By Matt Halvorson

It’s been hard to find the right words during this pandemic. And as a dad with four kids — two toddlers, a would-be first-grader, and a newly moody teenager — it’s been hard to even find moments alone to think about what those words might be, let alone to write them down.

But look at me now! Alone in front of a computer. Still, each time I start to write, I start to feel overwhelmed. There’s too much to try to figure out all at once.

There’s the physical safety of our kids. Are we really going to send them unvaccinated into school buildings even as the COVID-19 delta variant fills our ICU beds and threatens our children with more serious consequences than the first go-round?

And there’s also the emotional and psychological well-being of our kids to consider, as ever. Are we going to send them into schools that cannot, for instance, decide whether or not to teach critical race theory? Are we going to send our beloved children during a pandemic into schools that were already utterly failing to provide them with an equitable education?

And beyond that, we have the bigger picture to consider. This pandemic brought just about everything to a grinding halt. It continues to be painful in so many countless ways, but if there was a silver lining to COVID, it was a gift-wrapped opportunity to change everything — to never go back to the way things were.

We’re letting it slip through our fingers. Why? Are we really going to risk our children’s lives and long-term health just to make sure their conditioning isn’t further interrupted?

I’m not trying to groom my kids to grow up and land an office job, and I’m sure as hell not trying to willingly hand them over to be taught a bizarre, whitewashed version of history that prepares them to capitulate rather than resist.

I’m looking around me and seeing a country that has never relented in its quest for genocide of indigenous people, that has never relented in its viciously intentional mistreatment of Black people, women, immigrants, Latinx people, trans people, and just about any group of non-white-males you can find.

I’m looking back at my own public schooling and knowing that I was intentionally miseducated — that I learned about the Watts riots but not the Tulsa Massacre. I learned about racism in the past tense, about the treaties we used to break and about the slavery and segregation that used to be the norm but were fixed in the ‘60s. I memorized and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

And I’m hearing that same country tell me I should send my kids back to school to continue to receive this same education — that, by gosh, it’s what they need!

“We are legally required by the state and excited to provide in-person learning this school year,” wrote Brent Jones in that same newsletter this week (and the underlining was there in the original text). So, regardless of what you or I or Brent Jones thinks is best for our kids, the state says that kids will be in school buildings all day every day, and so that’s what’s happening. And we’re excited!

And I just don’t know what to say to that. I can’t find the right words — not exactly — or muster the right energy to dive into essay upon essay about why this will not stand. It just feels like too much, too overwhelming, too obvious.