In Defense of Rest
I knew it was coming. I knew online school would lead to the end of the snow day. New York schools have no announced that there will be no snow days. Snow days will now be remote learning days. I assume other school systems will do the same. I’ve written multiple times about snow days and why they were important to me.
The main reason I loved a snow day was that it gave me permission to rest. No work, No school. Time to relax and watch the snow coverage on TV and drink coffee until the kids woke up and wanted to play in the snow. Now everyone does remote work instead. There is no time off because we hate the idea of rest.
There was an editorial in the Washington Post about how people were looking forward to getting their vaccine because the side effects would give them the opportunity to take time off. People are looking forward to a shot’s side effects so they can rest. That is really messed up. It’s not surprising, though. Americans have trouble with rest. We don’t use the vacation time we have earned. We don’t take sick days when we need them. The concept of taking a mental health day seems wrong. Whenever I took a sick day at my old job my boss made sure to bring it up a lot so that I knew that she remembered the time I was a slacker. When I would take a long vacation she would be sure to bring it up in front of her boss to try to make me look bad for not working constantly. She…
