I am not sure I can take any more.
I am a single parent. I am over 50. My children depend on me to bring in a wage and keep a roof over our heads. One of my children is a type 1 diabetic and as such, vulnerable to this virus. I am without support as my parents are dead and I am an only child. I am a teacher and a good one. I love my job. I want to be in the classroom and I want to be supportive of the students I work with.
I have read thread after thread on here in the last 24 hours with people looking to find loopholes or claim to just use 'common sense' so that, for the sake of their mental health, they can get through the next 4 weeks. People who have every intention of meeting up with others, even if it is 'just' outside. People who want their children in school because they can't possibly cope with their children at home in lockdown and what about their rights to an education, a future and their mental health.
I have spent an hour this morning quietly sobbing in my room whilst reading this shit. The utter lack of social responsibility and refusal to see a bigger picture. Not one fuck given about either the physical or mental health of every single person now working in key positions knowing that potentially, things are worse than they were 7 months or so ago. When you want to push your child in the pram and don't see why meeting up with someone else pushing their child in a pram, despite the rules being 2 people not 4 people but it's OK because your mental health can't take any more, maybe just give a thought to those of us who are cramming ourselves into small rooms without ventilation with 32 people who refuse to wear masks because they're exempt and who are transmitting the virus with few.....statistics suggest that there will be anywhere between 5 and 50 students in my school tomorrow who will have that virus. A russian roulette of whether or not I will end up in a room with one of them. I mean how could we be anything but mentally unhealthy knowing full well that tomorrow might be the day we contract this virus and our lives change forever? Who is protecting the mental and physical health of keyworkers? Does anyone actually care about the mental and physical health of keyworkers?
Maybe just start thinking about the mental health of every single person and every single person's right to life and our children's right to have a physically and mentally well parent, capable of meeting their needs.
And please, feel free to professionally insult me some more, becuase that's what always happens on these threads, tell me we don't need teachers like you and if you're that bothered, get another job there are thousands of unemployed just waiting in the wings to take over. Well, no, you can't do without me and my colleagues, our experience, our skills, our professionalism. Just as you can't do without the medical professionals who are facing dealing with this shit again because your right to mental health negates our right to both physical and mental health.
Your rights don't usurp mine. I don't have much faith in this government, but they are what they are. They are making the rules. Follow them. Remember you are not the only one struggling. Be grateful that you're not the one doing the keyworking and be supportive of those of us who are by remembering we also have a right to be physically and mentally healthy. There is balance required. For all of us. We all have a right to a future. Let's make sure those who's future is taken from them in this pandemic number as few, not as many, as possible.
As for me, I think my resignation is on the cards. I think anything at all is better than this.