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Lauren Hertel's avatar

The Age of Omicron and the “everyone will get it now” sentiment has been hitting me hard this week. After two years of worry and sacrifice, especially parenting in isolation while trying to protect a not-yet-vaccinated small child, it’s all feeling…pointless? I’m not sure how to take the “appropriate” level of responsibility—what does it mean to take precautions without assuming (the illusion of) control? Sigh. It feels unacceptable that we’re still in this mode of constant risk assessment and mitigation, on top of the general mental load of motherhood that was already unsustainable. Anyway, thanks for writing this and providing space to process. This framework that decouples health from morality connects a lot of dots between COVID, disability, chronic illness, fatphobia, etc. and that is important and helpful work, especially for us parents.

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Annie Karabell's avatar

Loved this. Also perfect timing. Just yesterday my kid came home and said [redacted] said something mean to me. So I asked what he said and it was “paper masks zap germs but cloth masks let the germs in.” She felt like he was insulting her because she had on a cloth mask (because 1) she is sensitive to textures and we haven't found a disposable one that fits properly yet, and 2) I've ordered a few more different kinds of disposable masks that haven't yet arrived.) I'm not even sure what to make of this, but I hate it.

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