Mommy Wars Pandemic Edition
Jul. 19th, 2020 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutOnce upon a time, a lot of media —books, TV, print articles, blogs — expended a lot of effort to slake what appeared to be an unreal demand for Mommy Wars coverage. Look, it was a horrible mistake. We were all hate-consuming it. Everyone said it needed to stop.
But look! It is back. The Pandemic Edition of the Mommy Wars is to find people who are stupid enough to go on record criticizing the choices other parents make to ensure their own children continue to at least survive and hopefully thrive in the middle of C19.
Since I generically disapprove of Mommy Wars, and because I am always trying to get better at putting the blame where it is due, here is the WaPo initial entry, bylined By Laura Meckler and Hannah Natanson.
They have a very, very specific frame: privilege. The headline is, “For parents who can afford it”, and the setup is that “the trend is a stark sign of how the pandemic will continue to drive inequity in the nation’s education system”. Meckler and Natanson and whoever edited this hit piece do not suffer from nuance or subtlety. But wait, there’s more!!!
Family number one: pay extra, looking like $500/month. I look at $500 month and think of just how much I am paying per week for my niece and nephew to have child care so their mother can go to work. And that is entirely ignoring how much I am paying for the kid’s dad’s current environment. $500 a month sounds like on a par with costs for participating in a competitive sporting activity, and $500/month would not go anywhere near touching what it costs to fund an ice skating kid.
Family number two: four kids, hiring a person normally employed by a public school as a behavior specialist. THAT is not going to be cheap and indeed: $1300/kid/month for 40 hours a week. Depending on whether this is just for the 4 or if more kids will be involved, the specialist is still probably underpaid vs. her regular job.
The usual, but they do not have devices and wifi is deployed a this point in the article, along with having childcare responsibilities, etc. Life on the margin, milked for all it is worth to guilt people who can afford to make things sorta work for themselves. This is 2020’s version of, “You have to clear your plate. There are children starving in China!” Sure, back then anyway, kids were starving in China. Not clear how it relates to whether not the suburban USonian kid should be forced to eat peas they hate for that reason.
Moving on!
A BIPOC on the school board in the Bay Area learns about all this and feels fear. An Oakland parent fearlessly advocates for all parents to pressure their school board to Do Something About This. And now, drum roll please, for the bit that caused me to hate-blog this article (and probably more to come):
“In Portland, Ore., Laura Sutherland came upon a new Facebook group called “Portland Micro-Schools,” with nearly 1,000 members, and could not believe what she saw.
She thinks sending her 6-year-old daughter back to school would be unsafe, and she knows her daughter will need supervision while learning from home. But Sutherland said she would quit her job — and struggle financially — to help her daughter before she would hire someone from the outside.
“It just seems really privileged,” she said.”
YES BECAUSE BEING ABLE TO QUIT YOUR JOB AND ASSUME THAT YOU WOULD SOMEHOW STILL BE ABLE TO HELP YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEF NOT ANY FORM OF PRIVILEGE AT ALL.
*sigh*
Mommy Wars, Pandemic Edition
Look, can we just basically see other people adapting to the current chaotic reality and NOT criticize their choices?
Please?
Absent that, I am absolutely going to continue hate-blogging about people criticizing other people’s choices. And I will call it Balance.
The balance of the article tells you who you can hire at a slightly more affordable price point and how, and notes that some people were thinking about this until they realized it might jeopardize their sweet union gig with FCPS. Because, you know, when you write a celebrity bashing article, fundamentally it is because you care about celebrities. Wait. When you write a Mommy Wars article, fundamentally it is because you are knee deep in them yourself, you just feel kinda conflicted about it.
If you would like the substantially shorter actual article, here it is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/fall-remote-private-teacher-pods/2020/07/17/9956ff28-c77f-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html
Also, while I am here, if pre-pandemic, you and your spouse commuted to Big Jobs, and had multiple nannies when the kids were young and paid for before and after kid care when the kids were older, and paid for piano lessons and gymnastics and swim lessons and Russian Math School or Kumon or whatever, and karate and and and. If you did all those things before, how does the cost of commutes + all that care and all those activities vs. hiring someone to be a tutor while your kids do the 100% remote option while you work from home? Like, still saving money? Because I am doing the math in my head and thinking, might still be saving money.
Not that I ever had that kind of life.
There are other articles. I _might_ come back and hate-blog them, too — the Marin one honestly did not strike me anywhere near as judgey as the WaPo one.
https://www.marinij.com/2020/07/18/marin-parents-seek-micro-pods-to-share-homeschool-distance-learning-duties/
But wow, look, here is another one!!
