This is as an article by medical professors at USC and Stanford:

> At the same time, the long-term harm to kids from masking is potentially enormous. Masking is a psychological stressor for children and disrupts learning. Covering the lower half of the face of both teacher and pupil reduces the ability to communicate. In particular, children lose the experience of mimicking expressions, an essential tool of nonverbal communication. Positive emotions such as laughing and smiling become less recognizable, and negative emotions get amplified. Bonding between teachers and students takes a hit. Overall, it is likely that masking exacerbates the chances that a child will experience anxiety and depression, which are already at pandemic levels themselves.

I don’t know if you have young children, but facial expressions are a huge part of communication. My kids are constantly looking at my face to for “is this okay” signals. Kids learn to look at facial expressions of peers to understand what they’re thinking and feeling. There’s just tons and tons of research on this.

Masks for kids isn’t like masks for adults, where you can say “well even if they don’t work there’s no harm.” What we don’t have is research showing that wearing masks has persistent negative effects on kids, but based on what we do know that’s a real possible harm that has to be weighed against the possible benefits of masking.

Nobody's expecting you to wear masks at home.

But, even with masks on at school, your kids have plenty of unmasked time at home.

This is one reason why, after 18 months of masking, there is still no data supporting your argument.

It isn’t my job to prove anything. Y’all want to force my daughter to wear a mask to attend a public school you better have a hell of a lot of evidence and data to back it up. You need to address each and every criticism and support it with solid research conducted over years of time.

None of that exists and all criticism no matter how valid is met with gaslighting, being called a right wing fool, and name calling. Which says to me there is no solid justification for kids wearing masks besides partisan politics and tribalism.

Y’all are signing my kid up to be your unconsenting laboratory experiment, which is highly unethical and straight up immoral.

I’m not the one pushing kids to forcefully wear masks. You are. It’s disgusting and one of the worst things we’ve done. Almost no European country masks their kids. A handful of blue states are basically alone in forcing kids to wear masks at school. Which really underscores what is really going on, and it ain’t “science”.

Asking someone to prove a negative when they indicate there is no positive evidence pointing towards the assertion you're making isn't a 'checkmate' retort.

Negatives are much harder to prove than positives. You aren't being gaslit.

Maybe take a step back and calm down. Saying things like:

>I’m not the one pushing kids to forcefully wear masks. You are. It’s disgusting and one of the worst things we’ve done.

Is probably too emotionally charged to result in a good dialog, if that's what you're looking for.

The entire burden of proof is on you people trying to make this massive deviation from normal. Not me. You have to support your arguments with more than telling me I’m emotional or blowing it out of proportion. Because I have a right to be massively emotional and pissed off. I am fully within my rights to defend my daughter from what I perceive as a great harm. And y’all have no right to tell me how to feel.

Seriously. It’s abuse. You mask people are super abusive. Giant bullies using your loud voices, mockery and name calling to drown out anybody with valid criticisms.

So to the “force kids to wear masks” people here, put up or shut up. Show me proof it won’t fuck my daughter up and show me proof it is actually going to benefit her. And if you can’t provide that proof than go bugger off, I’ll yell at you, the administration and my dumbass governor and his unelected health “experts”. My daughter is more important than any of y’all’s unfounded mandates.

Because near as I can tell there is absolutely no benefit for the actual child wearing a mask. It’s all for giving the appearance of protecting adults, who have a choice to be fully vaccinated. Which is so immoral and so wrong, again, I’ll refrain from stating exactly what I think of the people pushing for it.

No one is gaslighting you, nor is asking you to discuss things in a civil manner 'abuse'.

If you assume everyone discussing this with you are doing so in bad faith despite their best efforts to be reasonable, you don't really keep the door open for any new perspectives.

We made dramatic, massive social changes virtually overnight and continued them for more than 1.6 years. Why is it so hard to imagine that smart, well intentioned people might have a difference of opinion from the narrative we’ve all had shoved down our throats? Eh?

Just magically every single person who is smart and well meaning obviously has to support masks, lockdowns, school closures, and everything else. Otherwise they are a dumb stupid misinformed “them”.

It’s absolutely absurd thinking. The arguments made to force this nonsense on people represent some of the worst attributes of humanity. Gaslighting. Abusive. Bullying. Shaming. Narcissistic. Unscientific and completely intellectually dishonest.

