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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

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Re: No Way to Grow Up

#241

Post by colinmhayes »

criddell wrote: post #27
throwawayboise wrote: post #4

I am very thankful that my youngest graduated high school in 2020. The last couple of months were screwed up, but there wasn't much real education lost by then; most seniors pretty much check out after Spring Break anyway. I really feel for the kids who are younger. The effects of this are going to be with us for decades.

Did your kid go on to college? My two kids did and it's a pretty lousy experience. Classes are mostly online still, cafeterias are take out only, socialization opportunities are mostly gone.

I graduated from Michigan pre covid and all the cs classes are recorded so you only need to show up to discussion on Fridays. Wasn't a bad experience since you could skip past people's bad questions. Of course we could still meet on campus though.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#242

Post by School-Cotton »

yupper32 wrote: post #99

Honest question: At what point do we give up? I'm in the Bay Area and it'll be coming up on 2 years soon of what basically amounts to a social shut down. -- Many social groups are just not getting together anymore, including most of mine. -- Concerts, sporting events, parties of most sizes, crowded bars/clubs just seem off the table at this point. -- Masks for the majority of it, which makes gym going and working out…

You sound like you're describing a foreign country from my experiences in New York, Arizona, and Nevada.

Why not move out of the Bay Area?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#243

Post by smm11 »

This is all we need.

I have two kids just out of college, and they already have the attitude that they're defeated, the world is out to get them, if everyone older would just die, why can't we buy a new car for $4000 or a house for $20K?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#244

Post by nradov »

tdeck wrote: post #229
ajmurmann wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19." This sentence also implied that there had been consensus about what the trade-off is which I don't think everyone would agree with. I definitely know some parents who are afraid if their children returning to badly ventilated classrooms

Also parents are the caretakers of children. If they're sick or incapacitated or die, that's going to have a negative impact on children. As will having a greater number of essential workers becoming sick or dying.

How is that relevant? The parents will all inevitably be exposed eventually. It doesn't matter whether the exposure happens through one of their children or someone else.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#245

Post by rdtwo »

datavirtue wrote: post #103
superfrank wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no diffe…

There is a dangerous level of cognitive dissonance around school closures that effects nearly everyone. I have to filter arguments by finding out if the people making them have or do not have kids in school. People with kids in school just want schools open. Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. There are a lot of vested interests that bias toward opening schoo…

Where are the kids going to go when you shut down schools? You end up upping the care taker to kid ratio from 30:1 to like 2:1 when you pull kids out of school so you have to pull an equivalent number of adults out of the work force to handle that responsibility.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#246

Post by chmod600 »

XorNot wrote: post #232
animal_spirits wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article does a good job at looking at this as a trade-off. No where in the article do they state outright that there is no change to transmission. The main point is to ask the question "Is avoiding the damage to those that are older worth the damage to those that are younger?"

The question only ever asked by people in no danger (or who believe they're in no danger) of the consequences of what they propose.

No. Everyone with children asks that question, because they see the damage happening. Some reach different conclusions about the trade-off, but no parents take your absolutist position that doesn't even question the damage.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#247

Post by coldtea »

superfrank wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no diffe…

>There's a big difference between, "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" and "Children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID".

Is there? Because I fail to see it.

If "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" (most of which, that is ages 5-to-17, go to school), then "children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID".

What would the alternative be? That children going to school does increase the spread of covid, but for some mysterious reason their own families are spared disproportionally from being infected by them?

If

(a) parents and non-parents would have mostly equal chances of dying if they contact covid.

(b) children going to school increased the spread of covid

one would expect their own families they co-live with, to be mostly affected by this.

Else what explains (b)? It's their teachers that increase the spread - and children going to school are not the carriers of these increased spread?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#248

Post by School-Cotton »

yupper32 wrote: post #221
shmel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is simple: it will stop when people decide it is over. Only non-compliance on massive scale will solve this. Science clearly said that Covid will be with us forever. We know that vaccines didn't stop the spread in even a single country. There is nothing else to wait. Take back your freedom now.

Yeah see this is why we can't have a real conversation about this. Every time I bring up this topic I'm bombarded with "ThEy'Re tAkInG YoUr FreEdOm!!" and "VaCcInEs DoN'T EvEn WorK" type people. I'm not part of that group.

Where did the person you're replying to claim vaccines don't work?

You're projecting onto people with totally reasonable takes your own prejudices about what other, unreasonable, opinions you think they probably also hold.

> I'm not part of that group.

If you're not part of the group that believes that freedom is more important than decreasing the spread of Covid, then you've answered your own question. You will be living as you do now for the rest of your life, because Covid is obviously never going away.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#250

Post by ModernMech »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #81

The audacity. The NYT have been constantly supportive of more restrictions and barely asked a single journalistic question with regards to if they actually work and the impacts of them. “No Way To Grow Up”? You don’t say! Here’s a thought with less hot air than the NYT: If Covid doesn’t impact kids and the vaccine barely moves the needle on transmission, how about let them go to school, remove the masks, stop jabbing…

This is a great idea and I fully support it. But I notice you didn’t say anything about teachers and the wider school community. There are many more people who are part of a school community than just children.

As a teacher, I love the imagery of children just living their lives, free from the weight and realities of this pandemic. I can picture them in the classroom, eager to learn, raising their hands, playing in the playground. It warms my heart.

But the flip side is that I can also picture the teachers and administrators. I see unmasked, unvaxxed, infected parents interacting directly with teachers. I see immunocompromised teachers dying.

I also see their surviving coworkers unable to emotionally handle being in school, with little to no support. Remember, teachers are also simultaneously dealing with the threat of school shootings ever lurking in America. This may sound glib, but have you checked out the price of bullet proof armor? This is a thing teachers and students buy now, along with the other school supplies they buy out of their own pockets. Pens, check; notebook, check; bullet proof backpack, check. Ready for school!

After two years of extra work, pay cuts, staffing shortages, budget cuts, dozens of school shootings, being screamed at by parents, being called traitors to America for teaching its history accurately, many are fed up with it.

If this keeps up, you’re going to end up with Qanon believers teaching your kids. They’re sure that school shootings are staged by crisis actors, and covid isn’t even real, so they’re going to be the only ones left willing to apply for the job. Maybe that’s something you want, but I sure as hell don’t.

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