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/the-learning-curve-the-dystopian-future-of-learning-pods/
Dystopia! In the headline!!!!!
It is not actually a Mommy Wars article, tho! It is sympathetic to the situation parents are in, and it falls back on blaming the schools and other leadership for failing to figure out something better.
It has a paragraph about how the schools call it “remote learning” or “distance learning” and the parents all call it homeschooling. After that, tho, things get odd. I mean, most homeschoolers pay for someone else’s curriculum and — these days — mostly that is online, with teachers. So, you know, under this definition, most “homeschooling” is actually “distance learning” or “remote learning” it is just that when you pay for K12 to do it for you, then K12 makes quite explicit the necessity of an adult being involved to handle the “classroom management” end of things. That is obviously necessary with younger children (safety! Duh. You cannot leave a 6 year old home alone with a computer. Altho I am sure someone does and I feel for everyone involved in that situation), but also true for older kids to deal with inevitable problems (does not necessarily have to be onsite in that case, but does need to be available for suitable definitions thereof).
ETA:
EducationWeek is tracking educator layoffs across the country:
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/07/14/thousands-of-teachers-laid-off-already-due.html
So, you know, there is a substantial pool of people who _do not have_ jobs at the schools they were working at until March. Which means they have all been background checked. It would seem to me that parents who hire from this group to run their pod tutoring arrangements would be doing us all a favor: helping educators bridge to the future, making sure children continue in their education safely and with credentialed professionals.
But look! It is back. The Pandemic Edition of the Mommy Wars is to find people who are stupid enough to go on record criticizing the choices other parents make to ensure their own children continue to at least survive and hopefully thrive in the middle of C19.
Since I generically disapprove of Mommy Wars, and because I am always trying to get better at putting the blame where it is due, here is the WaPo initial entry, bylined By Laura Meckler and Hannah Natanson.
They have a very, very specific frame: privilege. The headline is, “For parents who can afford it”, and the setup is that “the trend is a stark sign of how the pandemic will continue to drive inequity in the nation’s education system”. Meckler and Natanson and whoever edited this hit piece do not suffer from nuance or subtlety. But wait, there’s more!!!
Family number one: pay extra, looking like $500/month. I look at $500 month and think of just how much I am paying per week for my niece and nephew to have child care so their mother can go to work. And that is entirely ignoring how much I am paying for the kid’s dad’s current environment. $500 a month sounds like on a par with costs for participating in a competitive sporting activity, and $500/month would not go anywhere near touching what it costs to fund an ice skating kid.
Family number two: four kids, hiring a person normally employed by a public school as a behavior specialist. THAT is not going to be cheap and indeed: $1300/kid/month for 40 hours a week. Depending on whether this is just for the 4 or if more kids will be involved, the specialist is still probably underpaid vs. her regular job.
The usual, but they do not have devices and wifi is deployed a this point in the article, along with having childcare responsibilities, etc. Life on the margin, milked for all it is worth to guilt people who can afford to make things sorta work for themselves. This is 2020’s version of, “You have to clear your plate. There are children starving in China!” Sure, back then anyway, kids were starving in China. Not clear how it relates to whether not the suburban USonian kid should be forced to eat peas they hate for that reason.
Moving on!
A BIPOC on the school board in the Bay Area learns about all this and feels fear. An Oakland parent fearlessly advocates for all parents to pressure their school board to Do Something About This. And now, drum roll please, for the bit that caused me to hate-blog this article (and probably more to come):
“In Portland, Ore., Laura Sutherland came upon a new Facebook group called “Portland Micro-Schools,” with nearly 1,000 members, and could not believe what she saw.
She thinks sending her 6-year-old daughter back to school would be unsafe, and she knows her daughter will need supervision while learning from home. But Sutherland said she would quit her job — and struggle financially — to help her daughter before she would hire someone from the outside.
“It just seems really privileged,” she said.”
YES BECAUSE BEING ABLE TO QUIT YOUR JOB AND ASSUME THAT YOU WOULD SOMEHOW STILL BE ABLE TO HELP YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEF NOT ANY FORM OF PRIVILEGE AT ALL.
*sigh*
Mommy Wars, Pandemic Edition
Look, can we just basically see other people adapting to the current chaotic reality and NOT criticize their choices?
Please?
Absent that, I am absolutely going to continue hate-blogging about people criticizing other people’s choices. And I will call it Balance.
The balance of the article tells you who you can hire at a slightly more affordable price point and how, and notes that some people were thinking about this until they realized it might jeopardize their sweet union gig with FCPS. Because, you know, when you write a celebrity bashing article, fundamentally it is because you care about celebrities. Wait. When you write a Mommy Wars article, fundamentally it is because you are knee deep in them yourself, you just feel kinda conflicted about it.
