Back To School We Go

It was like the first day of school again. But it wasn't. It was the first day back after a year and change distance learning from home. My wife Amy took our youngest Bryce to school and then our whole family picked her up after. Bryce was nervous going back, and also really looking forward to it. After her second day back, I picked her up after school.

"How did it go today?" I asked her. 

"Good," she said.

"What did you do today?"

"Lots of math."

"Really. Was that a bummer?"

"No, it was fine. Just a lot. I'm glad I'm back in school."

"Us too, Bryce. Us too. Was your teacher glad to see you in person?"

"Yes, she was. I was glad to see her, too."

Us too, Bryce. Bryce remembers all too well that the last day of in-person school last year was March 13. Now we're finally back to hybrid in-person school two days per week for Bryce -- soon to be five days per week even before the end of the school year. Our oldest Beatrice will go back two days per week after spring break. She's missed nearly her entire first year of in-person middle school. 

Yep, it's been a lot for too many of us. Pandemic fatigue is real. As a family, though, we did okay this past year working and schooling from home; we're closer than ever. We helped the girls keep up with the schoolwork and they continue to get it done. We're also grateful that we've been safe and well for the past year. We've had our regular weekly family meetings, we have our safety plans we review, we've worn our masks and social distanced (and continue to), and now the girls have phones since they'll be on their own more and more going forward. And soon Amy and I will be vaccinated for COVID-19 as availability opens up soon.

The parental pressure on our school district to reopen is something that played out repeatedly across America since last fall. Teachers pushed back wanting to be vaccinated with other safety protocols in place. We weren't those parents, and we didn't fault teachers for wanting to be safe, only because we didn't have to work outside the home and/or struggle with balancing our work and helping the girls with school. We all missed school, don't get me wrong, but we were okay. Plus, our girls are older now, and we can't imagine what it was like with kindergartners, 1st, 2nd or even 3rd graders. Too many women left the workforce in the past year due to the impact of coronavirus, various inequities and family caregiving falling to them again and again -- nearly 3 million actually. So, we understand the why of the pressure. 

Amy works, and combined with home and childcare, its more than full-time. I continue to work and run a research firm remotely (which I've been doing for years now, pre-covid and now post). And yes, I help with home and childcare as well. 

We are grateful for so many who have worked so hard to get our children back to school. One year ago the infectious disease and medical communities didn't know a whole heckuva lot about what we were dealing with. Although misinformation abounds, and covid cases are rising again, science and facts are thankfully stubborn things keeping many of us alive and well. 

Thank you to all those who have believed in science, medicine, safety and pandemic facts.

Thank you to the pharmaceutical companies that developed the vaccines so quickly.

Thank you to the CDC and its guidelines and to all the doctors and nurses everywhere.

Thank you to all the first responders who risked their lives to keep us all safe. 

Thank you to all the essential workers who risked their lives to keep food on grocery shelves, to cook and deliver food, and so much more.

Thank you to all the government leaders and public officials who believed in science, medicine, safety and pandemic facts.

Thank you to our county health department and our county board of education and our school district administers .

Thank you to our girls' school leadership and all our wonderful school teachers, librarians and custodians.

Thank you to all the parents who kept their sanity after a year of distance learning (or for any length of time).

Thank you to all the kids whose resiliency was unprecedented and who also kept their sanity after a year of distance learning. 

Thank you to everyone who practiced all the safety protocols all the time.

Blessings to the many adults and kids who will continue to need emotional and psychological support in the months and even years ahead. Blessings to those who are food deprived, who are experiencing homelessness and the glaring inequity gaps that covid has shone new light on. For those who are able, please donate money, time and resources when and where you can. We're not out of the covid woods yet.

And yet, through all these covid woods, back to school we go. Maybe this fall we'll be back full-time, whatever this new normal looks like by then. Back-to-school blessings to us all. 

