remote school<\/a> \u2014 or Zoom school, as we dubbed it when our older daughter, now an 8th grader, attended hybrid class in the depths of COVID restrictions.<\/p>\nLike many parents who navigated 2020-2022 with a child over the age of 5, I have lingering trauma from those years, from juggling work, kids, Zooms, every single day.<\/p>\n
But, much like giving birth, I had seemingly forgotten the sanity-testing challenge of it all, bouncing among everyone\u2019s demands. By 9:23 a.m. I had texted a friend: \u201cIs it too early to drink?\u201d<\/p>\n
With two girls in two different District 15 Park Slope schools, in second grade and eighth grade, our morning went something like this.<\/p>\n
Anne Miller and her husband (shown above) are among many parents who had to deal with NYC\u2019s no-snow day verdict on Monday.<\/p>\n
My husband had a meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The kids couldn\u2019t figure out how to log on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An app didn\u2019t update.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Someone was being too loud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dog ate Tupperware.<\/p>\n
Is it snack time yet?<\/p>\n
A battery died.<\/p>\n
Instead of a fun snow day outside, New York students, like Miller\u2019s second-grade daughter Isadora (above), dealt with a glitch-filled remote learning session on Monday.<\/p>\n
The pencil isn\u2019t sharpened.<\/p>\n
Ok but is it snack time now? It really has to be snack time by now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How does the mute button work?<\/p>\n
Why do parents even exist if not to bring us snacks? Do you not care that your child is wasting away before your eyes?<\/p>\n
Historic 130-year-old brownstone apartments were not built for four family members talking to different people on different screens all at once. Or, apparently, for the bodega-sized snack storage demanded by my offspring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I imagine I looked like Steve Martin in \u201cCheaper by the Dozen,\u201d flailing around the children. At 11 a.m. I was still in my pajama pants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a few hours of attempting remote learning, Miller brought her kids out to play in the snow. Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n
The morning brought some small joys. Their desks were cleaned off for the first time in months and without argument (don\u2019t judge me by their clutter).\u00a0<\/p>\n
They were occupied and I didn\u2019t have to trudge my youngest to school in the snow and ice. They weren\u2019t squabbling over the TV remote or who\u2019s breathing too loud. I\u2019m grateful for the little peek into their world outside of home that I rarely see, like overhearing their teachers, especially in elementary school, interact with such kindness and grace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGood morning, my loves!\u201d<\/p>\n
My youngest\u2019s teacher reminds her charges not to draw on the screen six times without raising her voice. She\u2019s a better woman than I.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 8-year-old sipped water from a mug, and with her pencils and math in front of her, she resembled a miniature accountant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s lunch now!\u201d says the teacher.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at my stuffy!\u201d says a classmate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following Sunday\u2019s major winter storm, all children (and parents) really wanted was a proper snow day. AP<\/p>\n
Whatever these teachers are paid, it\u2019s never enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the COVID trauma never truly vanishes. Our oldest was in 2nd grade when the world shut down. We podded with our neighbors who had our toddler\u2019s best friend, and would tag team watching the kids play in the backyard while we took meetings and the big kid finished math homework at a picnic table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Someone needed something almost every minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, the fear that came with a global pandemic is gone, but the stress lingers. On this remote school snow day, I remember what it was like to desperately crave self-care, privacy, and more specifically, for everyone to leave me alone in complete and utter peace.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m working on a huge marketing presentation. My husband, who works in healthcare policy, is fighting the good fight over the state budget. We\u2019re snappy at the kids. I remind them it\u2019s an exercise in patience for us all. I need the reminder as much as they do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m torn on snow days vs. Zoom school. If they had a snow day, I could park them in front of the television for a couple of hours and then head out to the snow on our timetable.<\/p>\n
In fact, several parents logged in for the morning, then took the kids out to sled after lunch. If they have good attendance records, does it really matter?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In our house, at least, Zoom school went ok for most of it. The girls were busy and stimulated and their day had some structure. They even got some work done, given all the other days off this month and next, I\u2019m glad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elementary school was smoother than middle school. My daughter\u2019s 8th-grade homeroom teacher called out sick but didn\u2019t tell the kids. The double drama class on Mondays was shortened to one and Algebra was pulled forward but we didn\u2019t realize. I\u2019ve now exchanged more emails with an assistant principal this morning than I have since September. At least our big kid is highly motivated and can navigate Google Classroom on her own these days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019re also one of the luckier ones. Our kids have their own iPads, and I don\u2019t have to give over my own device to one of them. In one of our parent group chats, someone mentioned that they borrowed a school device, and it turns out it\u2019s not working. So their child couldn\u2019t even log on for any lessons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But by 1:00 p.m., we gave up. The kids were fighting. The Zooms were done. We tried our best. The sledding hill beckoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how we did this for over a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Please send snacks.\u00a0And a very good bottle of bourbon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By 8:30 a.m., sacred objects lined the newly clean playroom desk: A Labubu knockoff, a karaoke microphone, half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[232,57,9,24,55,54,56,63,233,48674,5271,8555],"class_list":["post-113391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-lifestyle","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-parenting","tag-remote-learning","tag-schools","tag-snow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}