I’ve considered this too. My husband is against it because he thinks it’s fraud. DS11 had Covid but it was almost a year ago, and waning immunity is a concern.

I’m taking DS11 to Universal Studios in October. Going to Harry Potter World at the age of 11 and getting his wand has been a huge deal for years. This is about the only week that works this year between his school and my work/conference speaking schedule and it’s all paid for. I’m debating getting him vaccinated before we go. I’d need to do it soon to get both shots done before we leave. He’s big for 11 and bigger than half the teens I’ve vaccinated. I’m not worried about that. They don’t ask for proof of age. I actually could just have a coworker vaccinate him and fill out the paperwork. But….is it wrong? I don’t know. We have excess vaccines. He’ll be 12 in May. I have no qualms about the safety. But I keep coming back to the ethics of lying. (I majored in philosophy so I overthink but…)

I definitely think my mom would have fewer regrets if she’d gone from homeschooling to freedom instead of caregiving for very dependent parents. I also think she’s seeing the financial security her dual income daughters have and wondering if they would have been better off if she’d worked—however even night shifts weren’t an option with my dad. It’s important to note that she never once regretted homeschooling while in the thick of it.

It was everywhere in the 1980s and 1990s. The homeschooling world I grew up in was so different from today lol. All of my siblings except one who is disabled have moved 5-20 hours away and most of us are not particularly close. My mom has four grandchildren she’s never met, two because of estrangement and two because of distance. It’s definitely not how she thought homeschooling would turn out. All of us that chose to go to college have been academically successful and have advanced degrees, so it was something that was good for us. But I don’t think it was worth my mom’s sacrifice; we probably would have been okay in public school too.

My moM was one of the original homeschool pioneers back in the day. Helped fight for homeschooling laws and legality; was willing to go underground in the 80s. She homeschooled from 1986 to 2018. My mom was a True Believer. And now she regrets it. She bought hook, line and sinker into the “homeschooling will keep your family close and religious” and “homeschooling produces better adults” lines that were fed religiously in the 1980s up through probably 2010 era. Now she doesn’t really recommend homeschooling. The only one of her eight children who homeschools is estranged; the rest of us utilize public school, though we all homeschooled last year. Probably it did give us a better education; but homeschooling was certainly not the best thing for my mom. Had she had fewer children or a husband who didn’t travel, she could have stayed working part time as an RN and that might have helped. As it was, she basically sacrificed her entire adult life to homeschool. It really wasn’t worth it. (I do think if she’d been able to launch her kids and then pursue something such as travel or hobbies she might have felt different. As it was, my youngest sister’s graduation coincided with my grandparents both needing almost 24/7 help, and since Covid there are no in home caretakers or open nursing home beds for my now bed bound, total lift grandmother. So my mom is back in full time caretaking instead of being able to enjoy child free life.)

I can’t even imagine not having a mask mandate. Even with the kids masked, there are now 17 kids in quarantine from this exposure, mostly from the bus. There’s been several more kids from the school test positive so more quarantines. I don’t have any idea what the long term answer is. Our local psychiatric inpatient hospital has close to 100% vaccination rate and the ambulance has been there three times today alone taking very symptomatic patients to the ER. They have over 30 positive Covid patients(this is a residential, long term psych facility) and most are pretty sick. I used up half of my vacation time this year when my daughter was quarantine after an exposure in February. I’ll use the read up this week. We don’t get a lot of vacation time or sick time, and so what am I supposed to do? Exposures are going to keep happening, but there is no virtual school option here period. I was hopeful that maybe quarantines would stop once people are vaccinated, but with the number of breakthrough cases here healthcare facilities are moving towards both mandatory vaccinations and mandatory, frequent testing. I’m not convinced vaccinated people won’t be back to quarantining after an exposure.

Ugh. We hit 6% today. I did find out that the 46% vaccinated is the amount of total population vaccinated, so that should make the number of eligible vaccinated higher. Which is good news, but I don’t know what it equals in terms of eligible numbers. It honestly doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference because our percentage of positive tests is higher than last year. Kids are getting sick, adults are having breakthrough cases that may not kill them but still make them miserable, dehydrated, and quarantined along with their contacts. I don’t have the answers; but this is not sustainable long term.

To be fair I’ve been ranting about this to DH for the last few days myself.

To be fair they brought him into the ER a few days ago, and he was borderline okay at that point and discharged. In another time, when there were beds open, he’d have been admitted. But even though we really aren’t overrun with Covid, we’re losing so many nurses who refuse to get the vaccine that they’ve had to close hospital wings full of empty beds.

