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Broken parents, still limping along

Nothing I’ve read recently rang true quite like this:

Parents aren’t even at a breaking point anymore. We’re broken. And yet we’ll go on because that’s what we do: We sweep up all our pieces and put them back together as best we can. We carry on chipped and leaking and broken because we have no other choice. And we pray that if we can just keep going, our kids will survive too.

My kids go back to school tomorrow. Luckily they are all fully vaccinated and my close family in the area are as well. Of course we worry about breakthrough infections, but less than I worry about the wounds another year of virtual learning would inflict.

Virtual school was a fiasco last year but seemed like the best of several bad choices we had at the time. I’m grateful that our local school district is staffed by reasonable, brave professionals that are somehow holding it all together. I’m happy the kids get to go back to in person school, fully masked for all students and staff. (They are certainly happy about it.) My worry and weariness from the past year will go with them tomorrow and the next day and the next…

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arc…

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