Friday links: 24 June, 2022

Good morning! Another weekend headed our way. Before we know it, the summer is going to be over and we’ll be counting the months to the next one. Yikes!

It’s funny. Some weeks, I really have to search to find links for this post; other weeks, like this one, I’m absolutely flooded with interesting articles. Strange how that happens.

We’ve got an air quality alert today; because of the ongoing heat wave and various other conditions, the air is grossly polluted. I feel bad that we have to go out at all in the car and contribute to it, but fortunately my daughter’s counselor isn’t that far. Regardless, today’s a day I definitely wish we could stay home!

Here’s what I found interesting online this week! Buckle up, friends. It’s a rough one today.

 

Pilgrimage to Mecca is never easy. Saudi Arabia just made it a lot harder.

Saudi Arabia has switched up the rules for hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites, a religious obligation for Muslim adults at least once in their lifetime (if it’s physically possible and affordable for them. This is, as you might expect, a pricy trip). Millions of people found their hajj trip cancelled this year with no real answer as to why, bewildering and devastating them. Obviously, COVID is still very much real and very much a threat, so there may be an up to this, but I absolutely understand the grief and frustration of the people who were planning to make the once-in-a-lifetime trip to fulfil their religious obligation and now cannot.

 

We asked teachers how their year went. They warned of an exodus to come.

I can’t imagine anyone who’s surprised by the fact that teachers are quitting in droves. I don’t blame them one bit. Even in my area, we had garbage parents screaming at first graders for wearing masks as they walked into school (I wish I were making this up, and I feel zero remorse for calling those parents exactly what they are for standing outside schools and threatening children). We’re not giving teachers what they need, we’re not giving children what they need – and in many cases, we’re actively making things worse on purpose and expecting teachers to be at peak performance regardless. That’s absolute insanity.

And it won’t matter to anyone in charge when schools can’t open due to lack of teachers. We as a country have collectively decided that we don’t care. If we cared, teachers wouldn’t have been placed in this situation in the first place.

 

These children lost young parents to Covid-19. Here’s what they want other kids – and adults – to know.

Hey, another thing we collectively decided doesn’t matter! (I’m an angry, sarcastic mess about everything. I figure that’s going to be my permanent state from now on, because HAVE YOU SEEN…EVERYTHING?!?!??)

Over 200,000 kids have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID; some have lost both. And what are we offering those kids? Thoughts and prayers, as always. A head pat. A firm reminder that no one needs to wear a mask to protect themselves and others from the illness that sent their parents into the ground in a box. (Also exhausted teachers who are increasingly deciding they can’t do this anymore; see link above.)

We’re creating a terrible future full of traumatized adults with zero resources to deal with their pain, other than an influx of guns, because apparently the right to a gun is the only thing we’re permitted here. What’s going to happen when these kids are adults and have grown up with the grief and trauma of loss, with their financial future now in a precious place, and they realize how little society cared about their parents, or them? None of this is going to be good.

 

I’ve had enough of teaching.

Another perspective of why teachers are quitting in droves: because we’ve created a generation of kids who can’t or won’t pay any attention in class. Phones are a huge problem. I can’t say that I blame the parents for not wanting the schools to ban phones; as a parent, I wouldn’t want that, solely because I want my child to be able to contact me if, God forbid, there’s a school shooting – and this is a problem we’ve created as well and which we refuse to do anything about. But tweens and teens, who aren’t known for their self-control, struggle with the temptation to pull the phones out during class.

There are ways to deal with this, but the parent community has to be on board, and it sounds like most of them are not. I’d be perfectly fine with there being rules about phones remaining in pockets or backpacks and detentions handed out if phones come out during class without permission (like if classmates are exchanging phone numbers or sending each other images for something they’re working on. I just had to email a doctor’s office images of my insurance card while I was in the office) or if it’s not an emergency, like a lock-down. There are parents who are against that, though, and therein lies the problem.

