Facing judgement for sending daughter back to school

[noelle303]

So, little backstory, my daughter and I have been back home for a month after spending the past year in Switzerland for my job.

We're in our old house and she immediately started back at her old school. It's a private school and this year they are offering both online schooling and in-person schooling due to COVID-19.

I signed her up for in-person schooling and she's going normally, every day, full days.

I now feel like I'm facing a lot of judgement for sending her back and not doing online school when it's being offered as an option.

However, I simply can't keep her home. I have a full time career and I actually have to be in my office every day because most of what I do cannot be done over zoom. 

What I am supposed to do? I can't obviously leave her home alone, I'm a single mom, no one else is living with me, who should take care of her while I'm gone?

She also really likes going to school and being there, she enjoys it, she's a very active kid who likes to be busy.

I don't know what to think anymore. I feel like sending her back is really the best option for our family, but I find that most people are really judgy about it?

How do you feel about people sending kids back to school?

Edited October 10, 2020 by noelle303
Spelling

[schlumpy]

I think it's fine. Who's judging you for it?

The science shows your risk level is very low so don't let other's panic you. 

It's your daughter, your life and you are free to manage it as you will.

just be sensible and willing to adapt to any changing pattern.

[Wiseman2]

Who's judging you? And why?

[noelle303]

I've had so many comments from people, acquaintances, fellow moms, co-workers such as "Why don't you do online if it's being offered", "Don't you know how many breakouts there have been in schools", "Schools shouldn't be opened", "I don't understand how parents aren't afraid to send their kids to school".

Almost like parents who actually send their kids to school don't care about them enough and are contributing to the ongoing epidemic and the rising number of cases.

Even her dad is giving me a hard time about sending her back to school. His two boys are staying home, but they have a SAHM who can be with them every day and do school with them, It's not an option for us.

 

 

[FMW]

I don't have kids, so I can't say for sure what I would do. I don't think there would be any way I would want my child in a classroom, but I understand practical matters such as the lack of child care/supervision alternatives make things complicated.  I also understand that some people don't see COVID as any more serious than other viruses.    

As with other illnesses, like the seasonal flu, children will certainly be a source of spread.  Children are naturally not going to think about washing their hands and practicing other forms of hygiene when interacting with others.  Their parents are then exposed and spread the colds/flus to their coworkers when they come into the office, church, community meetings, etc.  Of course we don't have to worry about that so much now since people are working from home now and not mingling in public so much.

Most children who get infected seem to be handling COVID ok, although not all.

My 78 year old Aunt recently contracted COVID, she was working as a classroom assistant with younger children at a school where there has been increasing infection rates. 

You have to make your own decisions, but there are legitimate concerns related to in-person schooling that affect everyone, not just those with children in the classroom.  I would never give my opinion on this to a parent unless they specifically asked, but I don't think it's wrong for people to express their concerns.  You will just have to be strong in your choice.  Either learn to ignore and don't engage in discussions at all, or tell people you've weighed the decision and are doing what you think is best and have no interest in debating.  The times we're living in right now bring about all kind of new uncomfortable situations we have to navigate.  

[d0nnivain]

You have hard choices to make & it sounds like you are making the best of a bad situation. 

If somebody really gets in your face about your choice, throw it right back at them.  Point blank ask them if they are willing to come to your house every day before you leave for work & sit there to monitor your child so that you can work or if they won't do that, are they willing to pay for your mortgage, your groceries, your health insurance,  your child's tuition & all your other bills so you can sit home with your daughter.  If they say no, tell them to shut up.  Add an expletive [#@*!] if you like.  

If your child's father & new wife are offering to take your daughter during the day so she can remote learn,  do think about that option.  I'm sure there are reasons you have rejected it but as long as it's not out of spite for your EX or that the quality of her learning won't suffer, it remains your choice.  

Edited October 10, 2020 by d0nnivain

[Ellener]

One of my friends called me about this  3 weeks ago, Houston had weathered its COVID crisis and she needed to work ( for people outside of the US, it's been a weird situation here with benefits, the poorest people don't get help )

Anyway my friend sent her children back to school and she went back to work. It's fine.

