To be annoyed they've cancelled my son's nativity

[JudesBiggestFan]

I'm just so tired of the arbitrary and pointless decisions that rob children and parents of yet more joy.
Last year my son had his nativity play cancelled at preschool. This year, the school (after designating him a shepherd and giving him a line...the excitement!) have cancelled again. Because Covid. Never mind all the pubs, restaurants, Christmas shopping, family parties that all the kids, teachers and parents will be going to.
The nativity is some kind of super spreader event that must be forfeited!
It's not going to make the news, but I'm just so bloody tired of it all. He'll never be this little and innocent again...I tolerated it last year but my patience is gone.
Anyone who wants to be is jabbed, we have lateral flows, it's as safe as it ever will be.
Yet the commercial stuff can go on, but the pure joyful ness of a kids Christmas nativity can't. Just wanted to vent really. No point complaining in real life anymore!

Ours is still going ahead at the minute. Rumour is it might be brought forward- not sure why. DD is in a fairy chorus (she is quite a chunky one- the costume doesn't flatter her)and DS1 is a shepherd in a group and he has a single line. It has been the talk of the house for the last fortnight.

@BluebellsGreenbells all these children who are already in a class together 5 days a week you mean?

I'm with you OP. It's sad.

People act like these measures are simply a pause on our lives, but they are time we don't get back. More and more time at this stage.

"Don't be that parent..."

Ooh, I think there are lots of them on MN!
Not this thread, of course!

[quote SSOYS]@Rainbowsew Well said. Honestly, the lack of compassion and understanding some people have shown on this thread is horrifying.[/quote]
Because there's so much compassion and understanding for clinically vulnerable people...! The rest of society should be allowed to get back to normal while we're just acceptable collateral damage?

It's ridiculous that I can take DD to a West End show with hundreds of strangers, but I can't sit in a hall with other parents from her class (with whom I am already indirectly mixing with via the children) to watch a nativity.

Fed up of people saying it doesn't matter. It absolutely does matter. We are teaching kids that their needs are not as important as adults and that they are little more than germ spreaders.

I honestly think that parents should set up their own nativities. Hire a village hall etc. There is absolutely nothing in the rules that says this wouldn't be ok.

DDs school decided early on that they wouldn't be doing a nativity this year, we've got a lantern walk instead.
It's all outside, they're going to sing songs and have a walk through of the nativity scene.

It's better than nothing I suppose, and she's really excited to have her solo - but it's not how it's supposed to be.

It's just shit. I never got to do stay and play sessions with my son. He never got to do school transition days. I didn't get my last mother's Day tea party at school with my daughter, let alone even once with my son. My youngest has no idea parents were ever allowed actually inside the nursery building. No nativities, or face to face parents evenings walking them through their school.

I know it's no great tragedy, but it's a thousand tiny ones. All things I've dreamt about doing with own kids since I was a child. Its time and experiences we can't get back.

I agree it’s sad although I totally understand and support why measures are necessary.

I remember seeing the graph shared a while back showing your child’s last ‘normal’ school year. A child in year 3 now last had a ‘normal’ school year in reception.

@LettertoHermoine

Ridiculous! You can get drunk and snog random fuckers in a nightclub but you can't have a nativity.

I would defend young adults right to party and snog too. These are rites of passage as well as nativities.

@DeepaBeesKit

Yanbu. Cases are high but hospitalizations and deaths are not, especially if you look at the rates among vaccinated people.

cases don't matter if they aren't making people really ill

Cases don't matter? Why exactly do you think we have new variants popping out all over the place?

It's because people are allowing it to circulate and mutate due to their 'I'm alright Jack' attitude. I'm frankly amazed that people still don't seem to get this; Covid won't be going anywhere as long as it can continue to move freely, until eventually we end up with a way more deadly mutation that's completely vaccine resistant.

@phonetica

I agree it’s sad although I totally understand and support why measures are necessary.

I remember seeing the graph shared a while back showing your child’s last ‘normal’ school year. A child in year 3 now last had a ‘normal’ school year in reception.

Year 2's have never had one.

YANBU, it's my sons last christmas at nursery and the nursery had made plans to actually have parents in the nursery for the Christmas parties (all covid safe - adults in masks, parties split across multiple days to keep numbers down etc) and they've made such a big thing about it and they've now cancelled the parents coming in and are moving them to Instagram live sessions...my little boy was so looking forward to us being able to actually come to his party!

I know in the grand scheme of things its only a party but I'm actually really upset over it!

@BogRollBOGOF

In a tight, prescriptive curriculum, nativities aren't just superflous fluff, they are a valuable performing arts/ public speaking experience. Many children can't or don't get that experience outside school and it is a gap in their education to deprive them of this year after year for performance safety.

Blocking parents from school life and communication being reduced to just being a string of digital mesages and images corrodes home-school relationships and parents/ teachers cease to see the other as individual humans.

Keeping these types of policy up for a prolonged period is damaging even if it is subtle.

