It’s bleak these days.
A couple of weeks ago the school called/emailed/carrier pigeoned a note like “say, it’s wild out here. no more backpacks. no more lockers.” which is…like fine all of the kids have a school-issued laptop but like my child carries several comic books and notebooks on her person at all time and she refuses a traditional purse so what? also what? WHAT? There’s been a general on-going threat of violence of some sort and while I’m sure it’s mostly kids dicking around at the end of the school year it’s also not a threat to be taken lightly.
Three weeks ago I had to toss Hitler propaganda in the trash cause our neighborhood had been littered with it. Saturday night I searched Ted Cruz’s tweets for how many times him and his wife prayed for the victims of another mass shooting.
A school district just north of here told the kids clear backpacks only. last Friday basically every district in America had internet threats and Addy texted me in 7th period “There’s only 4 kids in class cause everyone else went home cause of the threat.” I bought her a credit card-sized charger so her phone never dies at school cause you really can’t send a tween out into the world without one.
The thing about parenting through a dystopia is that you still have to parent. Like no we’re not barricaded from zombies or aliens or whatever. The existential threats are real and constant but also Marvel keeps putting out new movies we gotta go see and we still keep buying books and notebooks while it’s still legal to write and read. But we also gotta keep an eye out on pandemic mutations and also how safe is it really to go to the movies at the mall? Do your homework, do your chores, wear a mask, be suspicious and aware, keep your phone charged.
BLEAK.