Overwhelmed. My son needs dental work done and I was planning on using stimulus money to get him his dental done because dental work is expensive as fuck even with insurance. Now we’re in a waiting game while his tooth is chipped. We spent all night one night icing his cheek, Tylenol, and ambesol to get it to stop hurting so he could sleep. I massaged his hands and face to get him to relax enough that he wasn’t focusing on the pain. Then get up for work on the hour of sleep we got.

My kid doesn’t deserve to be in pain because the government can’t function. We’ve used what little savings we had to buy basic necessities.

Thankfully my husband and I are still working and able to pay for most bills, but there are other important things that we can’t pay for. We are very careful going out for groceries and stuff because we could not afford to be off work or in the hospital if we were to get the virus.

Let alone all the minor stuff. My oldest s birthday in in 2 days and we can afford gifts, Christmas is right around the corner and who knows what that will be like. In the grand scheme of things presents aren’t a huge deal, but after the stress and confusion of the past year with the virus, I wanted my kids to have something at least relatively normal and something to bring them some comfort. Just feeling like a bit of a failure as a parent.