@jeremiahtolbert A big lesson for me is, “No, you don’t need to super-complicate everything.” Seriously.
Archives: Tweets
-
Can not fathom parents who wear masks properly but ignore their kids’ wearing masks under their chins. It just makes no sense to me, in potentially virus-laden spaces. (I have an ear infection, again. So back at the clinic, again. Sigh.) (And yes, I get it some individual kids might not be able to breathe, or might be exhaustingly stubborn. But this multiple kids today, in a potentially risky space.)
-
@leftoblique @jeeyonshim Thank you, you’re so kind and that is encouraging!
(I was kinda feeling a little, I don’t know, self-conscious, because, by comparison, @time_sock’s posts have been so utterly beautiful and understated and sometimes heartbreaking and perfect. 🙂 ) @leftoblique @jeeyonshim @time_sock And yes, it’s a great game!
-
@heavenspider @JustinHowe @GeekinKorea @hannytenny Ha, having an excuse to stay home is really something I always wanted. But it’s been hard when, in times like now, we’ve had to tell our son, “Um, let’s stay home and play instead! Wanna draw pictures!” when we know he wants to play with his little buddies.
-
@JustinHowe @heavenspider @GeekinKorea @hannytenny I mean, I know I’m not Fonzie or Richie, in this scenario. I like to think I’m like, a slightly more charismatic Mr. Cunningham, or perhaps a deranged Ralph Malph who’s been there and back again. @JustinHowe @heavenspider @GeekinKorea @hannytenny Oh God, now I’m imagining a 70s production of The Lord of the Rings for TV, with Donny Most cast as Frodo and Vincent Price as a much creepier Gandalf.
-
@JustinHowe @heavenspider @GeekinKorea @hannytenny Yes, that too. Kicking myself for not just getting two boxes of Costco beer. We’ll be down to just the pilsners soon. 🙁 @JustinHowe @heavenspider @GeekinKorea @hannytenny All of that said, it’s nice that none of us is worrying (ye) about being wheeled out when the guy who shouts, “BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!” swings by, at least. Small mercies.
-
@heavenspider @JustinHowe @GeekinKorea @hannytenny Yeah, I’m really regretting not having ordered more groceries a few days ago. 🙁 Not that I’ll wilt or anything, but… makes me think of that meme a few days ago, with the picture of rice and “you can eat two things with this.” Yep, that’s my immediate future.
-
I mean, not to invent scenarios, but… it’s quite possible these symptoms are just the first stage-effects. Maybe it’s worse over the long term. Maybe these cognitive effects will develop in a larger percentage of recoverees as time passes.
There’s so much we don’t know yet. Therefore we have to stop acting like we do know more than we do. We’re fumbling around in the dark, and way too many people are saying, “There’s not going to be a pit in here, let’s just keep moving.” No. You light a match. You move slowly, and look around.
-
Which, I don’t know what the Korean CDC actually said to them, and they’re undoubtedly struggling to keep things under control, while MANY people had basically tried to living like the pandemic is over: kids in daycare, schools set to reopen, etc. But all of this is just to say: we won’t know for years the full extent of what this virus does to people. We need to *refuse* to pretend we *do* know, and reject decisions based on that false sense of understanding.
-
Adding to my thread about Moloch: a South Korean prof is sharing publicly his lingering side effects from COVID-19. He reports headaches, fatigue, pain, serious brain fog and inability to concentrate. Basically, saying “recovered” is… an overstatement.
https://t.co/lsdaHkuC0j It’s being widely covered in the news here. Apparently other “recovered” patients have been contacting him to confirm that they’ve had the same or similar symptoms; some apparently allege that they’d reported these lingering symptoms to the Korean CDC only to be dismissed.
-
@tweetsbymoi I forgot to mention: he described it as “an acorn that blows up,” and specified it’s “in the snowman’s chest.”
“What?!?”
“If you touch it, it goes boom!” (explosion gesture)
“Why?”
“Just in case!”
I guess it’s… mutually assured destruction, or something? @tweetsbymoi So… it’s a self-destructing alien monster snowman. He isn’t even five yet and he’s already putting self-destruct mechanisms in his designs…
-
I’ve shared this link before, but it’s pretty pertinent to all I’ve said above.
Pull quote: “We haven’t made our kids’ future important enough to inconvenience ourselves. And they know it.”
