Survival

I am home with my children, teaching them things.

There is a pandemic now.

So I am the bread winner and the laundry folder and the cook and the nurse and the cleaner and now I am also the teacher.

Because there is a pandemic now. Because this is survival.

My littlest is four. His daycare teacher sent us a video about baby animals to view and talk about. It showed us how elephants and orangutans and ducks and kangaroos are raised.

The baby elephants and the baby orangutans and the baby ducks and the baby kangaroos are raised by their moms. Only their moms.

They are taught to stand and walk and forage for food and survive by their mothers. All of this is taught by their mothers.

Their fathers are on the edge of a forest or in a pond somewhere. They disappear.

Fathers disappear. Mothers stay.

To be honest, I was angry at the video. I almost gave it a middle finger. But my four year old son was with me.

I have raised my children. I have taught them to stand and walk and talk and run and eat. I have taught them how to leap from one rock to another. I have taught them how to make fires.

We are in a pandemic.

I am now teaching my children to cover their mouths with their elbows, to wash their hands well, to not touch things.

I am teaching them to read and write and compute.

I am teaching my children to survive.

Their survival is dependent on me. Not on their father.

I am a mama elephant, a mama orangutan, a mama duck, a mama kangaroo.

I will stay with my children. I will teach them everything I know. I will try my best to help them survive.