Nova Scotia parents hold their breath

“Seven days.” 

It sounded really spooky when it was whispered in the 2002 horror movie, The Ring, but it’s even more menacing when said in the context of an extended holiday break from school.

Parents across Nova Scotia collectively sucked in their breath when Premier Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang announced schools would begin their holiday break early (by two school days) and go back late (by five school days). 

For some working parents, this means spending hundreds of extra dollars on unexpected childcare — not to mention scrambling to arrange it. For others, it means muddling through another seven days of trying to work while also feeding, supervising and entertaining children.

For someone like me, who works from home, an extended holiday break is inconvenient and annoying but doable. Hell, I survived five months and 25 days of “March Break.” I can grumble through seven measly days.

My real problem? I’m terrified it won’t just be seven days.

The last time the provincial government told me my kids would be home from school for two extra weeks (following March Break), they wouldn’t take them back for six excruciating months. “Two more weeks.” “Four more weeks.” The spring was filled with empty promises, and COVID only started improving in June when it was time to shut down schools for the year anyway. 

When teachers return on Jan. 4, they’ll do continuing education sessions to learn more about online learning methods. I know this is something they need to be prepared for, but it makes me shudder even thinking about it. 

Virtual learning was not good for our family. I don’t want to go back to a life where my kids cry every day — a life where I cry daily, too, when they can’t see me. I don’t want to go back to being a teacher and a mother and an employee and an entrepreneur, all day, every day. I don’t want to go back to the days when I cried into my phone because I was never alone and also desperately alone, all at the same time.

Students are scheduled to go back on Jan. 11, a little more than two weeks after Christmas Day, so we can see how we fared over the holidays. But even if things went well, after the holidays come two gross, cold, sicky months: January and February. (March is no peach, either.) 

While I truly do appreciate living in a region where we take precautions to keep everyone safe, I’m anxious that the government — in an attempt to keep cases as close to zero as possible — is not going to make good on their promise to prioritize keeping our kids in school. Call me paranoid (I certainly am) but my neck is prickling with the fear that they’ll throw those words around again: “An abundance of caution.” 

If the government feels it’s easiest to just keep schools closed and make students learn at home — working parents be damned — we’re stuck back in virtual learning mode. 

The trouble with these school closures is that they do something that might be just as dangerous than the virus itself: they brew resentment between parents in different situations.

We may all be parents of similar-aged kids, but we are not all in the same boat. Some parents are in yachts, some are in canoes and some are flailing in the waves without even a lifejacket.

Pandemic-related school closures affect families in different ways, and it divides us. 

Some stay-at-home parents are thrilled to have extra time to sleep in and just relax with their kids, while other stay-at-home parents’ mental health suffers when they’re with their kids 24/7. Some working parents will happily go on E.I./CRB and enjoy a break with their kids, while other working parents will be put through the ringer just to hang onto their jobs and get through the days.

And so, nervously, we wait. We circle Monday, Jan. 11 on the calendar. We cross our fingers that “two more weeks” doesn’t become another broken promise. We pray that Nova Scotians follow public health guidelines over the holidays and we don’t wind up with cases shooting up while Christmas trees come down. 

Call it PTSD — I certainly do — but I can’t shake the fear. And for every parent who delights over the possibility of another extended break, there’s another parent who’s already feeling defeated at the thought of going through that again.