How can you do this to your children (and yourselves)?

[endoftheworldaoife]

It has been six months and it's now very clear that covid won't be doing away in our lifetimes. A vaccine won't eradicate it (just as a vaccine didn't eradicate flu).

Most of you seem to be willing to accept social distancing and masks for the foreseeable. And I don't get it. We are a tribal species. We literally die without contact and get sick without communication. Kids are learning arrange, stilted ways of being that will just worsen their digital reliance. OCD is being normalised. Dating will be neurotic and masked. Freshers won't make new loves or lifelong friends like we did. As for their working lives...

I wouldn't mind catching covid (indeed I'm sure we all will sooner or later) so can someone explain to me what on earth is happening in their heads to tip the balance? If it only affected us, I could understand (well, I couldn't but this feels like child abuse on a giant scale).

Where are you hoping to move to OP? Unless it’s Sweden, I don’t think you will find the libertarian utopia you are looking for.

The new 6 person rule has been introduced precisely because people have been ignoring the rules on SD and the R rate has gone up.

Rather ironic to be bleating about ignoring the rules and giving DC a chance at normality, when the effect has been the exact opposite and resulted in tighter restrictions.

Especially disappointing for those who HAVE been following the rules but now have further restrictions imposed.

@endoftheworldaoife Do you mean my children are damaged and I haven’t noticed? I’m a teacher and have worked closely with my class unpacking the impact of what’s happened. Most children are coping incredibly well and are happy to be back at school. I do understand that where parents suffer from mental health issues that have been exacerbated by Covid, children will be affected too. But parents who have kept as much normality as possible whilst encouraging sensible hygiene seem to have very happy children. They’d be much more disturbed by a dead grandparent than by washing their hands more than usual.

@VashtaNerada I would be disturbed as a grandparent if my kids had to sacrifice for me.

It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. My kids are sensible-they are happy to wear masks on the bus and when they are at work, they haven’t been in numbers bigger than this anyway. Oh, except for school...

My parents would rather survive this and have another twenty years with their grandchildren...

I think you should seek some help OP, you seem to have lost perspective and sound quite unwell.

@chocolatesweets. What if it wasn’t a grandparent but a vulnerable sibling? Would you wave one of your kids off to school, to parties etc knowing they might well bring home a virus that would kill their 6 year old sibling? That’s the dilemma my friends are facing. It’s not all straightforward, and it’s not only old people impacted.

If I was frail and old, over my dead body would I have my children self sacrificing for me. Let me die!
This, 100 times!
I have had a bit of a row with my dm about it though.

I have a dgm in a care home with dementia. We haven’t seen her for 6 months (one family member only, which isn’t us - One visit per week, in the garden, socially distanced. My dgm was all about family and spent her life trying to close the gap for the disadvantaged children, trying to make all children’s lives better. There is no way she would want this to be the way of life. And I am sure there is no way she would want the end of her life to be lived in the way it has. We may be prolonging her life, but the quality of her life, without her family around her... is that a life she really wants to be living?

I love her dearly, I miss seeing her, but we have no idea how long this is going to go on for. If she were to die now, with out her family around her, the last 6 months ‘Protecting her’ have all been for Nothing anyway. I find it difficult to put my thoughts in to words and my dm twisted what I said completely. It has nothing to do with the love I have for my dgm. But everything g about her quality of life in her final months/years.

I feel we have failed the young and the old.

OP I get your point.

Most people are able to tick along with the rule of six so it’s easy for them to swallow.

However- a lot of people and I’d say probably half of the population dont agree with it and are challenging it. There was an article today in the spectator about why it needs to be scrapped ( rule of six)

More people are noticing the evidence and realising that deaths are at an all time low despite small pockets of infection rises.

Try not think that MN is a good representation of what people are feeling. It isn’t MN seems to be home of the COVID panickers.

Regarding schools and lock down we’ve just got to hope that the scientists that are finding the new data keep publishing it and forcing the government to look at it.

