Trigger warning: you may find the following post potentially distressing if you: A) live in Portland, B) have children, C) are tired of being at home with your kids for the nth snow day, and D) are not open to the suggestion of checking yourself, and your privilege, when complaining publicly about the aforementioned snow days.
But seriously people, WHAT is with all the widespread public bitching and moaning?!? For days on days on days my social media feeds have been littered with complaints about school closures and the angst that appears to be extra family time. Moms about to "lose it." Needing to "escape" their kids. Going "crazy" with pretend tea parties and fort building. Hiding in the bathroom to drink hot coffee. Lamenting about Disney-induced alcoholism. Referring to snow days as kids' paradise vs. parents' "hell." Talk of "dying" and threats of "suicide" or other means of "killing" if there's more bad weather on the horizon.
On the one hand, I'm generally a fan of melodrama and tongue-in-cheek humor. I get that people, and it seems mothers in particular, long for a sense of community, and some apparently feel connected to one another via the interweb. And I can appreciate the keepin' it real-style social media posts. I like that some people want to reflect their real lives and real experiences, warts and all, rather than some static, artistic version of an advertisement for "Life."
But on the other hand, how about a little fucking perspective?!?
Do you own a house? Is it heated? Do you still have power? Do you have some food in your fridge and pantry? Could you get to the store safely? Do you work? Do you get benefits like sick days? Can you pay your rent? Do you have family support nearby? To help with childcare when you're in a pinch? Do you have a car? With four-wheel-drive? A way to get to work that doesn't require you to wait in the cold or take an extra hour or two in each direction? Do you get frostbite?!? I bet you even have wireless internet, Netflix, and probably cable TV. A playroom housing the latest gadgets from Christmastime. Maybe you have some wonderful neighbors that you often say you wish you could spend more time with. Warm Sorrel boots and a long down Columbia jacket. A nice whiskey on your shelf and some beer in your fridge. A spouse willing to take the kids outside to build another snowman while you fix dinner.
You said Paw Patrol or Shimmer and Shine might finally cause your psychic break, but did you notice there is a ton of snow outside? I hear a lot of kids really like playing in the snow. What with the sledding and snowball fights and igloo building and such. Oh, and it's been sunny for several days in a row?!? I hear grownups in Oregon like the sunshine. Sure, school is great for everyone. But so is family time. So is communing with your neighbors. There are so many teaching opportunities to be had - how to manage feelings when expectations are violated, a physics lesson when building a jump, the chemistry of ice versus snow versus water, measuring the depth of the snow, the importance of kindness when caring for our neighbors without power. Did you even mean to have kids? Because it sounds like you basically just want them out of your house.
So no, having your kids home, yet again, isn't going to "kill" you or make you "insane," or really have any substantial negative impact other than interrupt the time you have come to rely on to respond to emails, read the news, maybe do some actual work, or just zone out scrolling Instagram or Facebook.
Consider this, I know of some people who would "kill" to have a snow day at home with their kids. People who would much rather be sledding in the sunshine with the very people they work so hard to support, rather than doling out medications to hospital patients, sorting packages and planning an alternative delivery route, laundering the soiled sheets of the cognitively-impaired elderly, checking out groceries and running credit cards, or busting ass to repair power lines and cable wires to keep the rest of the city connected.
I can imagine that some families are "dying" for schools to open again because they rely on the subsidized lunches to fill the bellies of their little ones. The heated facilities to stay warm for part of the day in the throes of winter. The company of friends and the attention or embrace of teachers.
Don't confuse my sentiments here with any kind of holier-than-thou-I'm-basically-Buddha-and-I-sweat-peace-love-and-gratitude-every-minute-of-every-day-because-I'm-hashtag-blessed. I've exchanged plenty of bellyachin' group texts with my BFFs. "Ugh, we paid daycare in full for both December and January, and between the holidays, family in town, and the weather she's been to school a total of like 5 times." "Waaaaaahhh! Alex's school/Francie's daycare is cancelled yet AGAIN, on a day yet AGAIN where I had already paid for school but don't actually have to work yet. So much for watching The Affair on the couch during the day and eating Umpqua chocolate peanut butter ice cream straight out of the carton." "When am I ever going to get any work done. I'm afraid I won't even know how to get up early, commute, or do my job anymore."
But I am fully cognizant of how small potatoes these gripes are - what a privilege it is to be able to whine about spending extra, unscheduled time with my favorite humans, even if they interrupt my lazy and gluttonous private indulgences. I also know I am damned lucky to have the flexibility for my husband and/or myself to stay home with my daughter when daycare closes or she's sick. Hell, I'm aware how lucky I am to even have a husband or a home or a daughter or even a daycare that we can more or less afford (I mean, I could be a single parent, homeless, infertile, or at the precise income level to not be able to afford childcare). Snow days are inconvenient, sure, but it's a whole hell of a lot more convenient than searching the Internet last-minute to hire a stranger to Uber to my house and babysit my distraught daughter while I go to work, probably by bus because I don't have a 4-wheel-drive car, and very likely earn less money than it will cost me to pay said Uber and sitter, in order to keep secure the job my family depends on.
So yeah, I just can't fathom the propensity of others to air their unchecked privilege for all of cyberspace to see. And no, the gratitude and advantage is not implied. At some point, bitching about having your kids home for another day is just that, bitching. It's actually less funny and more indicative of a sense of wealth and security and privilege and entitlement. Maybe consider, could your frustrations better be addressed with, say, a phone call to your mom? A group text with your besties? Or maybe, just maybe, a minute inside your own head?
Especially in this era - our current socio-political atmosphere is rife with negativity of a legitimate kind - I challenge everyone, myself included, to check your privilege, consider the scenario from another perspective, and put a general kibosh on the social media sniveling. In the spirit of Dr. King, starting today, if just for today, save the drama for your mama and focus energy on spreading love and positivity, or speaking out against injustices of a real kind.
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