If you would like the substantially shorter actual article, here it is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/fall-remote-private-teacher-pods/2020/07/17/9956ff28-c77f-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html
Also, while I am here, if pre-pandemic, you and your spouse commuted to Big Jobs, and had multiple nannies when the kids were young and paid for before and after kid care when the kids were older, and paid for piano lessons and gymnastics and swim lessons and Russian Math School or Kumon or whatever, and karate and and and. If you did all those things before, how does the cost of commutes + all that care and all those activities vs. hiring someone to be a tutor while your kids do the 100% remote option while you work from home? Like, still saving money? Because I am doing the math in my head and thinking, might still be saving money.
Not that I ever had that kind of life.
There are other articles. I _might_ come back and hate-blog them, too — the Marin one honestly did not strike me anywhere near as judgey as the WaPo one.
https://www.marinij.com/2020/07/18/marin-parents-seek-micro-pods-to-share-homeschool-distance-learning-duties/
But wow, look, here is another one!!
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/the-learning-curve-the-dystopian-future-of-learning-pods/
Dystopia! In the headline!!!!!
It is not actually a Mommy Wars article, tho! It is sympathetic to the situation parents are in, and it falls back on blaming the schools and other leadership for failing to figure out something better.
It has a paragraph about how the schools call it “remote learning” or “distance learning” and the parents all call it homeschooling. After that, tho, things get odd. I mean, most homeschoolers pay for someone else’s curriculum and — these days — mostly that is online, with teachers. So, you know, under this definition, most “homeschooling” is actually “distance learning” or “remote learning” it is just that when you pay for K12 to do it for you, then K12 makes quite explicit the necessity of an adult being involved to handle the “classroom management” end of things. That is obviously necessary with younger children (safety! Duh. You cannot leave a 6 year old home alone with a computer. Altho I am sure someone does and I feel for everyone involved in that situation), but also true for older kids to deal with inevitable problems (does not necessarily have to be onsite in that case, but does need to be available for suitable definitions thereof).
ETA:
EducationWeek is tracking educator layoffs across the country:
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/07/14/thousands-of-teachers-laid-off-already-due.html
So, you know, there is a substantial pool of people who _do not have_ jobs at the schools they were working at until March. Which means they have all been background checked. It would seem to me that parents who hire from this group to run their pod tutoring arrangements would be doing us all a favor: helping educators bridge to the future, making sure children continue in their education safely and with credentialed professionals.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 01:02 am (UTC)I also liked that last article.
sure, DeVos and co will try to destroy public education
Date: 2020-07-20 01:11 am (UTC)Certainly, I would rather see the absolute and total destruction of public education if that is what it takes to let women continue to keep their careers and their jobs.
If you read that and go, no, public education is so important that women should give up their jobs to educate their own kids until we can get public education to back where it was in the Before Times, however long that might take, well, that is exactly what I want to get rid of.
If you read that and go, no, that is not what I meant, well, exactly. We are in agreement. People need to figure out how to get through this until it is clear what our future looks like. We will ensure at that point — sooner if possible — that all kids get a minimum education.
Also, requiring home and business owners to maintain the street in front of their property is NOT a failure of the social contract. It is a version of the social contract. Known as Taxation In Kind, I think. But maybe not:
https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/personal-injury/liability-accidents-sidewalks.html
Anyway. Sidewalks are part of the road. And someplaces require you to repair the one in front of your property if it is busted. And lots of places require you to clear it of snow and ice and leaves and stuff.
Living for a long time in Seattle can definitely make you think it is natural that the city collects trash, provides clean water and sewerage services. But those are def not part of how it works everywhere.
Re: sure, DeVos and co will try to destroy public education
Date: 2020-07-20 02:20 am (UTC)And I meant roads as a general term, surfaces people drive on, wherever they are -- not sidewalks, not just in front of my house. Market Street, I-5, the West Seattle Bridge. No one is expecting me to fix them, except indirectly via paying taxes.
I was actually thinking of pods as likely to be taking advantage of a lot of people (probably largely women) who are out of work or underemployed, rather than something that would particularly facilitate women's employment. More parent co-ops than hiring tutors. If I were in the position I was fifteen years or so ago, I would probably be volunteering to watch someone's baby for X hours and at some other point teach their older child to read. In all likelihood I wouldn't be getting a lot of editing done. Someone more organized than I might be able to use the time I was watching their kid to work.
I may have slightly misunderstood the term Mommy Wars
Date: 2020-07-20 02:24 am (UTC)