-
I could say a lot more about how we could also do much better than the mostly-simulacrum of schooling that’s been proposed/deployed, too—so much brain-deadening “sit here and watch hours of lectures on this iPad” but that’s a topic for another day, I think. Even brain-deadening iPad lectures is better than sticking kids in schools to feel like lab rats. (Which is what Korean high school seniors said it felt like when they were sent back, before other kids. Lab rats. Concerned about psychological trauma? Worry about *that.*
-
People realizing neither parent should be default primary caregiver/breadwinner was a stepping stone to sharing both jobs, wasn’t it?
Sure, we’re not there. Blame inertia. Blame male resistance. But also: we never bothered to fight this battle.
Our employers appreciate it. So we settled for outsourcing parenthood to daycares, and, worse, to schooling as a stopgap. Regardless of how defunded it gets, or how inefficient and archaic it becomes, or how undercut and segregated and resistant and broken it ends up becoming.
-
So, yes, we are. But… literally? Seriously? When women seized the liberty to join the workforce en masse, wasn’t that a step along a road to someplace? A step in the direction of fundamental social change, where parents of both sexes balance work outside the home and the (far more important) work of childcare?
-
It was wrong that women were by default considered primary caregivers, but because it was sexist, not because caregiving is a negligibly important task we can dump onto strangers because “work” and “business” and “money” trumps all other values.
It doesn’t. It never did. Down that road lies Moloch. Are we really that society?
I mean, yes. Metaphorically, we have been for generations. Look at school lunches. I mean, look at schools. Look at the ads on childrens’ TV, as Russell Banks argued we must:
-
If they refuse to respect the rights of families and parents *of both sexes* to protect and care for their kids, companies can be forced—by workers, or by government—to adopt civilized standards. For example, more flexible hours and schedules for those who need it. I mean, this is something we should have been demanding for decades now. The fight for women to have access to the workforce was an important and necessary first step. But it was never the endgame, was it? What made us think it was?
-
The thing is, we suck at hearing experts when they say, “We don’t know yet. There’s so much we don’t know yet.”
They keep saying this, and people keep not listening, because they want this to be over.
People just want their kids out of the house. But that is not the answer. The answer is recognizing that the way our working hours and job schedules are arranged was not received on stone tablets from heaven. (I mean, neither was our entire economic system with the assumption of constant, breakneck growth being necessary, but that’s another subject.)
-
And they will have hindsight, sure; but we are supposed to have hindsight too. Experts are saying, “So many unknowns, but…” and describing pretty awful potential longer-term effects in those who survive COVID-19. Including children:
https://t.co/5ipfRkqp6l Before you say, “Eh…” Would you smoke with a baby in the room?
No. Why? Long term respiratory issues. Would you feel a young child undercooked hamburger?
No. Why? E coli can kill children.
But sending kids out to risk exposure and infection by this virus?
“Sign me up!”
-
Read Pepys if you think sending your kid out into pandemic-land or acting like everything’s fine won’t scar your kids. Seeing a catastrophe—being sent out into one—will probably be *far* more scarring that a year or two of not attending school.
https://t.co/8865HT3xcM You know that time your parent did something, and you look back on it and think, “How could you *do* that to me?”
This is all our kids’ version of that. They will have the receipts, too: the articles from countless experts saying, “There are just so many unknowns…”
-
I mean, I’ve been really lucky. I telecommuted last semester, and my schedule was flexible. I worked every day, but I was able to do a fair bit of child care AND my job. (I mean, I honestly burned out, had no free time, was constantly losing my mind. But what are you gonna do?) People who want schools open spout crap like, “Our children will be neurotic because they’re not being socialized.”
This is absurd: kids did fine for millennia w/o being forced into schoolrooms with only their peers + 1 adult. Really! Sure, they got to play outside more. But…
-
For most families, the solution isn’t feeding Moloch a feast like nothing he’s been fed before. There is SO much unknown about this virus, and so few admit it.
The solution is that parents of both sexes need to be supported better in doing their *primary* jobs: parenting. People observe, “If nobody’s earning any money, who will buy products that companies produce?”
Sure. So, tell me: if nobody’s raising sane, competent children who’re not maybe possibly permanently screwed up by this virus, who will work or buy anything?
-
Anytime I see anyone talking about how schools need to reopen because they need their kids OUT of the house, I can’t help but hear this in my head:
https://t.co/yPP1olwN4q And no, it’s not that I don’t get that moms are bearing more of the load of childcare than dads in most 2-parent families. Trust me, I’ve heard lots of moms say it and I sympathize. But—and not to ignore single parents—I always wonder, “Why the hell doesn’t your partner step up?”
