The Earnheardts | Are we going back to school?

There is one question that everyone in the Earnheardt house wants to be settled.

It's been hounding us since March and as we hit the middle of summer, it's become even more present:

Will the kids return to school in August? Or September? Or ever?

Ask our teachers: They don't know. Ask our school administrators: No idea. Ask Gov. Mike DeWine: Vague guidance and referral to the local administration. No one has a definitive answer, and we're less than two months away.

We're engaged parents, but we're used to a certain routine and going through the motions. We're not flying helicopters or driving bulldozers or pushing lawnmowers or whatever the new term is for overly-protective, excessively-involved parenting is.

We're your average, run of the mill parents who love their kids.

Because of our busy lives, we don't necessarily care about the dates of the book fair or who's going to chaperone a field trip. But, if you want to get our attention, hold the threat that our kids may not go back to school over our heads. We'll perk up like little prairie dogs popping their heads as alarms to potential danger.

If the question was, "Do the Earnheardt kids want to go back to Liberty schools in August?" you'd get different answers depending on the day.

If Ella (14) and Kate (13) are sick of hanging out together on a particular day, they may want to return to school and be with their friends. Conversely, if they're having fun binge-watching episodes of "All Hail King Julian," then no, they'd rather take classes online from home.

Sadie ( 10) and Ozzie (7) truly miss their teachers and classmates. Some days they experience the pain of social isolation more than their older siblings. In the absence of elementary school friends and their constant drama, Sadie has named the backyard birds and tells dramatic stories about their lives. Ozzie is her assistant.

I blame all the nature documentaries they're watching on Disney Plus.

The lead bird is a cardinal named Beverly Goldberg, named after a character on our favorite family television show, The Goldbergs. Beverly is in a relationship with a bluejay, who they've imaginatively named, Jay.

Other birds fly in and out of the drama, but the tumultuous relationship of Beverly and Jay is definitely the main storyline. If Sadie does go back to school in a month, her fellow fifth graders are going to have to stir the pot to compete with the antics of our backyard birds.

Ozzie is also eager to get back to his best friend Adam and away from his sisters. To be honest, I'm not sure the poor guy can take another makeover. Sadie is now forcing him to wear formal attire for their weekly 'business' meetings and call her 'ma'am.

He wants to socialize with the other little boys his age. Truth is, regardless of age, we're all craving that now. It's just harder for a 7-year-old to process thoughts and feelings of isolation and loneliness.

While their answers about wanting to return to school change from week to week, Adam and I are steadfast in our desire to see them back in the classroom. When we first started remote work and schooling, it was a new experience and we were determined to make the best of it. We set up computers in proper meetings spaces for Zoom conferences and created schedules for work on Google calendars.

But by the time all our school years were winding down, our resolve to make the best of remote education and work had diminished. Our working-from-home lives had devolved into barely getting by. Although summer break came in time for us to get a much-needed respite, looking down the barrel of another five or six months of online learning and work makes me want to flee the country.

Too bad, a lot of those other countries aren't taking U.S. citizens right now.

If my social media accounts are correct, I'm not alone in this feeling of uncertainty and despair over the lack of information about the upcoming school year. I'm usually someone who looks forward to life. I love the start of a fresh school year and all the rituals it entails. Now I'm dreading the start. I mean, what fun are "first day of school" pictures if the kids are just logging on to Google classroom?

Uncertainty is all around us which makes contingency planning the new normal. I'm a strategic thinker, so this is not uncommon for me. Still, the scale of forecasting is much larger than it would normally be and the health threat is real. It's exhausting.

I might be okay if I were only trying to figure out the world for myself, but there's a lot of weight on parents and caregivers right now because we're responsible for so many other people. It's not just our kids. We feel responsible for our partners and other family members. We feel responsible to friends and co-workers and, in my case, my students and everyone who works at my kids' school.

Part of the uncertainty is that it's keeping us in holding patterns. We're stuck spinning our mental wheels until they leave large ruts in our brains. This is coupled with the fear that another change could undo our contingencies and put everyone back to the start with a whole new group of variables to consider.

No one signed up for the strange times we're encountering and I feel obligated to make the best of what we've been given. On the positive side, I'm not alone. Bearing the responsibility of so many people keeps me engaged and makes my efforts feel meaningful.

What has made coping easier is the attitudes of the people with whom I'm interacting. Sure, no one at the school knows exactly what is going to happen in August, but they're all trying their best. Mostly everyone is good-natured and patient and kind in a way that gives me hope. This is because I know they're stressed-out by the unknown — you can see it in their eyes--but at least they're smiling, and their smiles look genuine.

I don't know what we'll face when summer is over. Our kids don't know if they're going back to school or what school will look like. All I do know is that I'm facing it with good people who are just as unsettled, anxious and scared as the rest of us.

We might be alone at home most days, but we're together in spirit and community.

— Mary Beth Earnheardt is a professor of Journalism at Youngstown State University. You can follow her on Twitter at @mbexoxo.

This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 4:11 AM with the headline "The Earnheardts | Are we going back to school?."