both Target and the delivery folks get paid! I know I am trying to make this work for me so I don’t feel bad, but I do genuinely think this is better than going to the store. (Not that I can always avoid going to the store, because in my region I haven’t been able to secure a delivery slot from any store, through any means, for over 3 weeks. But. Ideally.)
My stress dreams are not directly covid19-y, but are like YOU ARE ON A SHIP THAT IS SINKING AND CAN’T FIND THE RIGHT HALLWAY TO GET UP TO THE TOP or YOU ARE IN A HOUSE THAT IS ON FIRE AND CAN’T FIND THE RIGHT DOOR TO EXIT AND NOT GET BURNED. So you know, not exactly subtle, either.
I solidly appreciate your description of the teaching profession here! I am hoping lots of others will be figuring out that teaching is not just babysitting with added worksheets and will therefore respect us more!
Yes to all of this. And I was coming in to say what Alice and Sarah said, that the more we stay home and get things delivered to us, the less anyone comes in contact with other people. The cashiers and shelvers will come in contact with fewer people. Drop-off on the doorstep is a contactless delivery.
My husband is now the designated errand runner. We are trying to figure out how to get our errands down to once every two weeks, and delivery is probably the way we’re going to go for most of it.
Swistle you are a wonderful, kind and thoughtful person. I respect you very much. I’m just going to offer my perspective. I live in an area with very few confirmed cases (so far). We are under a shelter at home order. I work at a large national chain store. People in my area are NOT taking any of this seriously. The store is full of people still. My store claims to be limiting customers, but it is a joke. On our busiest day we “didn’t come close” to maxing out how many people we let in. (Quote from my manager). The people I do see wearing masks and gloves seem to think it makes them invincible. I see more and more people wearing some kind of face covering, but a lot of times it is either only over their mouth, or pulled off their face altogether. My store had VERY empty shelves for a few days, but yesterday we actually still had toilet paper (the cheap no name stuff, but still…) when I left at the end of my shift. Used to be that Wednesday, mid-morning was a quiet time to shop…that doesn’t exist any more. So many people are off work. There is a line around the building before we open, and they have to stop people from coming in so we can close. It’s a steady stream all day long. Please, everyone, I implore you, keep doing whatever you can to keep you and your families safe. Thank you.
So our state closed everything down on 3/13 and then Youngest’s school district dithered for 2+ weeks about whether or not they were going to offer online schooling (Oldest goes to private school and they were ON IT with online schooling two days after schools closed down in person). Those 2+ weeks of dithering were the most stressful weeks of this entire month-long closure for me because I was panicking that our school district was just going to punt and say to hell with the last 3 months of school so I was trying to put together lesson plans and a coherent homeschooling strategy for Youngest while also working FT from home. My dad was a professor so I know how much work goes into developing a curriculum, finding materials, teaching those materials, and evaluating assignments/tests and I spent every moment knowing I was not doing anything like a decent job. Long response short: I was so thankful/relieved with Youngest school district decided to do online schooling and Youngest’s teacher started crushing it because yeah, online school is NOT homeschooling.
They were probably dithering because they had to figure out all the logistics on offering services for students with disabilities- if they jump right in to online instruction without those supports in place, they’re on the wrong side of the law despite their best intentions to get kids learning asap.
Initially they said they weren’t going to offer any online schooling for the duration for equity reasons: not everyone has access to a computer etc. That went on for two weeks and I was in a total state of panic because the chance of me being able to fully homeschool while also keeping my job for months on end seemed . . . remote. Then they about faced and distributed Chromebooks to everyone who asked for one and had the teachers get trained and start doing online school. I’ve never been so thankful for a school district change in direction in my life!
A++++ on homeschooling. When we sent our kids to school after 8 years of homeschooling, it was a relief. It’s SO MUCH EASIER to send them to school.
100% agree on the schooling situation. For my kids, it’s not homeschooling; it’s distance learning. However I am paying a pretty penny for that (private school), as our local school district is not at all set up for Distance learning YET! That’s 3 weeks of no direction from school, and then this is their spring break week. I feel for the kids slipping through the cracks during this time.
Also this regarding in-store shopping vs online vs pickup:
“I’m still sort of waiting for us as a society to settle into what is the Right Thing To Do, but currently we’re still in the stage of hearing constant hot takes about how every single possible choice is wrong, which is unhelpful.”
It’s the same argument for every aspect of functioning as a society, pandemic or not. I had to run into Target for a much needed OTC ailment relief med… I could have ninja-ed in and out as quick as possible, but I figured well, I’m in the store, might as well pick up bananas, milk, bread… essentials that we weren’t out of but were running low on. I struggle with whether that was “right” or “wrong.” Will we ever know the answer? No.
If you hadn’t gotten them then, you’d have had to go back in a few days, so probably better the way you did it to have just one cashier encounter, etc.
What Sarah! said.
So few people have articulated that my Homeschool I coordinate for my family has high merit. You validated that what I do isn’t a work from home job plus squeeze in worksheets with my kids to do school at home. I feel those who say “distance education” get the differences between traditional school experiences being brought into the house and a Homeschool model that never tried to replicate a traditional classroom setting. That’s for sharing!! PS. Our local schools just decided to give our Pass/Inc Scores and nothing affects GPA and no new learning goals will be need to met after the March 17 day they dismissed classes. Their policy is that at home learning is strongly encouraged and even expected but there aren’t punative actions that happen if you kid was just DONE today or March 18. My homeschooled children are incredulous and expected us to likewise stop learning. It’s so hard to explain the how education is a privilege and a delight instead of a burden or time filler.