[princessaurora]

Virtual school is not all it's cracked up to be. I know several moms who  started their kids this way, but are now sending them back to school in person because they are simply not learning anything or staying focused on a computer screen for 4+ hours a day. I struggled hard with the decision to send my daughter back, but she is repeating first grade and needs the structure of a live school environment. Masks are not required for her school, but she chooses to wear one anyway. I am so proud of her for understanding their importance. So far, there's been 2 cases in her entire school which isn't bad since they've been back for a month now. Fortunately neither one was in her class and they are keeping the kids separated. She's also doing 2 weeks of zoom for her dance class right now because they had a case at the studio and don't want to take chances. You can't really escape it. The virus is everywhere. All you can do is educate your kids on protecting themselves and hope for the best. 

[Mystery4u]

Who cares about those who are judging you. You know what's best for your own child.

And yes I think you should definitely send her to school. More damage is done by not sending.

[Wiseman2]

On 10/10/2020 at 7:56 AM, noelle303 said:

 

Even her dad is giving me a hard time about sending her back to school. His two boys are staying home, but they have a SAHM who can be with them every day and do school with them, It's not an option for us.

 

 

Stop defending yourself. She wants to go so let her.

Keep your guilt about working out of it. You and her father need to bury the hatchet and coparent better.

If you claim he wants her home schooled, you need to revise the child support to include nannies and tutors. Or have her go to his place for home schooling

Otherwise tell him to shove it. As far as other gossip, ignore it.

 

[noelle303]

On 10/10/2020 at 3:42 PM, d0nnivain said:

You have hard choices to make & it sounds like you are making the best of a bad situation. 

If somebody really gets in your face about your choice, throw it right back at them.  Point blank ask them if they are willing to come to your house every day before you leave for work & sit there to monitor your child so that you can work or if they won't do that, are they willing to pay for your mortgage, your groceries, your health insurance,  your child's tuition & all your other bills so you can sit home with your daughter.  If they say no, tell them to shut up.  Add an expletive [#@*!] if you like.  

If your child's father & new wife are offering to take your daughter during the day so she can remote learn,  do think about that option.  I'm sure there are reasons you have rejected it but as long as it's not out of spite for your EX or that the quality of her learning won't suffer, it remains your choice.  

It's not out of spite. It's very impractical for me to drive her all the way to his house in the morning (they live about 45 minutes away). I also work long hours, I usually use my lunch break to go pick my daughter up from school, we have lunch together and then I drive her to ballet/piano (yes, another thing I'm sending her back to) and go back to work to finish up things and pick her up after.

None of these things would be possible if she was at her dads house 45 minutes away and her stepmom can't drive her to extra-curriculars because of her own kids.

Her ballet lessons are with a mask, smaller groups, everything is disinfected and piano classes are also in groups smaller than 5 kids with a mask.

I honestly don't understand how parents who work are supposed to do this? Even if I was working from home, I'd still be completely unable to make sure my daughter is doing all her schoolwork because my job is simply too demanding. 

 

 

[Pumpernickel]

14 minutes ago, noelle303 said:

 

I honestly don't understand how parents who work are supposed to do this? Even if I was working from home, I'd still be completely unable to make sure my daughter is doing all her schoolwork because my job is simply too demanding. 

 

 

Me neither, unless the kids are older (not sure if yours is already in HS or junior high), and even then they tend to goof off and get distracted without supervision, which affects their grades. I don't think online is the best choice, unless you don't care about academics. And as I understand it, there's nobody at home during the day.....so the child would be alone? Yeah, you definitely made the right decision sending her back. 

I wonder who is giving you a hard time. It's gotta be mostly stay-at-home-parents, or people who are married to a stay-at-home-parent, or people who don't work? Since you are not an SAHM, I would ignore them. Looks like you have a stellar career, so let them homeschool their kids, while you focus on what's important. And not only that – your child seems to be doing well, so don't take that from her. 

