Homeschooling because schools do absolutely nothing to keep kids safe in an ongoing pandemic.
Let me first recognize the immense privilege it is to even have the option to homeschool, let alone being able to access the physical and/or economic capabilities to even make it possible. I teach at home during the week, and because I have the weirdo job that enables me to work on the weekend, those two worlds can graciously coexist.
That said my friends, I feel like I’m getting hit with an extra dose of reality this past week due to the fact that back in 2021 I started kindergarten with my oldest at home while holding my newborn only two months old in my arms learning how to homeschool and take care of an infant at the same time. This month, the oldest is entering fifth grade still homeschooling and that newborn is now starting kindergarten at the same table where they were downing milk bottles five years prior.
When I had my oldest we never set out to be a homeschooling family, and this lifestyle choice was in direct reaction to schools doing absolutely nothing except “recommended masking” when kids went back to school in this area in Fall 2021. Like many of you here I saw the writing on the wall for how that was going to work, and for the past five years I’ve watched the absolute neglect that institutions who profess to care for children display while they continue to do nothing to adapt in the slightest.
I feel an extra dose of grief this past month further sitting with the fact of knowing that as of summer 2025, Long Covid became the number one chronic illness in kids and that didn’t even move the needle at all. I know life is hard for everybody and everyone has individual circumstances of struggle that many of us know nothing about. Parents especially have the impossible task of raising children in late stage capitalism amidst climate collapse, the birth of American fascism, and even though the vast, vast majority don’t know it or will acknowledge it, yes, an ongoing pandemic whose ripple effect makes everything worse for them as well.
That said, I know I’m not the only one here who has years at this point of trying to educate parents of the dangers of Covid while their kids continually get sick while searching for every other reason why that might be other than damaged immune system systems in tandem with repeated infections.
I feel like I’m forever changed knowing that not having the information is one thing, but when parents do have the information still choose to not educate or teach kids about masking while normalizing the societal harm both to other children and their own by not doing so. It really does feel like a nightmare for me that I don’t know if I ever will be able to fully process. It’s so sad and I wish there was some way we could protect these kids who have no leadership in this lane of life at home or at school. This neglect also creates unsafe spaces for so many children who would thrive in a group educational environment, and I have a lot of grief for not only my kids, but all kids being removed from those same opportunities.
I’m not looking for a solve here, but I do appreciate your time listening as I know I’m not the only parent that finds themselves in this impossible situation of knowing what a lot of your life is going to look like in regards to education at home for many years save for some societal shift or medical miracle raising by Covid aware kids in a world that doesn’t even want to know they exist.
Solidarity to all the parents and everybody fighting against the overwhelming tides of denial. I know how demoralizing it is to have your knowledge and adaptive skills pathologized despite the immense care and empathy towards society and self that you continually choose to exude. We are the pioneers.