My first child, a daughter, was born at the height of the pandemic in New York City. It was a harrowing and dangerous birth for my wife, and afterward we were confined to our hospital room for four days–forbidden from even setting foot in the hallway–and having to put a mask on every time anyone entered the room. The maternity ward had only recently been converted back to being a maternity ward from an emergency COVID-19 ward. Nurses didn’t want to talk about it. They couldn’t without getting emotional. They had spent weeks watching people die alone. My wife and I worried constantly that our newborn could get COVID-19 in this place–from us, from the healthcare workers who had been working in close contact with COVID-19 patients for months, from the social workers and specialists who attended to us. We brought her home and her grandparents and aunts and uncles were able to meet her–through a door, with masks on. I can’t look back at those pictures without tearing up. They’re horrifying. The grandparents couldn’t hold her until she was almost 2 months old. They sat across the deck from her outside, with masks on. My wife and I remained essentially confined to our home, terrified of what could happen if one of us brought COVID-19 back with us. My first two semesters back at Hostos we did not have any childcare. It was too dangerous everywhere still. There was no vaccine. There were no babysitters to be found. The grandparents all still work full time. We did not have any options. Luckily, I was able to teach remotely, while my wife had to go into a school every day. I stayed home and cared for my daughter full time while working full time remotely. It was damn near impossible. She was still so little and needed so much attention. I conducted Zoom meetings with her in her high chair, just out of the picture, being fed cheerios to keep her calm. I took calls while she was screaming in the background, apologizing because I couldn’t hear. I felt like I couldn’t be a good parent or a good employee, stuck with too much to do and way too little time. I lost sleep, my wife and I argued. Both of us were exasperated at the end of every day–deeply unhappy, anxious, confused, afraid. It wasn’t how we imagined becoming parents would be. Things went by in a blur. At the beginning of each day, I waited anxiously for the end of it. This was not how I wanted to parent my daughter, and it wasn’t how I wanted to teach my classes. We made it work, because we had to, just like so many of our own students do. But we didn’t get out of this unscathed. This was traumatic and continues to be, the trauma just compounding every day. I fell incredibly behind on my research and scholarship because it was the one thing I could shelve for the moment and still do my job effectively. I’ll never be able to come close to making up for the time lost–with work, with watching my daughter grow.

But finally, there is a vaccine. We get vaccinated and things begin to improve. After months of looking, we have finally found a babysitter. The daycares nearby are all full, with waiting lists. The daycares do not require their employees to be vaccinated. I figure my daughter is still safest at home. The babysitter, a college student, is only available 12 hours a week. These 12 hours, plus a 2 hour nap each day, mean that I have 22 hours a week to work. This obviously isn’t enough. My wife is gone at work all day, teaching in an elementary school full of unvaccinated children, working with employees with questionable vaccination statuses. There is a COVID-19 scare in her school in the very first week of classes. Children begin testing positive — 8- and 9-year-olds. My wife and I wind up getting COVID-19 tests several times. It begins to feel like deja vu–we’re back in survival mode, desperate to keep our daughter–and ourselves–safe. I decide that, to get more work done, I need to start waking up at 4:00am and working until the babysitter arrives at 8:00. This works, but it is hell. I am too tired when my wife comes home from work to do much of anything other than lay there while she plays with our daughter. I fall asleep constantly. I go to bed at 8pm. This is not a pajama party. This is not a vacation. I continue to be grateful to CUNY for allowing me to work from home. But it is hell. I start seeing my therapist once a week, which helps a little. My wife and I continue to argue about what to do, how to do it, where to do it, how to make everything safe. Nothing is fun. Everything is stressful. I commiserate with colleagues who are parents. We build a support system for each other.

Two weeks ago, my daughter got sick. The week before, my wife had gotten a COVID-19 test because three students and a teacher at her school had tested positive. She got tested again, and so did I. We debated whether or not our daughter should get tested, should get the swab jammed up her tiny nose, an initiation into the bizarre world she was born into. We hold off. We call the babysitter to cancel, so we are without childcare for two weeks. My brother and sister in law’s baby is born. We can’t meet him for the foreseeable future because my daughter is still sick, my wife got so sick she had to stay home from work, and I’m trying to stay as isolated from them as possible, so I don’t too. My daughter has a 104-degree fever that won’t go down. She doesn’t sleep; neither do we. My wife goes to work on 2 hours of sleep to spend 8 hours teaching in a mask to 25 unvaccinated third graders. The stress levels increase dramatically again. We take my daughter to the doctor, twice. It’s just a bad cold. The cough and runny nose can last for weeks, the doctor tells us. Will the babysitter want to come here when my daughter is still coughing and sneezing and having her nose run everywhere? No. It’s not safe. As I sit here writing this my daughter is playing quietly in her playpen with her stuffed animals. I want to cry. I do. How am I going to make this work? How are we? How is anyone?

CUNY botches the “return to campus.” It is chaos for students, faculty, and staff. There is not a single email acknowledging the existence of the delta variant. It begins to seem like we are inhabiting two different worlds, two different realities. I question my sanity regularly. My colleagues and I text constantly to reassure one another that we are not crazy. I want to teach in person. I want to spend time with my students and colleagues. I want to return to campus. But I need it to be safe, I need there to be assurances that it will be safe. Even if CUNY makes it safe, which it has not, I wonder how I will function. What happens when, inevitably, my daughter gets sick again? For the last two weeks, I would have had to cancel in person classes. I am very experienced and adept at teaching online, especially asynchronously. I have students in my classes tell me that the only reason they are able to remain enrolled at Hostos is because of asynchronous classes. Their lives are even more hectic and difficult than mine will ever be. I take solace in the fact that I’m able to provide them with a way to continue their education on their own time and at their own pace. I wonder about CUNY’s mandate to have every faculty member teach one class in person. I’d love to. But will I be able to serve my students as well that way as I have been online? What will I do when my daughter gets sick? When she gets me or my wife sick? When every cough is a terrifying reminder that it could be a cold–but it could be COVID-19?

I think that many of us parents feel that we have been forgotten, ignored–our particular struggles not acknowledged. We feel helpless, cast adrift without support. We love our jobs. We love our students. All we want to do is get back to the work of teaching them. One-size-fits-all mandates do not make sense for CUNY campuses. And they don’t even begin to take into consideration the challenges that parents face. We’re traumatized from parenting during COVID-19. CUNY’s handling of the pandemic adds to this trauma. I am begging CUNY to do right by its faculty parents. We’re here to talk if you will listen. But it might have to be at 4am.