 

[noelle303]

43 minutes ago, Pumpernickel said:

Me neither, unless the kids are older (not sure if yours is already in HS or junior high), and even then they tend to goof off and get distracted without supervision, which affects their grades. I don't think online is the best choice, unless you don't care about academics. And as I understand it, there's nobody at home during the day.....so the child would be alone? Yeah, you definitely made the right decision sending her back. 

I wonder who is giving you a hard time. It's gotta be mostly stay-at-home-parents, or people who are married to a stay-at-home-parent, or people who don't work? Since you are not an SAHM, I would ignore them. Looks like you have a stellar career, so let them homeschool their kids, while you focus on what's important. And not only that – your child seems to be doing well, so don't take that from her. 

 

She's only 9. 

It' been mostly comments from co-workers. I work mostly with men in management positions and I'm guessing most of them have wives who stay at home.

[Pumpernickel]

Oh boy. I find these remarks you're exposed to even more condescending now (male coworkers who are apparently NOT single dads).

I don't think they're entitled to an opinion at all. Ignore them – easier said than done, but you should definitely try. It's always frustrating when you have to deal with snide remarks at work, including passive-aggressive behaviors from coworkers. Do you have a work friend, like a like-minded (female) coworker that you could vent to? 

If ignoring is not an option, let them know it's none of their business, as they can't relate to your situation, and they have nothing in common with you. Don't put up with it.  

[Ruby Slippers]

Let it go in one ear and out the other. You're working to support your family and that's a noble thing to do. These people should learn some manners and mind their own business.

[Wiseman2]

1 hour ago, noelle303 said:

It' been mostly comments from co-workers. I work mostly with men in management positions and I'm guessing most of them have wives who stay at home.

 

She also really likes going to school and being there, she enjoys it, she's a very active kid who likes to be busy.

You need to stop obsessing about SAHM, your ex-husband's, their wives, etc. it sounds like you are angry about that. If you feel this harassed by male coworkers, report it. Why can't you simply accept that she WANTS to go to school?

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Breast vs. Formula

Crying it out vs. soothing/rocking to sleep

Co-sleeping or crib

Cloth diapers or disposable

Pacifier or no pacifier

Organic vs. non-organic

Baby food at 4 months vs. 6 months

Preschool or no preschool

In-person school or cyber.....

Video games or no video games

Cell phone before 13 or after

Snap chat or no snap chat

Teen on birth control or preaching abstinence

Overscheduled extra curriculars or focus just on academics

 

See where I'm going with this? The mommy guilt never ends.  This is just one more thing!  Gotta let it roll off your back and do what's best for your family!  

[Foxhall]

Yes I imagine it is better for children mentally to be able to go to school and mingle with their friends as opposed to being at home 24/7.

if cases are at a manageable level in an area better all around for kids to go to school.

I do disagree with the current thinking in my own country though, whereby the plan is that almost everything else and everybody should be heavily restricted with the aim of keeping schools open,

 

 

[Ellener]

4 hours ago, Ruby Slippers said:

Let it go in one ear and out the other. You're working to support your family and that's a noble thing to do. These people should learn some manners and mind their own business.

Exactly.

And the same nosey parkers would be criticising you for not working...

[Ellener]

3 hours ago, CautiouslyOptimistic said:

See where I'm going with this? The mommy guilt never ends.  This is just one more thing!  Gotta let it roll off your back and do what's best for your family!  

Guilt is a learned emotion!

My son came home during his teen years to tell me 'you won't like this but I'm addicted to pain meds'. I said well you better get unaddicted now! but the criticisms I got as a mother from our extended family...

He's grown up now, just completed his bachelors degree and he visits his old mother every week.

 

[SincereOnlineGuy]

1 hour ago, Foxhall said:

Yes I imagine it is better for children mentally to be able to go to school and mingle with their friends as opposed to being at home 24/7.

 

 

 

 

Too many people all around the world are concerned about "... mentally..."   and  "... financially...", when the most important priority is   "... physically...".

 

You simply cannot have  "... mentally..."    and  "... financially..."   without your being physically present.

