Parents: The Unsung Warriors of the Pandemic

Amber French
11 min readNov 19, 2020

Each person has a unique perspective and experience having gone through a pandemic these last 9 months. We’ve expressed gratitude as a nation for the medical staff faced with an unprecedented amount of incoming patients, while not having the proper protective equipment back in the early months of the chaos. We’ve hailed the many essential grocery store, sanitation, janitorial, and dedicated blue collar workers who do not have the option of working from home. We’ve seen outpourings of love for teachers, of which many are entangled with mixed or delayed messaging from their districts on how to execute an array of different learning models: hybrid, remote, or in-person. So let us, at long last, shine a light on the parents. This group has been bearing the burden of this pandemic from every possible direction. This considerably large chunk of the population is exhausted, extended financially, and wondering how much longer life will feel like Groundhog Day.

As a working parent myself of two boys ages 7 and 11, I not only began to experience the mental and emotional load of this pandemic back in April when the realization struck that no one was going back to normalcy anytime soon, but I began to see what other peers of mine were experiencing, and the view was eye opening. Fast forward to this month, November, and the wear and tear of these last 9 months can be felt in the…

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Amber French

Learning & unlearning on this parenthood journey. Mom, wifey, businesswoman, do-er, kitchen dancer. Lover of stories & people.