The Extra Bonus We Can Still Get from This–strange–2020

And avoid it all going to waste…

I’ve been a teacher for almost 40 years and a mother for 32 (and counting because this keeps going on) and I have enjoyed every bit of the roads. I’ve taught online and learned digital technologies, and yet I cannot even picture myself being a mom 24/7 — with all the implications, supervising their on-line schooling — they do not do it all by themselves, you know, doing home office — meeting my deadlines… and not die trying. I truly would fail and get fired in all 3!

Life as we knew it has changed drastically all of a sudden and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel yet. In-person classes — daily and permanent — still look very unlikely, too far away. According to António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, the Covid-19 pandemic has posed the biggest disruption in the history of education due to school closures.

“Now we face a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.” António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Of course, he was referring to the whole world, and that implies a lot more than the so-called western world, where most people have homes, electricity, food, internet, computers… that other would be a whole separate story, different from the one here.

But in the one you and I live and can influence, we have seen that the closure of schools has been too long and unprecedented, yet unavoidable, regardless of the high toll. Precisely due to the dramatic implications is why we must find the creativity and balance necessary to reverse this prediction, somehow, however much.

And the reason for this dream I have — of reversing it — is twofold.

WHAT IS

I have always thought home-schooling not to be the best education choice because children acquire more than academic knowledge at school: Socialization, peer/group work, group and individual instructions, looking up to authority figures — other than parental ones. All of these missed opportunities are already a great loss for children.

On the other hand, we have the teachers who overnight had to become on-line teachers, adapt all of their programs and materials, and reinvent themselves to take on this new overloaded and overloading task. Because it is overloading, never-ending, and full of challenges — many teachers have had to learn technologies asap and their private home environments have been invaded by this new way, just to mention two. Admirable what they do… and whatever they achieve.

But the mothers… oh boy, they’re the ones most overwhelmed, more than ever before! I’m not saying that NO fathers do their share — especially now when it is some mothers the ones that go out to work in essential jobs, leaving the fathers in charge. However, let’s be honest here: The raising of the kids and the housework have always been — traditionally and way more heavily — women’s burden.

Unpaid work and care, with little to no recognition. Never-ending, too and mostly. And these pandemic times have not been the exception in most homes: It’s even become more evident because — to top it off as if it weren’t enough — many mothers keep working (whether from home or not).

“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.” ― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

That is the true nature of housework, and although it’s Simone who wrote the above — in The Second Sex ironically, of course — why does it still have to be women’s obligation only? Now, more than ever, when many families are kept helplessly imprisoned with each other days in and out — fathers, mothers, children — it’s more unfair than ever. (Plus the elderly, of course, who also have to be taken care of. By whom? Your guess is right!)

That this has been historically the norm almost everywhere — in some places more so than in others — does not make it right. Or just, fair, decent, egalitarian.

WHAT COULD BE

And this is what I was referring to when I wrote that this strange 2020 could leave some extra bonus behind: By acknowledging this unfairness we have the chance to bring on more equity and evenness into our homes, countries, society as a whole… if and only if we are capable of changing this unhealthy pattern of gender-gap. Not only because it is fair but also since it can prove efficient and beneficial. TO ALL, not only women.

Because this scenario will remain for who-knows-how-long. The hope that after the Summer things — schools for one — would go back to certain normality… that ship has sailed and has brought us back to the limbo state again! The truth is we have no idea of much at all, as I recently wrote regarding the things we’ve lost.

Except for one thing that is beginning to look certain: Schools being reopened have confirmed the risk and proven not the best move — or long-lasting. So, since home office and homeschooling look like the most feasible way of living life, let’s do it right, and let’s make life at the home fair once and for all, now that ‘HOME’ is the safest place for most.

(Safe if you have one, of course. Safest only meaning virus-free, because in abusive homes, not even there are women and children safe… and unfortunately, that, too, is another story to write about.)

Let’s acknowledge the historical unfairness and move forward, and find, create or bring more balance into the household, so that everyone does their share of the chores.

Let’s teach children early on to take care of themselves, their belongings, their own messes, their personal needs. This is a skill for life. The lockdown represents a major chance for them to learn this, for their good and to care for others. If there’s no other parent around, it’s even more crucial.

Let’s talk men into just the same as the above — exactly and for the same reasons — and that would mean plenty. It would relieve women from some burden and teach the children in the family what’s fair. That alone would be a great gain. But even better would be if they contributed to the needs of the whole household, not only themselves but also their children’s needs.

Let’s get fathers more involved in the kids’ education, new paradigm included. I know they’re doing home office or going out to earn the living, but so are women, aren’t they? They are not teachers per se either and are already burned out after several months, so the load of their kids’ homeschooling is huge on them alone.

The success of online classes does not depend solely on teachers and students, especially since the model is still in experimental stages, yet in place already. Therefore, the twofold challenge is to make homeschooling as fruitful as possible, closely and efficiently supervised, by having both parents share all the duties.

If we are to save this generation of kids and youngsters, our jobs and our sanity — all of ours — we must rethink life itself because the one we knew is gone, maybe for good, and we have to reinvent ourselves.

Not only is it necessary but possible: It’s a great opportunity to evolve — there’s no other way — an adapt to a new world. The better we live our lives locked-down, doing home office and homeschooling, the better off we will all come out of this, proving Mr. Guterres’s forecast to be less gloomy.

The EXTRA BONUS will be having evolved during this — strange — 2020.

P.S. The woman in the picture may very well be a teacher, preparing her online classes for next week, supervising her young son — who has gone to the bathroom — doing his homework, on a Sunday afternoon. Just saying.