Free the Kids

Let the kids breathe. They need us to fight for them, and if not now, when?

The world has gone mad. I’ve kept my politics off of my personal timeline for years now, but we’re at the point that I feel to be silent is to be complicit, and if we don’t speak up for our children, who will?

We all know the roller coaster of the last year and a half of 2 weeks to slow the spread. We don’t need to rehash the drama, the tragedy, the politics, the emotions. What we DO need to do is take a minute, examine where we are now, and ask ourselves who exactly is protecting the children? There are numerous issues bordering on abuse that our children are being subjected to, without there ever having been a broad public discussion as to the risks/benefits of such harsh decrees that came overnight. I have a million questions, opinions and passions regarding this, and I know I’m not alone.

The first is masks. There’s a range of mask tolerance among people, so for those who seem to sail through the day without noticing there’s a diaper on their face, please try and understand that there are those for whom every second with a mask feels horrible. Who made the risk/benefit calculation, and where was that discussion? The efficacy discussion has been minimally convincing at best, but where was the discussion of the risks? Our kids need to breathe, they need to sing, they need to laugh, they need to communicate properly, with facial expressions included.

Let’s say the masks worked to somewhat prevent a percentage of the virus that could travel from an individual. That may be true in theory, when a mask is worn properly, changed often, never touched, and never re-used. However, we don’t live in theory. We live in the real world, with real people. In the real world, the children are wearing the same masks for way too many hours of the day. Those masks get touched, smeared, thrown on the floor/tables/chairs and then re-applied to the face. Those masks go up and down from the nose to the chin and back again, dozens of times per day.

It’s unlikely that the reality of masking children is beneficial at all, and when we weigh it against the costs? I’m going to call it what it is, and that’s borderline child abuse.

Science Mom @456trainMama

THIS IS CHILD ABUSE. @GovKathyHochul YOU ARE A CHILD ABUSER

The second is quarantine. Why are we quarantining healthy children in order to protect those more vulnerable than themselves? When in history has that ever been done before? Where are the carefully conducted studies that determine levels of negative impact that isolation will have on healthy children, both in the moment and in the future? Who decided that our kids’ lives can be reduced to 4 walls for up to 2 weeks at a time, over and over and over, and that the price that enacts is worth the benefit? What even IS the benefit? We’re not in March 2020. We’re 18 months into this pandemic, and there is now a safe and effective™ vaccine that is broadly doing a miraculous job of keeping people out of the hospital and off of death beds.

With a vaccine available to everyone and their mother, how is there not a national uproar at the decision to continue the practice of putting healthy children into isolation?

It’s time that parents stick up for their kids’ well being, because that is NOT a top priority of the ones making the decisions. If it were, they wouldn’t be continuing these practices, or they’d at least make a much more convincing argument of why it’s necessary, but the agencies who mandate the rules haven’t bothered to do so.

Is there anyone out there listening to the kids? With a safe and effective™ vaccine available to anyone who’s still in fear of the virus, how on earth are we entering another school year facing masks, isolation, and Zoom? It’s enough, and anyone demanding that the kids continue to suffer for the sake of others is as selfish as it gets. Our job is to protect the kids. Free the kids, and throw away their masks forever.