But What About Me?

Cartoon rendition of me,
with brown-and-grey hair, fair skin,
green eyes, and a sarcastic expression

I have a half-formed thought, and I'm going to flesh it out here in my blog.

The people who want school back in person right now come hell or high water, and the people who get all bent out of shape because they didn't get X deal so why should anyone else, these groups seem to have a lot of overlap.

I'm sure there's a Venn diagram in this somewhere.

The folks who are upset about a proposed $15 minimum wage or the ones who are mad because they've already paid off their student loans so why should anyone else get a break? And the ones who seem to think that only their families' experiences count regarding online schooling? These are very often the same people.

Is it a lack of empathy? Some of these people are seriously being bullies by this point. Especially to teachers, whom they seem to think of as some sort of sacrificial lambs.

An inability to imagine other ways to do things? Sometimes things need to be done differently. Like hybrid schooling. Or in our house, lots and lots of art projects and baking, and taking the lessons that come with them. 

Unrestrained capitalism? The mindset of "our kids are falling behind" presumes that they're going to come out the other side of this into the same world, because falling behind whom? People competing for the same jobs in the same sectors doing the same things they always have? I think that's unlikely.

Or D: All of the above?

I mean, Abby is a senior in high school. She's doing fine academically with online schooling, but she loathes it, and she's a very social person. She is Not Happy, but she's also - despite her sometimes vague aspect and her indecisive nature - very pragmatic in many ways. She's more or less of the opinion that we'll get there eventually and everyone should just chill.

Liz is in seventh grade, not doing well academically or socially with distance learning, and still realizes she's safer at home, regardless of boredom and apathy and general teenage angst, pandemic edition. And I am honestly not that fussed about it. The requirements have been made very clear: she has to at least pass her classes. Anything more than passing, in seventh grade during a pandemic, is a bonus.

Many people are so caught up in the "normal" that they can't see that it's gone. They just want it back so desperately that they are actually torches-and-pitchforks about it.

Ah, I guess that means E is All of the Above. Evidently D: is Cannot Cope with Change.

I might not be great at change, but if there's one thing I learned during Laston's last illness and after his death, it's that Things Change. They just do.

Quit hanging onto the Old Normal. It's gone. Deal with what's going on now.