 

States scale back food stamp benefits as prices soar.

This is an older article, from April, but you know things haven’t improved since then. We’ve cut the free school meals that went on during the pandemic, families are struggling with the high cost of food right now and can’t keep their cupboards full, and both children and adults are suffering. Do we care? No, we do not.

You’d think that as obsessed as this country is with money and military might, we’d at least see the dangers of this from an economic and security standpoint. Kids who don’t get enough to eat don’t perform well in school; they grow up with health problems, unable to qualify for the military (making this a national security threat, something the military has continually warned about and which has fallen on deaf ears in Congress) and struggling to perform as well at work. And let’s face it: if we can’t or won’t feed our people…what makes us any better than places like Russia or North Korea? We need to start being honest with ourselves here about who we really are.

 

This right wing religious website is telling readers to ruin LGBTQ+ displays.

 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand this is in my area; I’ve been in the store the article is about (and it’s a delightful store!).

What have we become? What are we doing that so many people can’t tolerate the idea that some people are attracted to different kinds of people than they are? What kind of garbage society have we created that entire groups of people can’t stand the site of Black and brown people on the cover of a book? There is something deeply, DEEPLY wrong with us as a nation – to be honest, it’s always been there, it’s just at the forefront right now because certain political groups have made it okay to publicly display how disgustingly hateful you are.

This is just depressing. And these are grown adults. In another article I read about this in a local group, the store employee said that every time someone has been caught hiding these books, it’s been an adult. I’m ashamed to live in the same community as these people.

 

Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy – and Simple Ways to Fix It.

Ohhhh, this is a tough one. We *all* know how hard it can be to put that phone down, close that computer, stop scrolling (or doomscrolling…) and go do something productive. I struggle with this a lot, but I’ve been fairly successful at developing strategies that get me off the computer and sometimes even my phone. I don’t always get to keep up with everyone as much as I’d like, but I get way more stuff done around the house (although nowhere near as much as I’d like, because there’s just too much for any one one person to do), and I don’t usually feel like I’ve wasted too much time online. It’s hard, though. I’m off the computer and upstairs in my room most nights by 8, but I still have my phone next to me, which I check now and then for texts and messages, and I often look up unfamiliar words when I’m reading. It’d be nice if I could do without it at all after 8 pm, but that’s just not a thing these days.

 

Raising kids is ‘essential labor.’ It’s also lonely, exhausting, and expensive.

Not gonna lie. Parenting pre-pandemic was tough. Parenting during the pandemic has been devastatingly exhausting. Trying to deal with the stress of *gestures vaguely at everything* while also managing the emotions of a small child and trying to explain to them why people aren’t wearing masks when over a million people have died? Trying to be that child’s sole source of education, entertainment, friendship? Impossible. Trying to do all of this while the Supreme Court releases decision after decision that proves this country doesn’t care one bit about the health and well-being of its citizens? Demoralizing.

And it’s not looking to get any better or any easier. America doesn’t value the labor its women provide; it never has. It gives lip service to those mythical stay-at-home mothers of the 50’s (you know, the ones who ended up drugging themselves to oblivion with prescription meds because they couldn’t stand the drudgery of their lives. Mother's little helpers, anyone?) who always had a clean home, homemade meals (Jell-o molds full of celery and shrimp, anyone?), and perfectly well-behaved children, but we disdain the efforts of actual women; whatever they’re doing, it’s not enough and they should definitely be working harder, with no help, and receiving absolutely no benefits for their work and the work of others that they make possible. I feel this every single day.

 

And that’s it for this week! I’m about to get dressed and go clean the kitchen, shower my daughter, and get some more random house stuff done before we have to jaunt off to her counselor. I also have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight…we’ve got some leftovers, maybe I can go with that and figure out some sort of side dish to go with. We’ll see. The fun never ends around here!

Wishing you all a peaceful, safe weekend. Try to find some rest in there if you can. Shalom, friends. : )