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Women's Health Blog

Be Real: Pandemic, Moving & Thoughts on Homeschool

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Rachel July blog image

 

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a pandemic going on. I know many people want to ignore it and go about their lives. However, simply pretending it doesn’t exist is not going to make it go away. Unfortunately.

Please continue to wear masks, physically distance, and avoid large crowds. 

This takes on a new level of difficulty when you live here in the resort area of the Delaware beaches. Many families continue to come visit the area, which is great for our local businesses! However, we all need to be cautious. Don’t live your life under a rock, but do live by taking precautions.

This virus is new, meaning that scientists are still learning about it. Much more research needs to be done. And, while they do their work, we need to be patient. This virus affects all ages. Simply the benefit of youth will not necessarily protect you from the ravages of COVID-19.

At the same time, support your local businesses by doing take-out, purchasing online, and doing contact-less pick-up, which many shops are offering.

 

Picked a Great Time to Move
We are all learning many new things during the pandemic. One thing many of us parents are learning is how to innovate and occupy our kids at home.

The kids are spending way more time at home and way more time without going to large group gatherings, such as summer camps or day care. 

Before the pandemic hit, my house was on the market. Then the schools closed and I could not fathom doing house showings while having to keep the house tidy with kids home all day every day. So, we temporarily took it off the market.

However during that time, we realized that the future might look different. It might look like a lot more time spent within these four walls. And, we couldn’t envision our family really thriving in our current location.

It’s funny how our thoughts and priorities change when the world changes.

If the kids are going to be home and we are going to want to be more self-sufficient – i.e. less trips to the grocery store – then we decided we would want to have more property and live more in the country.

I grew up on a 50-acre farm in south-central Pennsylvania, so the thought of moving to a smaller version of a farm really appealed to me. 

We found the perfect location, complete with many fruit trees already on the property. And, a pool. It will allow us to spread out a bit more and will provide more space for growing vegetables and possibly adding chickens in the future. 

Moving during a pandemic is another issue all-together. We decided not to hire movers simply because they would touch every single item in our house and it would mean extra time spent disinfecting at the new house. We also felt like that would invite more people into our ‘bubble’ and we weren’t willing to do that since we have avoided the virus this long.

So, we rented a U-haul and started packing up early to store items at my mother-in-law’s house. As the move looms (it’s later this week), I feel pretty confident that we can do this. Confident mixed with anxiety… but that’s the case for every move, I think.

Moving during a pandemic will certainly be interesting.

 

Thoughts on Homeschool
Everywhere you look right now, you will see articles about whether or not our kids should go back to school. Many of these articles are written from a certain perspective. Everyone with kids and those who are teachers – everyone has a dog in this fight. Which means most people have really strong opinions.

I’m not going to get into all that. What I will say is that at the end of the day, we have to remember that these are humans we are talking about. These are teachers and kids and administrators and bus drivers. There are so many people needed to operate a school. That’s a lot of people to put on the frontlines of the pandemic.

That’s a lot of people who would be putting their lives on the line in a pandemic world where no vaccination yet exists.

So, yes it will be hard for working parents to figure out how to balance school and work, not to mention home life. It will be hard for teachers to do online classes when they haven’t really done that in the past.

It will be hard for many students to keep up with studies. Some students may fall a bit behind.

However, everyone is in this boat. We do not need to really worry about losing some education because kids are resilient – they will catch up in the end. They will learn the material online and they will learn much more being at home.

As parents, let’s remember that our kids are learning all the time. They learn when you teach them to cook an egg. They learn when they garden with you. They learn playing video games or watching movies on the couch with you.

Yes, there are so many unanswered questions – where will children go if there are no parents at home during the day? Can daycares still operate if schools don’t? Will there be any federal support?

I truly believe that together we can do amazing things. And, one amazing thing we can do is support our schools, our teachers, and our kids, by protecting them this fall. Whether that means adjusting how we go to school or adjusting our curriculum to get it done online – either way, we can do amazing things and we should innovate both our schools and our lives at home to continue sucking the marrow out of this life no matter what.

 

Note: The picture is the view from our backyard at the new house.
 

Rachel Swick Mavity

Rachel Swick Mavity

Rachel Swick Mavity, MS, is the Digital Content Coordinator for Beebe Healthcare and is a freelance writer. She lives in Milford with her husband and two children. Her passions include storytelling, photography, healthy products, and coffee.