Listen to Black American Reverend Onaje Crawford, M. Div., MSW, from North New Jersey share about living with his wife and children and working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. Reverend Crawford is a pastor, educator, and social worker.
He shares how 2021 was “interesting… So the drop off is typically early enough that I didn't have much work stuff to do, you know, dropping kids off at school at 7:45, 8:00, 8:15 in that range. So, there's not too much work stuff that early. But the pickup was interesting. I took a lot of meetings in the car where I had to say to my kids, ‘I need you guys to sit quietly in the back,’ which, you know, even for the most well-behaved kid after a day of school when they haven't seen you all day, it's gonna be… they want to talk to you and tell you about stuff. ‘So, yeah, I really wanna hear this story, but actually I actually have to have this meeting right now…’”
“…Bedtime routine, which is really, really hard getting kids to bed at night in the pandemic. It was hard 'cause they really couldn't separate activity and play from rest and sleep 'cause they have been in the house all day. So that was 2020…”
“…I was in a funeral home at a funeral. It's hard not to hug somebody. Very, very hard not to. Even though you’re like, ‘I probably shouldn't be doing this, but I'm just gonna go ahead and give you a little hug 'cause I think you need it right now.’” Reverend Crawford shares about conducting a funeral in March of 2020.
“I think it is very important… often times when it comes to just the residual effect of any major happening… We talk about the kids, you know, the kids and learning loss, these years of school, and how would they recover, and what would they do? But the truth is we've all lost something in this experience and to just move on as though it never happened is, is… It's traumatic. It doubles down on trauma. So, we have to talk through and express ourselves and the things that we lament and the things that we came to love during that time, 'cause, you know, to say that it was all bad would not be true. I think, again, as someone who works so much — I work all the time — just to have the opportunity to be in the house with my kids that much for a year, you know, 15 months that's rare… I think it’s great in that respect.”
We met at The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut where we were both students.
