November 1, 2022

Muffins

It goes without saying that I support CUPE school staff in their fight for a fair deal.

When the world fell apart in March 2020, the centrality of schools to our communities and families was made more apparent than it had ever been, and of course I stand with the incredible people who care for my children every day and help them learn and grow and have kept them safe in their classrooms during the last two and a half years, which has been no small feat in a global health emergency.

It amazes me that, after all our schools have done for us since 2020 and now that we know how truly essential they are, Ontario voters would once again deliver a majority to a government with so little respect for what teachers and school staff do.

I’m still pretty disgusted that this government is offering families $200 a child to pay for education catch-up after learning loss over the last three years, which is barely going to cover two sessions of tutoring. Because do you know what would actually help to make up those gaps? Investing that money in our school system. Giving education workers the pay they’re asking for (especially since this government has currently bagged a surplus) so our kids can finally have a year without learning disruptions.

Oh, but I’m also super struggling with all this. Part of it is that it’s a reminder of the labour disruptions of 2019/2020 that turned out to be a harbinger of such an “unprecedented” time of upheaval and hardship all over the world. When staff and teachers were taking job action in those days, I went all-in with support, baking muffins for the picketers and marching in the freezing cold, organizing walk-ins and rallies, overestimating the impact of my actions, my ability to make a difference, my obligation in the matter, and also whose political ends I was serving. I’ve got to say that becoming so deeply invested, from 2017-2020, in situations that were actually outside of my control, imagining that the free world and the future of democracy (and public education) was riding on my specific shoulders, completely fucked with my mental health.

Perhaps there are people who can engage in politics without losing their minds, but I might not be one of them.

It’s something on the theme of everything I’ve been talking to my therapist about over the past ten months, which is that there are people who are actually being paid to be at that bargaining table, and I’m not one of them, and so maybe I could chill out a bit? That this (among many things) isn’t my problem to fix, and maybe muffins aren’t the answer?

(Muffins were my way to imagine I had any control at all.)

It’s been a hard three years. My littlest daughter had a field trip to the science centre on Friday that’s been cancelled and I’m more devastated about it than really makes sense, except that for me (whose mental health has been precarious, and whose main triggers are those moments where I can’t make the world alright for my kids) it stands for bigger and harder things than that.

I’m fed up with the political scripts from both sides. I resent the way that both are trying to manipulate my anxiety and emotions for their own purposes. I, like so many of us, feel incredibly fragile after these three very hard years.

It’s just difficult. Of course I support school staff, but I’m so tired.