That Pocket Comfort

We lived those 1970's social media memes. The ones that touted how we played outside at night unsupervised. How we rode bikes without helmets. How we rode in the back of pick-up trucks at high speeds. How we had dirt clod fights in vacant lots. How we took Polaroid selfies. And how we didn't need any stinkin' smartphones. Gen X forever!

Nope, we used pay phones and we liked it. When we had loose change to make a call that is. Otherwise, we'd have to call collect, meaning the recipient of the phone call had to pay for the call charges. If they accepted. Of course our parents accepted when we were stranded and needed help as a young adult. Which never happened to me. Maybe.

Cell phones wouldn't be available for at least another 15 years, and even then most people couldn't afford them. My wife Amy and I have a running joke about a movie I made her watch years ago called Miracle Mile. It was an apocalyptic thriller that came out in 1988 starring starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. I loved the movie. Amy did not. There was another actress in the movie, Denise Crosby, who also played Security Chief Tasha Yar in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which Amy loved. In Miracle Mile, Denise played a mysterious businesswoman who had a huge cell phone she used it to call government officials from a diner. You'll have to watch the movie to see the rest. 

I didn't have a cell phone until the mid-90's, and it was a plastic "Star Trekkie" Motorola flip-phone. Fast forward to today, and there are nearly 3 billion smartphones in the hands of people everywhere around the world. 

And that now includes our daughters' hands. 

We've never been resistant to the idea that they would have phones at some point. We are a device-friendly family, and both girls have been using old iPhones as iPods for a few years now, as well as iPads. We monitor their device time and what they're doing on their devices, and have empowered them to tell us if they see something inappropriate or experience an inappropriate exchange with a stranger while playing Roblox.

After a year of distance learning, our oldest Beatrice finally gets to experience middle school in person soon, even if it's only two days per week. Bryce goes back to in-person 4th grade soon, too. Because of this and the fact that they're on their own more often inside and outside of the home, it was time to activate phones for them so they can text and call us, and we can do the same with them. Plus, we have phone rules about texting others and our family safety plans in place and review them every week. 

Decades ago when Amy and I were kids and teens, we never imagined a world where we could be in contact with our friends and family anytime and from practically anywhere. Today, we couldn't imagine not having the ability to text and call our children anytime and from practically anywhere. No apocalyptic thrillers here; we'll take that pocket comfort the phones bring us every day of the week. 

Where The Cool Kids Are

There's only one way in and out while driving a car. You can walk in and out, but that wasn't going to help us or them in that moment. Plus, we had the art teacher's number and she had ours in case of any emergency. Later, my wife Amy said that she would've gotten out the car and walked if we wouldn't have been to get to our daughters. 

For a few forever moments we weren't sure what was going on until we got close enough to make the turn. What we saw was a police action going on just a few blocks away, which is why the traffic was so slow. Amy told me to make an illegal left, which I did, so we could skip the backup where the streets were blocked ahead of us. Otherwise, Amy would've called the teacher, got out and started walking, while I figured out how to wind around and double back. 

Thankfully we didn't have to do that; we still got to our children on time to pick them up. The art class was held outside at one of our lovely community parks, primarily due to COVID-19 concerns. Once we got there, our daughters Beatrice and Bryce told us there was scary situation that happened while they were there. A woman, most likely homeless and mentally ill (we assumed based on their description), was yelling and wandering around too close to where they were. In the general vicinity there are quite a few people experiencing homelessness, living in tents and campers, with many in desperate need of mental health services.

"She kept saying things about God and Jesus," Beatrice said. "But like she was mad."

"Yes, it scared us," Bryce said. "So we moved."

The art class teacher told us that our girls wanted to move away from the yelling woman, so they did just that until she left the area. 

"That's exactly what we want them to do," Amy said. "It's definitely part of our safety plans."