Seriously. Knock it off. Y’all should be ashamed of yourself.

Not at all, but that doesn't mean everyone who disagrees is discussing the matter in a civil manner.

I've only posted to bring attention to a flaw in your logic, as well as to comment on the emotionally hostile manner in which you've been replying.

Just take a step back and calm down; people don't seem to agree with your positions and you're taking it as a personal attack. Engage with people in good faith and discussions will be more fruitful and less emotionally taxing.

Teachers have been vaccinated. Parents have been vaccinated. Kids aren’t at risk. Why this obsession with reducing cases if we took the sting out of covid?

Kids need to be children. They aren’t human shields for adults. Adults are expect to sacrifice for kids, not the other way around. Kids deserve their one and only childhood. They don’t deserve to be treated like disease vectors that need to be muzzled to make frightened parents and educators feel safe. Double so when all those adults can get a free, highly effective vaccine.

Making them mandatory is even worse. The state has no right to force my kid to wear a mask at school in order to have an education. Parents should be making that call for their own kid.

Honestly back then I would have felt the same thing that I do now: that I am happy to wear a mask so I and/or my parents/grandparents or other people around me don't die of a completely preventable virus, and that people who refuse to wear masks are idiots for not doing the most simple, effortless thing to help prevent the needless spread of the virus.

Wearing a mask doesn't steal anyone's childhood. Does wearing glasses steal your childhood? How about braces? We do A LOT of uncomfortable things in our life for our health and future. Wearing a mask is one of those things, due to the ongoing pandemic.

I mean, added bonus, I haven't had a single cold or flu or anything like that in over a year and a half. I'm guessing you (and anyone reading this) can probably say the same, if you strictly masked up, used hand sanitizer, etc. Yeah I've been sick for other reasons, but not a single time have I been sick from something transmitted by another person. First time in my decades of life that I've gone this long without any transmissible illness.

And it isn't my job to provide proof or data. I'm the critic. I'm the one that wants things to operate as normal. All the burden of proof is upon those who wish to force my child to wear a mask her entire school day 5 days a week. Thus far, all I hear is "OMG CASES", "kids are resilient", and a bunch of weak rationalizations. Nobody has made a case who or what we are protecting. Nobody has provided an end game. Nobody has proven it won't harm kids. Nobody has even asked kids. It's disgusting, really.

It's like how I look both ways before turning onto or crossing a one-way. Sure, it probably doesn't help much, but there's a chance that it could save my life and another driver's.

[0]: https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,21994,420,873.html

Also, they had 1.6 years to build infrastructure to deal with this. That was the entire damn point of this in the first place. "Flatten the curve for two weeks to make sure healthcare systems can handle the load" There is literally zero excuse for society to suffer because no capacity was added. Zero.

You cannot even blame staffing shortages... they could have thrown truckloads of money at doctors and nurses to get them onboard. It would have still been cheaper and more effective than the nonsense we are doing now.

In short, yeah it sucks hospitals might be "full" but that ain't societies fault and we shouldn't be punished for it.

My anecdotal experience via my SO who is an ICU nurse is that what you've read is not accurate. In the ICU I'm familiar with they do not have fewer beds available due to the covid protocols. The protocols do make their job more difficult and time consuming, but they have more beds than ever. Still, they're at capacity across our state due to an extreme influx of severe covid cases since delta made its way here over the past 6 weeks. Previous to that this particular ICU was ~20% covid, 60% capacity. Now it is ~90% covid, 110% capacity. This is not just because they tested positive - these are people on various levels of oxygen. They are intubating covid patients in the ER because there's no room anywhere else.

I'm in arguably the reddest state in the US where most people share your views. I'm not sure how you can say apathy toward spreading a contagious virus is not societies "fault".

PS: they are throwing truckloads of money at doctors and nurses, luckily for us.

Moralizing spreading an airborne highly contagious respiratory virus is one of the most toxic, dangerous things we’ve done. It’s absurd. It’s a virus. It does what it does. People catch it. It’s nobody’s fault.

The people living in your red state are perfectly fine holding their beliefs.

And to be clear, the majority of the conservatives I know personally are vaccinated and wear masks, by virtue of their belief in personal responsibility.

