In-person school is not the child care panacea some people think it is: a thread.

The school day ends mid-afternoon. After care = more cohorts, so some schools are not offering it/some parents are opting out of it. 1/

School busses are still up in the air (or not running at all). 2/

Grandparents are closed until further notice. 3/

Carpools and after school playdates are discouraged unless kids can distance and wear masks. 4/

If parents take symptom screening seriously, and they should, kids will be home with every sore throat, every non-allergy-related runny nose, every tummy ache. They'll have to stay home until they've been symptom-free for 24-48 hours, depending on school policy. 5/

So on a good day, many parents will have to pause mid-afternoon for pickup duty. On a bad day, they'll be home with a mildly unwell kid for at least 2 days. 6/

This doesn't account for laundry, cooking, cleaning, homework help, bedtime routines, and generally being a steady presence in kids' disrupted lives. 7/

So, yeah, most working parents will usually get an uninterrupted stretch between about 9-2, and it will be *wonderful*. But life will still be far from normal for a very long time. /End