COVID and Sanity
Dear Editor: When people ask, kindly, with honest concern for my survival, “how are you doing,” I hesitate a moment and reply:
“I am relatively sane. Part of the time. I think. But that was yesterday….”
How is the rest of Sitka faring? I really don’t know. But I care.
If I were stuck at home with one kid, two kids, three kids…? I would be absolutely crazy ALL the time. Even if they were MY kids, 50 years ago. And they were wonderful kids. No major handicaps – that I knew of. Unless having me as a mother could be considered a handicap. (A big one. I sure did not know how to teach what they needed to learn. I didn’t know what they should be learning when. I had no idea. In those days it would not occur to me to even enter the school if not invited. (And I wasn’t.) School was sort of a secret society. A mystery: the kids and teachers in kahootz.
As parents we were responsible for trying to civilize our young primates as best we could, but that surely did not include even a fragment of what kids have to learn now. I surely would not try to understand the utter complexity of what our talented, dedicated teachers have to do nowadays.
If you hear a huge sign of relief as students across our town, our state, our nation head out to their respective civilizing centers, join the cheer. You survived! Aaaaaaaa!
Our shared human capacity to learn – and sometimes unlearn – is our species’ awesome gift.
A retired and grateful Mom.
Nancy Yaw Davis, Sitka
