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Notes -
This was true of us as well - having small children, needing to figure out how to work while they were stuck home with basically no support, then watching them flounder in virtual school, and (though better) under masked conditions for a further year was very difficult to watch and live, and the toll it took on their intellectual, social, and emotional development was obvious and extremely painful to watch.
In my case, what made me most angry was that it seemed like nearly a textbook case of a society eating its seed corn. It seemed that there was (in general societal terms and from the ruling political class) a very cavalier attitude of "oh kids are resilient they'll be fine" to save, yes, some number of mostly much-older people, with no acknowledgement that there was even really a trade-off being made. Not that I want (or wanted) anyone to die, but there seemed to be no real discussion of what we were "buying" and what its actual cost was.
It seemed even worse to me. it seemed to pose an inordinate cost on kids (using “their resilient” excuse) to create an at best marginal benefit for the old. It’s like burning your seed corn because it was dark and the flashlight was in an inconvenient location.
One of the interesting things about the Covid responses were how unequally distributed costs and benefits were even within groups of the same rough income and age.
I thought that the lockdowns were wrong, but they mostly benefitted my family, because we got to spend a lot of time with my 9 month old daughter, which was great. (Lower middle class, job that can only be done properly in person, but we made lame attempts to do it remotely that were mostly fake)
Previously, I had to go into work every day, and she was super upset about it, and she screamed about it literally all day. Then, suddenly, I could be kind of a stay at home mom for most of a year, and it was su much better! We walked through the forest, with her in a little pack! We played in streams! We reconnected with old friends with kids of roughly the same age! We tried to go to wildlife refuges, but were turned away because Covid might harm the birds? Anyway... By the time I had to go back in person, she was mature enough (and weaned!) to take it more in stride.
That was the flip side for my family. I did get to spend more time with my kids but my kids were also isolated etc
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