Prior to this incident, we had already talked with the art teacher about our Kidpower safety skills and plans, including some of the following:

• Moving away and checking first with their adults if they are on their own before they let a person or an animal they don’t know well get close to them (or thinking first if they don’t have an adult to check with)
• Moving out of reach if something or someone might be unsafe
• Making a safety plan for how to get help everywhere they go
• Checking first with their adults before they change their plan about what they are doing, where they are going, and who they are with, including people they know
• Understanding that the safety rules are different in emergencies where they cannot Check First
• Yelling and running to safety if they are scared
• Using self-defense skills to escape and get to safety in an emergency

Our daughters know these safety skills quite well, so we were proud to hear that they used their voices and said they wanted to move away from a seemingly unsafe stranger. This is so important as they spend more and more time on their own, heading headlong to teenage-land and going back to in-person school after a year of distance learning. That in turn will lead to more opportunities to potentially experience harassment and bullying from people they do know, and eventually dating angst. 

I read recently that around the world, almost 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization. Also according to the report, intimate partner violence was the most prevalent form – and it starts early. Nearly 1 in 4 girls and women who'd been in a relationship have already experience physical and/or sexual violence by age 19. I've been a harassment, domestic violence and sexual assault awareness advocate for many years, and I worry about statistics like these, but we also don't want our daughters living in fear, or us for that matter, which is why we review our safety plans every week in our family meetings.

We are the safetyists, after all, and living our lives being calm, confident and aware is where the cool kids are.

Lighting Up With Love And Grace

The plan was to throw her a big party when she turned 50, just like she did for me. That one was so much fun: it was the eve of the18th anniversary of when my wife Amy and I met, and our 12th anniversary of marriage. We held it in the banquet room of one of our favorite Mexican restaurants at the time. Friends and family alike were there and we had booked the local iconic Surfing Magician perform for the kids and the adults at my party.

Then last year, the pandemic hit, and everything was never the same. We went out to dinner for Amy's birthday then, the last time at that time we could do something like that for months. 

A year later, things are finally improving. After the tragic loss of over 500,000 people, more people are now getting vaccinated for COVID-19. Cases are going down in many areas, including our own. Our two daughters may be going to back to some in-person school soon; they've been in distance learning for nearly a year now. No matter what, we're grateful because we've been safe and well. We're grateful that we would've been in the position to even have another birthday party. 

However, when we entered 2021, it was clear that there would be no big party for Amy. No Surfing Magician, no friends and family, no carefree laughter. In a country that continues to buckle under the crazy strain of conspiracy theories, the big election fraud lie, the Capitol insurrection on January 6 (which continues to haunt and anger me), the anti-maskers who jeopardize health and safety, there are still so many people struggling financially and with their emotional and psychological health and safety. So many people feeling helpless and alone. 

This is why I'm so proud of my wife and the work that she does. And not just the work she does teaching safety skills to kids and teens at Kidpower or the work she's done on the PTA for our grade school. I'm proud of how she's helped to keep our daughters healthy and sane these past 12 months. How she's helped organize our family-friend pod so the girls could continue to see and play with some of their friends while giving the parents a little free time each week. How she continues to reach out to friends and family to check in with them, sometimes across great ideological divides. How she set up a regular Zoom call with family to reconnect, to play games and share carefree laughter. 

My wife inspires me every day to be better. To lead with eyes of love and acceptance, something I have done and can do quite readily, until I don't do it, defeated. But I keep coming back, and she's there to love me, always.

She deserved to have a celebration of her life at 50. So, I did the next best thing we could do during a pandemic. Set up a surprise Zoom call birthday party for her. For nearly two months I invited old and new friends, family, colleagues and other special people in her life to a virtual celebration on her birthday. I tried to contact everyone I thought should be invited, although I'm sure I missed some people. For those who could make the call, I loved watching Amy light up with love and grace as she talked to each and every person, taking the time to introduce them all. And then, the lighting up with love and grace culminated at dinner with our dear family-friend pod and lots of carefree laughter. 

Happy Birthday, my love. I am grateful for you, always.