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  05/12/2020

  Kasie Meyers Oral History, 2020/05/12

  Interview with Kasie Meyers by Jack Halls. In this interview, Kasie Meyers discusses how COVID has impacted her role as a nurse and the changes she and her colleagues face. She also discusses her journey as a student and how covid has impacted her studies, she touches on her role as a mother and the difficulties that have been heightened because of the pandemic. She expresses how her relationships with friends and family have changed and also discusses her view on the government and its handling of the pandemic.
• 2020-08-10

  Being a single parent in a time of covid

  Being a Single Parent in a Time of COVID-19 My daily family life has changed since the global rise of the coronavirus disease pandemic since parenting is coupled with more responsibilities. Being a single parent to two children has arguably increased exposure to caregiving stress, especially with two teenagers, 16 and 17 years. My younger child has dyslexia learning disorder and has an IEP since kinder garden comprehend without additional help from a special ed teacher the struggle in school became much harder. I focused more of my attention on my younger son being that he was a freshmen level while the older child is attending to his senior year of school. I have been helping them adopt and utilize online schooling programs effectively while attending to my full-time job. Markedly, finding a balance between caregiving, offering them help in school work, and attending to my career has proved challenging during this COVID-19 period. The most robust experience I have so far is to offer them guidance to enable them to comprehend the content accessed from online sources. I dedicate more time to my younger son since he has a learning disorder, limiting his ability to follow directions given on the online platforms. Besides teaching, teenagers' lives have been affected since they are in the development stage characterized by socializing, finding new friends, and distancing from parents. In the earlier stages of the spread of COVID 19, the teenagers perceived the quarantine measures by the government as weapons to suppress their freedom and had to sneak out sometimes. I have experienced a parenting burden in training them to exercise self-care during these tough times, and they still seem distressed since they can no longer meet their friends. Moreover, online learning and their daily upkeep have incurred additional expenses, which may hamper my ability to meet the schools' future mandates. Markedly, it may become difficult for me to purchase learning resources in the future since there has been a reduction in my earnings and hours.
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  2020-05-18

  Getting Even Closer Through Schoolwork

  This photograph I took is of my three children, on the couch, with the computers they used to finish the school year during the quarantine. I am recently divorced and serve as an active duty service member, 2017 is when we started the separation process. During the process, my ex-wife and I were on good terms and on agreement on everything but one thing, custody. 2017 is also the year I came to Christ and started opening the Bible, learning by reading and listening to His word about the Gospel and what Jesus did for us. This changed my worldview and my entire outlook on life. Towards the end of the year I got orders to go to Parris Island South Carolina to be a Drill Instructor. I was excited and sad at the same time, for I knew there was no way I could continue to take care of the kids while serving this duty. But I knew I could trust God with my kids, even if they weren't in my care and that if I wanted them back that it was just a matter of time (the duty being 3 years long). Fast forward a year and having spent months in the most demanding job I have ever had, I was extremely upset for the living situation my children faced while I strove to lead and mentor future Marines. Conversing with God through prayer I told him how I felt and how I longed to have my children live with me again. Within a week or two, my ex-wife reached out to ask if the kids can fly across the country to live with me! We did the paperwork, and I have had custody since January 2019. During the quarantine, I constantly pondered what the situation would be like for the kids and me if things had not changed for us in 2019. 2019 was the most rewarding and satisfying year thus far for me as a parent. Not only would I not have had that, 2020 probably would have been unbearable for me without the kids. I’d still be a Drill Instructor and my children would be struggling in their studies. Homeschooling the kids opened my eyes to just how much one-on-one time they needed in certain areas. One-on-one time they should have been getting from me as their dad. This quarantine gave me the time I needed to focus even more on the kids and I loved every minute of it, spending literally 24 hours, 7 days a week with them. We struggled at first, this was not the kind of homeschooling I would have preferred to do, but we made it work. I can’t help but feel so blessed and thank God for it. At the same time, my heart goes out to all the families who weren’t/aren’t as lucky. I just happened to be at a point in my life and career, where I could stay home with the kids and not worry about money or losing my job. Our bonds were strengthened and we grew so much closer together, I wish it could continue this way but I look forward to the kids going back to school. I believe that they are ready, if everyone is smart about it then we can make face-to-face classroom instruction a reality. Most schools are not at this point yet and I’m still unsure if it’s going to happen or not as we are weeks away from the first day of school. Whatever the case, I just wanted to tell a bit about my quarantine experience and how my family got to where it was during it.