Great post; thanks for summarising all the disadvantages of these endless disruptions!

@QuizzlyBear all viruses mutate, it's what they do. The hope is that it mutates into a milder form which is what seems to be happening. The common cold is a coronavirus as well. We don't register how many people have colds or lock the world down for them.

Whether we sit in our home or get on with like covid WILL mutate. It's what it does.

I feel for you 😢 little ones won’t get this time again. Anyone too afraid to venture out, can simply choose not to attend. The most ludicrous thing is pubs, nightclubs, etc still being open. Why?!?!

Mother’s Day tea party at school??

Count yourself lucky for not having to go to that!

@JudesBiggestFan

I just think it's ludicrous. West end shows are full, pubs are teeming, my elderly parents have just got back from a Spanish holiday...but I can't see my four year old in the school hall. CoVID has already ripped through the school this term, there can barely have been a family unaffected, including my own. No-one to my knowledge seriously ill, just a few days off colour. If you're still scared of catching CoVID then of course don't go. But given kids have been stuffed into unventilated classrooms for months, it seems a little weird that it's suddenly a problem for parents to spend half an hour in the school hall. I feel I've been having this argument for months, but kids should be the priority. Their development, their emotional well-being, their childhood. As an emergency services worker my kids have gone to school throughout...because I was legally allowed to send them and I chose to (all bar a few weeks in the first lockdown). The older two are excelling academically and the youngest's teacher this week said it shines through that he has gone to school throughout, both because he is doing so well and because he still has a discipline that loads of them have lost. As an emergency worker I see on the streets the consequences of disaffected children...increased violence, drug taking, hostility to authorities. No, one nativity play won't change much of course. But a society that continually shrugs its shoulders at depriving its children of all that previous generations took for granted, is causing immense harm. Because covid doesn't cut it for me anymore.

Vent away op. I've just had a rant above too.

We're now seeing the wider effects in both the NHS and society that all this is doing.

It's like noone (government official or layman) has any concept of the NHS anymore. Yes we needed ITU space at the beginning and changes to service provisions were needed now we need to learn to live with it.

Advocate of the NHS as I am there has to become a time when the other diseases and conditions become more of a priority than the covid issues. At the moment we are letting down more people than we are protecting, with cancelled operations and undiagnosed cancers, unsupported mental health, restricted GP access and relatively minor conditions being massively overlooked and discounted but with negative impacts on the sufferer's life.

As I sit here with active covid, quarantined and vacinated, caught from my 10yo DD, worrying quite a lot what's going to happen in the next few days, I think I could do without a mass meet up in the school. Spare a thought for the teachers who are daily facing catching the virus. A nativity would be lovely but given there's so many kids with covid at the moment, I can wait another year. I don't need to sacrifice my health for a nativity.

@Bex268

I feel for you 😢 little ones won’t get this time again. Anyone too afraid to venture out, can simply choose not to attend. The most ludicrous thing is pubs, nightclubs, etc still being open. Why?!?!

Tbf they should be open.

But agree it’s a shame dc keep getting stuff cancelled.

@Emmacb82

I don’t think it’s anybody’s right to tell people that they shouldn’t be upset over this. Yes we all know the bigger picture, and yes let’s all protect the NHS. But for goodness sake, let the parents of our little kids have a few moments of joy. We didn’t get to see anything last year for my sons first year in reception, and I’m not holding my breath about this year yet either. And yes, I will be upset and disappointed. I’m allowed to be. It’s one of those moments as a parent that I’ve longed for, might sound silly to some I know. Every day he comes home singing all the songs he’s learnt for it and he’s so excited for us to see him. Even the education secretary said today how important a nativity is for children!

I think lecturing people that their right to see the nativity trumps concerns over the health of their kids, them and their extended family smacks of the utterly lack of perspective and ability to assess the current situation.

Personally I trust teachers to be able to make the call about whether its a spectacularly bad idea to go ahead in view of the number of cases in their school or in the local area at the time.

I don't think they would be making that decision unless they thought it was senseless and in the best interests of everyone concerned.

I don't get parents who don't have that trust and instead are going wah, wah, wah.

The teachers will know about kids who have parents who are perhaps clinically vulnerable. Why does the feelings of adults always have to trump the actual well being of kids?

Also agree with @Rainbowsew. Whether it's drama, music or sport, having an event cancelled when it's your DC's main interest, is disappointing. On top of no proper end to year 6, no transition activities, 3 months of online school, no mixing of bubbles so it's hard to make friends...honestly both her resilience and mine is beginning to crack. Yes, it's hard for the vulnerable, but does that mean we need to constantly disappoint our children?

We are teaching kids that their needs are not as important as adults and that they are little more than germ spreaders.

Exactly.

i don;t understand why they're cancelling events cos of covid. our harvest festival went ahead without parents. it was filmed. likely our school nativity will be the same (wahh!!!!!!! ds is on stage ALL show and i want to stare at him not whomever is now being filmed) but they'll DO IT and he'll say all his lines and it will be a memory even if i'm watching at home