Alexis, 17, has always been close to her parents. But since the pandemic began, they have been arguing a lot. “We snap at each other more,” she said. “And because there’s more negative emotion with the virus and we’re all trapped in the house together, the stress is definitely amplified.”
Both her parents have been working from their Maryland home since March last year. For most of that time, Alexis’ sister, who has graduated from college, has also been living at home. Last April, their grandmother also came to stay with the family for a while, when the Covid cases in Florida, where she lives, were skyrocketing. Until this past year, Alexis, who has her own bedroom, said she had always thought of her house as “normal” sized.
But with her family at home all the time, seeing each other at every meal, the house began to feel awfully small. Problems that in normal times would blow over instead blew up into conflicts. “That’s a clear memory I have of them just getting very, very upset very quickly,” she said of her parents. “I remember they got extremely, extremely mad.”
Her experiences aren’t unique. The parents of the more than 50 million children who attend public schools in the U.S. are facing an unprecedented amount of stress. They worry about keeping their families healthy and how to juggle work and childcare. Some face financial anxieties because of furloughs or unemployment, and nearly everyone is feeling isolated and lonely.
Teachers are in a similar boat, Alexis has noticed. In her online classes, they can seem on edge. She burst out laughing when she heard that some adults think children don’t notice — and aren’t affected by — how stressed they are. “Parents and teachers aren’t fooling us,” she insisted. “Not even close.”
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