Yes — my kid’s school is doing distance learning badly, and also not grading. Which, the latter is good given the former, but the former is a disappointment; we are a reasonably well provisioned district, and other less well provisioned districts are — I hear — doing a much better job.
Of course what my kid has taken from this is that he can be done with school (no, he can’t, and no, I’m not going to try to homeschool. I am patching in some Zoom-based tutoring, some of which had happened prior and other parts of which I am setting up now) and will reassess our school choice if it looks like next year will also be virtual because ugh.
Our schools are running the gamut from doing a great job – the high school – and not doing the greatest job – the elementary school. I think our middle school is doing ok, it is just very confusing. All of the work the kids do isn’t graded, but at least for my high schooler and my middle schooler the teachers are looking at the work at discussing it.
I will say that I totally get it. This is a poor rural area with spotty internet access – we are on the wrong side of the digital divide. For my fifth grader there are at least 70 kids in the entire grade and only 20 are accessing information on the google classroom. The teachers are having to provide digital access and paper copies to different students. There are definitely some of the kids who will slip through the cracks during this season and that is heartbreaking to me.
I signed my kids up for Khan academy as soon as this all started. I think it is a very helpful website for keeping their skills up to speed, but it’s really only good for math at the elementary level and maybe grammar. Also, computer programming if your kid likes that or is interested.
THANK YOU. Yes, this is distance learning NOT homeschooling for the vast majority of people. Which is not to say that is not a major change and challenge for many, BUT it’s not the same as homeschooling. I wish people would stop calling it that…
I don’t understand all the judginess about ordering deliveries! It seems like the alternative is, everyone stops ordering deliveries (and thus goes out in person more, spreading more illness), and all those delivery people are laid off because they’re not needed? Do we really think companies are going to keep paying their delivery people even if no orders are coming in? I don’t get it.
Do you watch The Good Place? Without spoiling anything, one of the takeaways from the series is how nowadays it is nearly impossible to Do the Right Thing because there are so many tradeoffs that there virtually is no one right thing. There are downsides to everything.
Our district calls it “distance learning” which makes sense, at least for my middle schooler and high schooler. They were already set up on Google Classroom and Canvas at school. My middle schooler will ask for some help but I can tell him to just ask his teacher, because I don’t know how to do 7th grade math.
I will say that for my 3rd grader it does feel more like “crisis schooling” as some have called it, rather than homeschooling. He came home with math worksheets and writing prompts and 16 books – with the hopes that they would go back after spring break – so next week. Which is not happening. They did give a little bit of a suggested schedule, saying to do an hour of math and an hour of reading and the gym teacher sent an e mail with ideas and the art teacher sent one piece of art suggestions. My son hates the math worksheets and it’s torture to get him to do them. He also hates to read. So I have had to figure out what to do with him – we use a dyslexia website we already had a subscription to and then I got him a free membership to a math worksheet and we used a math DVD we already owned to teach him more multiplication, then I decided to have him do a multiplication square and worked on him with that. We also did some online art videos. So in his case I am having to tailor it more to his needs because there’s been nothing online. I decided we would make him PJ pants together and call that school. Phase two is starting next week and another “packet” is coming in the mail, which I am dreading.
I do have many friends who homeschool and they have said that this is not the same – since they chose to do this and they have curriculum they picked out and they normally go out a lot to places. So I do prefer the “crisis schooling” term. And I’m glad I only have one elementary child. My friend has 4 elementary kids and that has to be hard to manage.
I keep having fragments of dreams about groceries and masks. Like I was picking up my middle schooler from school and kids were wearing masks and mine wasn’t. Last night I pretty much had a dream I was my freshman, playing clarinet in her musical – which was cancelled on opening night due to the pandemic – except I realized that I can’t actually play clarinet or read music.
I have a friend who has a tutoring business and shipt shops on the side. Right now her tutoring business has dropped dramatically but she’s able to make up her income shopping.
I never did grocery delivery before this but now I figure that most of the shipt people know the store much better than my husband even who usually does our shopping and so they are able to get in and out quickly and most of them know the cashiers so I feel like they are being very cautious. Or maybe I’m just super privileged and using it in this particular manner?
Let me tell you though— nothing has made me really feel my privilege more than this pandemic— nothing.
I managed to find a small, local grocery store that closed its doors to the public and is offering the most popular items online for delivery or pick up. I’ve also been buying a few things in bulk on Amazon (cat food, granola bars) and they’ve been arriving a lot faster than the website states. It’s good that I’ve kind of figured this out because it was announced Monday by our mayor and Department of Health that they don’t want us going outside at all this week and next! It would have been helpful to hear that last week. Last night I had a dream where I was hiding in an active shooter situation. I’m a night teeth grinder and I hope I have a few teeth left at the end of this!
I don’t get why deliveries is a risky job? You ride alone in a van and put packages outside people’s doors. No contact. Why is that risky?