Parenting in a Time of Stigma
'You have given me a reason to wake up every morning and keep carrying on.'
Andrea, who resides in Montreal, has a 9-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter. The letter she wrote to the truckers begins with: “Dear Hero.” After learning about the Freedom Convoy, she says,
I cried tears of hope and have not been able to keep them in since. HOPE! For the first time in two years, there was a shred of hope.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
…You have led me to believe that my children might have a future and a childhood. You have given me a reason to wake up every morning and keep carrying on.
In the province of Quebec where Andrea resides, a 10 pm curfew had been reimposed from New Year’s Eve onward. During the early days of 2022, the unvaccinated were newly barred from entering liquor stores, and were advised they were about to be targeted with a new tax. In Andrea’s words, “not knowing what freedoms would be taken away from us day by day” amounted to “psychological torture.”
The entirety of her young daughter’s schooling had been marred by COVID measures. Matters seemed to be getting worse rather than better. She says she’d begun “to wonder if we had made a mistake to bring such beautiful children into this unjust world.”
Andrea resents being disrespected and stigmatized. She resents being called names by the Prime Minister. “I am a good person,” she writes. “I may not want an experimental jab, but I am a good person.”
Her letter to the truckers contains 12 instances of ‘thank you.’ It ends with:
Honk that horn and stand your ground!…Whatever the outcome of this event, you have made history and are Canada’s Heros! The world is watching and you are making us proud.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!