Stealing their childhood away, really? It's an article of clothing. My kid objects to wearing pants a whole lot more than he objects to wearing a mask. He still needs to wear pants.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why this is such a huge deal. People have come to think of clothing as a marker of your tribe, and not wearing the expected clothing as social deviancy. That's why wearing a hajib is so triggering for so many Americans, or why guys wearing skirts is an affront against nature (but strangely not in Scotland!), or why folks get killed over wearing gang colors, or why I desperately wanted a denim jacket when I was in 1st grade in the 80s.

And if that's the case, sure, you can have your tribe and I'll have mine, and my kid will wear a mask because that's what the people around him do, and yours won't because that's what the people around her do, and then maybe my tribe will still have ICU units available and yours won't. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Kids don’t need masks. End of story.

I really wish that was true! Sadly in the USA the amount of "vaccine hesitancy" remains unbelievably high.

As the article this discussion is about… covid is here forever. Time to accept it and move the hell on.

I'm vaccinated. I can still catch it - I'm much more unlikely to end up in hospital, but it's still an unpleasant illness to have, with a small chance of long-term complications that are not at all well understood.

And if I do catch it I can still spread it to others, who may not be vaccinated.

I very much care about not killing someone else by spreading Covid to them, even if they deliberately chose not to get the vaccine. I'm furious with them (and with the information sources they consumed that lead them to that decision) but I absolutely don't want to contribute to their suffering or death.

Yes, you can still catch it regardless what we do with NPIs. Stop living in fear.

It’s son intellectually dishonest to downvote people who express valid criticism. It’s pure tribalism… which is what is just about 40% for all our actions the last 1.6 years.

I am of a certain population that is more succeptable, and I just accept that there are people who would welcome my death from covid if it would save them from the slightest inconvenience.

I admire you for making reasonable arguments, you have more patience than me by far.

I think it's fair to demand that they change their way of living to prevent more deaths - 645,000 and counting just in the USA.

If we weren't living in a sea of unvaccinated people this conversation would be a lot easier.

You say the vaccine doesn't stop you from catching or spreading the virus, it just stops you from getting as badly sick. If that's the case then why do you care whether others are vaccinated or not? If it doesn't change the chances of them passing it on to you, and just changes how sick they'll get, then surely it doesn't make any difference to you?

Where are they saying that?

The effects of COVID complications aren't somehow magically isolated to the patient. Good luck to anyone who's young, healthy, and COVID-vaccinated, but has a bike or car accident, gives birth in a hospital, falls down some stairs, or otherwise requires inpatient care.

Remember the endlessly repeated mantra to "flatten the curve" from circa March 2020? The "curve" refers to ICU occupancy. Max that out and suddenly the effects of COVID spill beyond just sickening and killing its direct victims to complicating your health system.

The justification for kids wearing masks is so paper thin with so little attention paid to what emotional and development effects it has on the kids… it boggles my mind. Supporting kids in masks is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

And to the people downvoting me and gaslighting me… you are part of the problem. I have a right to feel the way I do, which is reason enough to never, ever force parents to mask their kids in order to get public education. It should be the parents choice, period.

You might think the public health benefits outweigh this concern, but it's disingenuous imo to just assert that there are no conceivable negative effects for a two year old having their first social experiences.

If masks are ineffective, wearing them amounts to theatrics/fiction.

If that fiction creates a false sense of safety, it can encourage people to take risks like interacting in closer proximity than they would otherwise.

I have no knowledge or expertise on if masks are effective nor have any children, this is just an observation of what seems like an obvious potential harm.

A counter-argument says that wearing a physical thing can act as a constant reminder of covid, causing people to act more responsibly.

Back on the harms side again, there's a possibility that teaching kids "just do this and don't ask questions" can have negative consequences. Again, the counter argument of letting them ask questions and carefully explaining what we do and don't know can be a positive.

Don't worry. The schools teach that with or without masks.

Socializing in masks is massively inferior. It sucks talking to other people and not being able to read facial expressions or to see smiles. Right now American health officials are asking children to an spend the majority of their waking hours for an entire year of their lives (or more??) around friends and teachers without that essential human experience of seeing smiles. That is harm in an of itself. Even if the kids bounce back, and you can't find a developmental difference in any statistic, that year of their life, a year they will never get back, will still have been a year of being deprived of essential human connection.