Arianna, Sacramento

“I could write a whole book on this, but in short: My two elementary school children are doing distance learning; we are fortunate to have a wonderful school with many resources and our own internet connection to make this happen. My husband set up his laptop in our toolshed and does his work there. I already work from home, so that transition was less difficult for me, but because my work is ‘flexible’, I have dramatically downscaled the amount of work I take on… I’m still grateful that neither of us are unemployed and that I can help the kids with their school. I get the feeling that my experience is extremely common among professional women in 2 working parent households.”

“The worst thing for me personally is to see my almost 100 year old grandmother in assisted living: we can’t visit her, we can’t bring her out of her room, and the underpaid, overworked staff there can’t really do everything she needs for help… She was an airplane riveter in World War II, raised a military family, and went back to school to become a nurse after her kids grew up. She has provided great service to this country. It infuriates me to think this is the way she may go— alone, scared, possibly sick, confused, and depressed.”

“My son asked me a little while ago what it was like when I was a kid and my school shut down for coronavirus, and I had to tell him that this is the first time something like this has happened in a hundred years, that it never even happened to his great-grandma.”

Arianna, 37
Sacramento
4/24/20

 

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