We are only at 3.9% positivity, with 46% eligible population vaxxed, fully masked school and there are so many kids out positive or quarantined contacts. I’m irritated at the non vaccinated people. I’m irritated at everyone, I guess, and I don’t know what to do. I am an introvert who treasures my silence, and homeschooling my kids does not involve silence. But this is going to be a continual disruption for…who knows how long? This year? Next year? I don’t even know. We’ve had a lot of symptomatic breakthrough cases and I expect that soon even vaccinated people will be quarantining again after exposure. There is a hybrid homeschool option now, but the majority of parents are anti vaxx and the kids are not masked. I really truly don’t have any ideas. I don’t want to homeschool but I also don’t want continual disruptions to my kid’s educations. I’m tired anyway. Forgive me for my rants. An hour ago I took a patient into the ER who has Covid and is now septic with a really low SPO2. I doubt he’s going to make it. His wife and daughter are RNs but anti -Covid-vax and convinced him not to get it. I wish I could shake people anymore

I am astonished by the lack of planning, I think. I know that they’re constricted by NYS being so adamant about in person five day a week instruction, but Covid isn’t new now and it’s here to stay. You’re going to have quarantined kids throughout the school year. If we leave my kids in school for the rest of the year this won’t be their only quarantine. It is so educationally disruptive. Plus very few parents have enough time off to just take off 10 days several times a year to stay home with their kids. I don’t. My cousin has 9 hours of PTO left and is a single mom; she’s terrified of her kids getting exposed and having to quarantine. She would literally not be able to buy food or pay her mortgage.

So this is the CDC guidelines. Apparently if my kids were in the classroom with this child at the same distance and time, it would be fine? I don’t know why—ventilation maybe? Though the bus windows are all open right now with the weather nice. I don’t understand either why the teachers and support staff aren’t held to the same guidelines as students. I foresee a long year of kids quarantining.

No virtual options at all. Other states are way ahead of us.

The CDC is on my list of annoying things lol. I’m on immunosuppressants. We know that the vaccine is likely not very effective for me and that I don’t have the antibodies that they test for. However, it’s perfectly okay for me to spend yesterday in a surgical mask in a tiny ambulance with 4 different Covid patients, one of whom had dementia and would not keep a mask on, for a total time of about 5.5 hours and I don’t need to quarantine because I’m vaccinated. but my daughter, who rode masked on a bus for 15 minutes with an asymptomatic child two days ago who developed symptoms this morning and was also masked, and who does have known Covid antibodies, has to quarantine. Like I can’t even. (And I get it, and I support vaccinations and quarantined, but really.)

Everyone is masked on the bus and in school. They’re very strict here with masking, but it’s still an exposure.

I think what really disturbs me is that they’re offering no education to quarantined kids beyond worksheets and a 10 minute zoom meeting with their teacher.

My two younger kids have been in school exactly 9 days. They started last Wednesday, so really only 7. And we just picked them up because a kid on their bus tested positive. I kind of have some insider knowledge that the dad tested positive yesterday and had refused to be vaccinated. Kid woke up symptomatic today and now my kids are on a ten day quarantine. With no educational anything other than a once a day Zoom meeting with the teacher. I said (insert swear word) that. But I hate homeschooling; I really do. And we are so busy at work that sleeping when my kids are in school is the only rest I get. But I can’t leave them in school anyway and NY forbid virtual options this year. I literally have no PTO left and I don’t even know how I can afford to take ten days off and I expect this will keep happening. Like how can anyone take 10 days off repeatedly and afford it? I just needed to vent. I’m so over it.

I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. I think it’s extra hard because there is a risk and it’s not a situation that’s ever going to go away. At some point, life will return to normal, with Covid still present, and you don’t want your son having perpetual anxiety about eating with others or in a crowd. And the trauma component is real. I think following his psychiatrist’s suggestions is the wisest route. 11 is a hard age anyway, but gently pushing through may be the best long term solution.

I think alerting a supervisor and select staff that will be working with her at the care facility is not going to make your mother a target(as making it known while she was living it in the community would). But they will need to know for when it surfaces; especially as this is stressful right now. Let them know she just needs reassurance.

You’re not stupid. It’s complicated science. Frankly, this really was the messaging people were getting. I gave hundreds, maybe even a thousand, vaccines. People were so excited because they had been told it was our ticket back to a normal life. The pamphlets we handed out definitely led people to believe that. I think people needed optimism and the messaging was too optimistic, probably to convince people to get vaccinated. My mom is vaccine hesitant for herself but is currently interviewing personal care aides for my grandmother and is insistent that they be vaccinated. She has this idea that natural immunity is preferable. I finally told her last night that even if she got vaccinated, she’ll still probably get Covid anyway. She isn’t dumb, but the messaging, even subtly, was persistent that it was going to prevent Covid altogether, when it should have been preventing serious Covid. Also, the vast majority of vaccines do prevent illnesses for most people. Measles, mumps, rubella, tetnus—so when we hear vaccine, that’s what we think. It should have been equated to the flu vaccine.

I think at this point, almost everyone I know has had Covid. A couple more than once. I only know two people who died of Covid; and I don’t know either of them well. One was a friend’s brother and one was someone I knew by sight and would say hi too, but we didn’t really know each other.

I’ve always had pcos since shortly after puberty, but they’ve never found a cyst on my ovaries. I once had fluid that looked like maybe it had burst, but my blood work is consistently clear I’ve got pcos. I take a lot of medication and have finally found the right mixture for me. I’m also diabetic, which is common with pcos.

I didn’t either until I saw my medical records. But it makes sense. The pregnancy had to end and survival of the baby was questionable. I had a good outcome, but we didn’t know that when I signed the papers to take him out. My real goal was to be able to hold the body.

I had to deliver at 28 weeks via c section. I was not really in labor but the situation had gotten critical. It was technically a termination of pregnancy, even though the baby wound up surviving.

Ugh. I am not immune to measles despite multiple doses of the MMR vaccine. that’s like the last thing my life needs right now.