Child abuse? Yeah right.

Children do not grow themselves up. It takes a village and the village is not made of other children.

This is not a competition of 'who suffered more', or 'who will die sooner'. We have to be balanced about this, and value every life, that's a true attempt at being a society. I cannot believe people have resorted to talking about '... people who are dying of covid are mostly elderly and in the final days of life.' How do you know that? Captain Sir Tom Moore has done more for children than you people, maybe your place in society should be questioned since you want to neglect an entire generation.

@endoftheworldaoife

My children are not stupid - they see the news and they understand the risk and they understand shielding. You may be willing to sacrifice yourself in the name of Covid - as a family we would rather not sacrifice my husband.

Like I said before our children are pretty much getting on with it, going to school, attending groups etc

In all honesty your opinion of my family doesn’t really interest me.

'Lifelong restrictions' What bollocks!

@endoftheworldaoife

If you wait a couple of years, there will be no jobs, no schools, no hospitals. We can't exist in a half world.

More people are dying from suicide than covid at the moment.

What in the name of Christ are you on about now? This is nothing more than hysterical scaremongering.

I mean, how does everyone think world war 2 began?

@Artesia yes I would. Living in fear is not living. It would be difficult obviously but how is that fair on the other kids?

@Maryann1975 I agree with you

My friends 21 year old daughter was rushed to hospital on Monday suffering from a suspected hear attack, she had a positive Covid test just over 6 Weeks ago (she had a mild case)
Thankfully it was not a heart attack, they have said inflammation around the heart probably caused by a virus.
She is still in hospital undergoing tests - they don’t know if there is long term damage yet.
To reiterate - she is 21, fit, healthy with no prior medical conditions.
This is why I’ll be following all the rules.

OP you do sound really hysterical.

We literally die without contact and get sick without communication.

Well aside from the fact this is not true, it's irrelevant. I have Young Adult DC and they are not living without contact and/or communication. What on earth are you talking about?

The change in the law from Monday actually makes things a lot better for younger and single people as they will be able to meet up in groups of six. Even before this, my DC have been meeting friends, going on dates. Did you really think this wasn't happening?

@chocolatesweets then in all honesty I think you are absolutely insane. A few months of playing at home, walks in the park, family bike rides and home schooling is, in my book, a price worth paying to save your sibling’s life.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, entire communities have always adjusted to protect others, and lived in much greater hardship than this.

I understand you. I think masks have ruined it for me. I don't want to take my kids out into such bizarre scenarios. Where adults are covering their faces. There are no smiles. I think It should be a choice.

I've not been in a shop since march. I've had food delivered. I really miss it. I used to take my kids to the shop for a treat or for essentials. It was a normal part of our lives. Popping to Asda to browse the clothes was also a normal part of our lives. Going to the garden center for food and to let the kids see the fish and things. All those things I've stopped doing. I have no desire to go to the cinema or anything because of the whole mask thing.

I think the queing system to take the kids into school is ridiculous too. Fair enough staggered times. My child's also now of school for two weeks because she has a cold and there are no tests available. She doesn't have any symptoms.

It's definitely depressing. It's made everyone judgmental.

I am dreading another six month of this. But what can we do. It's definitely making me feel completely unhappy. Even on my relationship. There's nothing left. We can't invest in anything really. We are also skint.

I know plenty are getting on with things again. I just can't quite push myself to do so.

@endoftheworldaoife

No offence vashta but when people say "my children follow the rules and are perfectly happy" I don't really have much faith in their empathy towards their children.

@endoftheworldaoife

So what's your alternative? Not follow the rules and increase the risk of Covid?

No one loves the way we are living at the minute, but I prefer this way than being in complete lockdown! Now that would be much worse for your children OP!

I think it might be a good idea for you to maybe seek some help for anxiety?

Best of luck

World War 2? Child abuse?

I think you may have jumped the shark, OP.