This is not our choice and for millions of other Americans this is not your choice either. Still, our grandparents or great-grandparents were asked to storm Normandy and rivet as Rosie. We are better off by far, though that does not mean our task is easy. Being told you might have broken both arms and two legs when you have a shattered right arm does not make the pain go away, though it does make you feel like using the undamaged left to slug the chump bringing false comfort.
No. Be still or help. We will keep calm and carry on, but nobody said we had to like it. We will take cheer in our family, our neighbors, our magnificent Republic, and the grace of the good God. Duty is before us and though we will not like all of it, we will do it. Why? Because we love our children, our neighbors, and even our Republic for all her faults.
We know, dimly, that this is a moment that will be studied for centuries and what we are saying will be parsed.
Bah.
We are not acting for some future academic, as sure to be as dim to truth as present academics, but for the sake of God, country, and family. The old truths endure plagues, because they were designed to do so.
I admire the parents around me, because they do not ask for pity. They know there are more tragically difficult parts to play. Our medicos and essential workers are doing the hard part. We know this is true, but the mothers and fathers across American doing their best to work and educate are also doing their bit. We worry about our friends, knowing things will get worse before they get better.
We are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We turn to the enduring truths, because we are now to ancient verities.
Let’s be thankful for the homeschool heroes. Teachers and professors (such as I am) are doing what we are trained to do, but there are parents all over the nation doing what they were not trained to do, while keeping another job going.
Well done.
The flurry of schedules, new media platforms, downloads, busted technology, and cantankerous human nature means the perfect, what should be, never will be achieved on any given day. Never let the ideal be the enemy of the best you can do. Love will cover a multitude of crashed cameras, fractious babies, and bosses who have no idea. Do the best you can and survive the pandemic. God does not care if you complete someone else’s lesson plan. God merely asks us to love each other.
Love your kids. Love your family. Love the teachers, even one, in a fit of misguided labor, who sends you another video lesson.
When history is written, the American pantheon of Rosie the Riveter and GI Joe can include the homeschool heroes of the Pandemic of 2020 who kept calm, mostly, and carried on best they could.
God bless us everyone.
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