16 Comments
Jan 11, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

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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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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Jan 12, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

A friend of mine teaches in a private residential girls' high school; they tested the kids yesterday, and today one of the kids got the news that she had tested positive while in my friend's class. This was a girl who had tried very very hard to do everything "right" and was just devastated at the thought that she might have exposed others, trembling and trying not to cry as she apologized to everyone over and over again. My friend said that everyone in the room genuinely showered her with love and reassured her over and over again that it wasn't her fault and she wasn't a bad person. But wow was it ever a fraught experience, for that kid and everyone dealing with this.

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Jan 12, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

This really resonates with me. From the beginning of the pandemic I've struggled so much with the idea that getting COVID = personal failure, and being afraid I would spread it to other, more vulnerable people. The second part is still a worry, and I'm definitely having trouble with the switch to "Oh well I guess we're all going to get it now!" I'm seeing from a lot of people about omicron. But I'm starting to be able to recognize that, just like you said, health is not a matter of willpower. And I can totally see how it intersects with diet culture in that way, and a million other things that are presented as individual failings but are really societal issues. I'm vaxxed and boosted and still being extremely careful, but I also have a teenager who has to go to school. I've talked with her about all of this and how she will probably be exposed and that it's not her fault if she catches it, but I hate that we're all in this situation.

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Jan 11, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

This is such a great, timely essay! This has been so much on my mind, we’re an adult only household, so it’s easier for us (sometimes!) to understand the nuances and work on knee jerk assumptions that getting COVID is due to personal irresponsibility versus a complex series of hard choices and factors totally out of our control. For our friends with kids, wow do I feel for them! It’s much harder to help kids understand without scaring or confusing them more especially with messages coming from other sources like classmates, teachers, etc — I am going to share this newsletter edition with a lot of folks who will appreciate your thoughtfulness very deeply!

Minor aside: I donated to the Me Little Me fund — the minimum donation is $3 (I’m guessing because of processing fees), I am not sure if this is helpful or silly info to pass along if anyone else was, like me, donating with the idea of “I can certainly donate just $1 without much thought” — needing to go up to $3 wasn’t a financial burden. I think mentioning this makes me sound ridiculous or scolding, it’s about me being someone who likes to know exactly what to expect in all situations (even when inconsequential) and maybe someone else is like that too?

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Jan 11, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

This was a fantastic issue, Virginia. Thank you.

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