by Megan Schiffres
Children of essential workers are still attending day care across the region, but the availability and experience of child care services are limited due to the financial impact and social distancing challenges caused by the pandemic.
Day care since the pandemic no longer resembles the messy, touchy, carefree chaos with which most people associate that period of their life. Instead, children are kept six feet apart from each other, from their friends, in a necessary but heartbreaking effort to enforce social distancing among those who can’t possibly comprehend it.
“They don’t understand what’s going on when they go towards another child wanting to play baby dolls or play cars or trucks. We have to say no, no, no, come back this way, you stay and play by yourself,” said Cynthia Beverley, an at-home child care provider in Middlesex County. “They still want to kind of scurry back over to their friends.”
Within the health care industry alone, these essential workers have approximately 80,000 children under the age of 12 in the Commonwealth, according to Gov. Ralph Northam. He called on…
