First things first: I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I am currently fighting my way through the local school systems version of Distance Learning, and it is ridiculously time-consuming.
It has been made clear that as parents, it’s expected we alter our entire lives and adapt to whatever they dictate.
They want the Distance Learning experience to resemble the actual school experience as closely as possible.
They have attempted to schedule every minute of my first grader’s day, Monday – Friday, 8:30 – 3:00.
That would be fine if I only had one child, or if I could drop everything else I have to do to handle my son’s schooling. But I can’t, and if I did, there would not be enough time in the day to do the things that need doing.
Now, I knew I was taking on extra work when my husband and I agreed to keep our son home. That’s reasonable.
I did not expect, nor was it made clear by the school district, that we would be required to design our lives around this process.
I have three kids, and only one of them is in school. I can’t send them somewhere else while my eldest is “in school.” We couldn’t afford daycare for one child hen both my husband and I were working. There is no way in hell now that I am a stay at home mom.
I think that’s just it. I am a mom, first and foremost. It was me as a mom that helped decide to keep our boy home. I might play Assistant First Grade Teacher, but I am a mom on top of that, and there is no off switch.
I have to teach my son when he isn’t in a Zoom Meeting, but I still have to do laundry, wash dishes, cook meals, clean the house, deal with the new puppy, and be a mom to two other children.
If this were in face-to-face school, the students would be dressed, at real desks, with their friends and a group of teachers that could focus on them and their needs.
But this isn’t a face-to-face school. While we can try to make them match, there need to be allowances made for the differences. My son isn’t as a desk in a classroom. He is sitting at an end table I got from Walmart in March in my living room. I can restrict most noise while he is in a chat, but the puppy still may decide to bark once or twice. I might get a call I have to take.
That’s just my situation. I know from listening to the meetings other kids are trying to do this at daycare while switching between parents and grandparents, having to sit on the couch or the floor. They have siblings who also have Zoom meetings simultaneously, parents who work from home and need to take calls or have meetings of their own.
Is anyone else having this issue? It might be just how my kid’s teachers are handling it. Maybe it’s this difficult because he is young? Most other parents I know have different circumstances and older kids. Perhaps I’m just crazy, and everything is fine.
Anyone else out there having issues?
Just One Mom 