Almost immediately after Laura Willemsen answered the phone to talk to a reporter about what it’s been like to work her full-time job from home while helping teach her two kids, one of them interrupted her with a question about the speed of light.
“Just a second,” Willemsen said, diverting her attention to her 11-year-old son.
“Remember that it’s in seconds, not hours,” the St. Paul mother and college professor reminded him before resuming the interview.
A NEW NORM
The constant interruptions and distractions are the new norm for parents across Minnesota.
Many have been serving as at-home teachers to their children while juggling full-time jobs from home since Gov. Tim Walz closed schools in March in response to the spreading coronavirus pandemic.
They found out Thursday that the closure will continue for the rest of the school year.
The extension of distance learning was expected, parents said, and understandable. Still, it’s a hardship for some families.
‘GLIMMER OF HOPE’
Jennifer Hamri, a Minneapolis mother who works full-time as a managing vice president at a staffing firm and is a single mother to three, heard the news from her 5th grade son.
After the boy got a text from a friend saying “No school for the rest of the year” with a bunch of exclamation points and smiley face emojis, he excitedly shared the update with his mom.
Hamri was decidedly less thrilled.
“I was absolutely devastated,” Hamri said, adding that she’d been holding on to a “glimmer of hope” that school might resume.
“I mean I understand why it’s not. I get it. I support it,” she continued. “I know (Walz) is doing his best to keep people safe, but now I am trying to figure out how I am going to do this for another month.”
KINDERGARTNERS
Hamri’s kids are in kindergarten, 5th and 8th grade. For the older kids, it’s been manageable. They have been working pretty independently after checking in with their teachers in the morning and getting their assignments for the day.
But for the kindergartner, it’s a different story.
“It’s just really different for her to do the work on her own,” Hamri said, “unless it’s on the computer online — but even then her attention span is about 15 minutes.”
That means Hamri has been trying to start her online work meetings at 7 a.m. each day so she has a solid three hours done before she tries to get her kindergartner started on lessons.
But she still has meetings to juggle the rest of the day.
“There are days she might be sitting in front of the TV watching ‘Paw Patrol’ for much longer then I would like her to,” Hamri said, “but I have to work.”
‘THE GUILT IS TERRIBLE’
While her employer is understanding of the new balancing acts parents are facing, Hamri said there’s added pressure working for a staffing company amid an economic crisis.
“The guilt is terrible because you feel like you want to give the best you can to your kids so they are not falling behind and you feel, especially in today’s economic situation, that you want to give your work 150 percent because it’s important,” Hamri said. “It’s just a lot of pressure to try and be a full-time teacher, a full-time worker, a full-time mom and a short-order cook.”
The guilt is heavy for Willemsen too, who says she feels like she’s constantly “scrambling” to try and get her work as a professor at Concordia University done while being both a mother and a teacher to her kids.
Since some of Willemsen’s actual students — college students — are defending their dissertations online right now, Willemsen has had to close the door on her children when those are underway because distractions aren’t an option.
“I have struggled with a lot of guilty feelings,” she said, “like I am doing everything really poorly.”
SENIORS WON’T BE ABLE TO REUNITE WITH CLASSMATES
The governor’s news landed especially hard for high school seniors who learned Thursday that they won’t be able to reunite with classmates and friends one last time for the finale of their K-12 education. Graduation ceremonies are also impacted, as well as spring sports and activities, as well as fun times like prom.
The Rev. Kisten Thompson’s daughter, Becca, wrapped herself in a blanket on the couch at their New Brighton home after learning the news.
“She’s kind of all turtled in,” Thompson said. “She knew it was coming, we all knew it was coming … but it’s really hard.”
Becca found out about the governor’s decision on Irondale High School’s senior-only Facebook page, which reportedly started “blowing up” after the news began spreading.
The announcement was the latest in a series of blows for the senior, who first had her band and choir’s spring break trip to Italy canceled, followed by the news of no prom this year. The plug has also been pulled on a list of public activities the New Brighton ambassador was supposed to participate in this summer, including the city’s summer festival in August, which has also been canceled.
Becca and her family huddled around the television on Thursday afternoon to listen to Walz explain his decision, and share a special message with seniors.
“He said that this is an experience that will bind (seniors) together in a shared experience that (they) will all be part of,” Thompson said. “It’s sort of like the Halloween snowstorm of 1991 and the stories everyone has about where they were, but this will be ‘Where were you for the 2020 graduation and how was that” … It’s a shared story and I think that shared stories are important.”
She added that in some ways getting the news was a relief because it ends part of the uncertainty.
“Now we know,” Thompson said, “and we move on from here.”
PICKING UP OTHER LIFE SKILLS
Molly Broshar counts herself among the lucky ones amid the new normal. The St. Paul mom of three is a stay-at-home mother who happens to have a teaching certificate, so transitioning from Expo for Excellence for Elementary to distance learning has been pretty manageable so far.
Her children — a preschooler, a kindergartner and a second grader — get up early and start the day with a family workout. After that, the kids help make breakfast — usually either breakfast sandwiches or pancakes — and then the school day officially begins.
The kids check in with their teachers on their iPads for their morning meetings and then get to work — albeit not always without pushback. They usually wrap things up a couple hours later and then spend the rest of the day playing.
Broshar says she’s not worried about the loss of classroom time, adding that she’s always been a big proponent of play and sees this time as a chance for her kids to pick up other life skills.
They are cooking more, for example, and doing a lot more chores around the house.
“That doesn’t mean it’s been super easy to, you know, get all the school work done and have a four-year-old that wants attention, but we’re just trying to keep structure and make sure school work gets done so there is still plenty of time for play,” she said.