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Stealing their childhood away, really? It's an article of clothing.

It's an article of clothing which covers of the faces, the facial expressions, the smiles of all their friends and teachers. A typical modern preschool for two working parents is what, 50 hours a week? You are sending your child to a place where they are spending the bulk of their waking hours, the bulk of their socialization, and not allowing them to see smiles. I can still remember the faces of my preschool friends, I am still friends with some. If I had never been able to match smiles with them, would it still be the same? And even if they are fine in the long run, you are still making a year of their life (or more? what is the end game exactly?) significantly worse. It boggles my mind that smart people like yourself are so blase about this.

and then maybe my tribe will still have ICU units available and yours won't.

Masking kids at schools isn't going to have anything to do with this. Denmark has done just fine keeping schools open with no masking ( https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/denmark-schools-covid-19-pande... ). If ICU's are within two or three doublings of filling up, then shut down the gyms and concerts and indoor dining for adults. If all such things are open, as I believe they are in California, then protecting ICU units is clearly not an imminent concern.

Okay. But I can assure you that kids in Singapore or Taiwan or now California, where mask-wearing is just accepted, grow up just fine.

What? Until coronavirus hit, there has never been a society that kept it's children masked among children from other families at all times. No kid has "grown up" under such conditions.

Don't kids in Singapore and Taiwan only wear masks when they're sick? (Rather than the entire class at all times; at least, up until the start of the pandemic.) If so, it seems like a mistake to use that as any precedent for how kids in California will grow up under the present regime.

Great just don’t force my kid to wear a mask at school. That’s all I ask.

I find forcing kids to wear masks at school so morally bankrupt I am at a loss for words. And all I get from the people who push it is rationalization and gaslighting.

I have a right to object to my daughter wearing a mask at school. You have no right to force that on me and my family.

I'm okay with that. Think it's dumb but it's your school, not mine. My 3-year-old's preschool requires masks and it's fine. Was a bit of an adjustment (they were not required to wear one last year, as 2's) but over the first 2 weeks of school you can see the whole class going from 1 little girl who wore one last year (even though not required) to about half the class wearing them at the start of this year, to everyone just doing it automatically. My kid will even ask for his mask if we're going out to the playground now.

and if my kid asked to wear a mask I’d tell them it is unnecessary, they aren’t gonna die of covid and just because everybody else does it doesn’t make it right. Peer pressure isn’t always good.

Kids don’t need masks. End of story.

Oh, come on. I couldn't wear shorts to school in elementary school. Principle's rules, and it didn't matter how hot it was.

Nor could I wear things that showed shoulders, among a slew of other things. I wasn't allowed to take a same-sex love interest to proms, nor anyone from another school (and it didn't matter that they lived in the same neighborhood). Blue hair? Go home until you fix it. We were told that the homecoming "powder puff" game was their legal girls football.

Heck, we had people watch us enter toilet stalls in elementary school to 'make sure' we peed during break.

These things happen all the time for both children and adults. Some were just stupid rules and some really freaking unfair, but most didn't ruin childhoods. And yet, folks are asking to wear masks to protect others because we think it helps is somehow ruining childhoods?

I gotta say, I just don't understand.

Pretty much all I hear from the pro-mask at school club are rationalizations. Your rebuttal is nothing but gaslighting me and rationalization. No facts, no science, no data.

It’s honestly abusive. How dare the government force my child to wear a mask at school against my objections.

So, instead of explaining literally anything, you come back saying you are victim (without explaining how), upholding your right to possibly put your child in danger (because I doubt you are a disease expert), and everyone is lying without facts - facts that you yourself didn't offer?