 

There are millions on earth who have approximately zero money just as there are millions roaming around who are mentally gone but physically present.

[Ellener]

13 minutes ago, SincereOnlineGuy said:

There are millions on earth who have approximately zero money

We are so lucky in America. There's a food bank right next door to where I live, a church charity, and Harris County schools are providing free meals for all pupils in our city.

Everyone is getting free internet from Xfinity and free books from our library.

 

[serial muse]

I'm so sorry you're faced with this difficult choice, and I hear you as far as the guilt - honestly, it comes at parents from all sides, and it seems like everyone's got an opinion. And that's the problem - perfect solutions just don't exist.

This pandemic has definitely exposed a lot of the inadequacies in our systems - childcare, healthcare, etc etc. And, too, I think people are being forced to confront the ways in which their individual risk tolerance runs up against society, and that's where a lot of the conflict is. Some things that are best for society as a whole - maintaining social distance and wearing masks - are the low-hanging fruit, and there simply isn't a situation where individual needs reasonably trump those societal strictures. Hopefully, your child's school is one where they are taking proper precautions, as far as wearing masks and keeping appropriate distance.

But other things, like whether to send kids to childcare and school, are so much more tricky! There are families where kids don't eat when they don't go to school, or are at risk of homelessness or violence. There are families like yours, where there's a single parent who needs to work to put food on the table. There has to be this constant weighing of risk factors, and to some extent that's going to be an individual decision. 

In my city, managers are weighing these factors and coming up with imperfect, crappy plans for the public schools, because imperfect, crappy plans seem to be all we can do at this point. A few kids, those with the highest need, will return to school in the next month; most won't until next year, at the earliest.

My kid will be one of those, because I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home, and to afford childcare/assistance with distance learning in my home. Believe me, I feel the full force of my luck. And even so, I struggle with it, because the kid is at home, and very lonely, and seems sometimes to be going feral, and I doubt myself, and it's all just so crappy. I have friends who are sending their kids to private schools because they are prioritizing sending them to school. It's not what I would choose (I know this, because we weighed this sort of thing earlier on) but no matter what one is riddled with self-doubt and despair because no option feels good here. 

Anyway, my point is that the sanest way forward, IMO, is to address this as a risk management problem. Since there is no perfect solution, you have to pick the thing that's the lowest risk for your family while still being workable. 

So, for you, it sounds like your immediate family unit doesn't include people who are at the highest risk - elderly, immunocompromised, etc. That's thing one. Thing two is that you're a single mom, and are required to work in your workspace. Thing three is that you don't have another adult in your home who can stand as caregiver. (I don't know whether you've considered hiring someone, or whether that's something you could afford. That, too, comes with risks, of course.) Those are all reasonable arguments for taking the risk. 

That said, you know best how assiduous your child's school (and your workspace, and her dance classes!!!) are about safety and proper precautions for covid. One thing they've done in my city, for those kids who will go back to school, is overhaul all the HVAC systems, and ensure that there will be proper ventilation available in the classrooms they decide to use for this time period.

Your risk is not zero, of course, and no one should tell you it is. The question is whether it's an acceptable level of risk for you. If you've weighed all those things, and determined that this is what you can do and that that level of risk is where you are, then I think that's all you can reasonably do.

 

 

[Lotsgoingon]

I hear you ... must be frustrating to hear other people's comments. But so what?! You've got to at some point claim your confidence and affirm your judgment that sending your kid to school is a good move for you and for her. Clearly, lots of other parents are doing the same around you, or there would not be any in-person school. Get support from those parents who are like you.

You gotta get over other people's opinions. You should develop a rote response. "I don't really want to talk about this. I made the best judgment and I don't need your opinion."

Are these other people threatening to chase you out of town? Or are placing your job in jeopardy? Are they following you and harassing you when you go out for a walk? Unless the answer is yes to these questions, your worry is based on insecurity, not any real harassment or social ostracism.

[CaliforniaGirl]

I'm a parent.

Every parent knows that we could be the Madonna draped in blue and somebody would have something negative to say.