I suspect I am like many parents in having viewed the start of the school year in September as a psychological finishing line to get through lockdown.
Even before schools closed, the executive had been clear they would stay shut until the summer holidays.
So when closure came on March 20 the parents of Northern Ireland knew for certain, unlike our counterparts across the rest of the UK and Ireland, that we were in it for the long haul: five months, summer included.
I found it numbingly reassuring. It’s the hope that kills you.
The first three months were filled by lockdown in general, when most people had to stay at home. Summer is a nightmare of juggling kids and jobs anyway. You always get through it, so you could be sure of getting through it again.
As for the effect on the children, I am fortunate that all three of mine are not in exam years. At this point they have only missed a final term of primary school, when frankly things tend to slack off. My daughter is devastated to miss a P7 trip and leavers' ceremony but as regards the imparting of actual education, I had allowed myself to be sanguine. One hour of ‘home schooling’ a day probably covered it.
As a final comfort, there was the mountain of evidence we could expect from around the world as schools opened up everywhere else.
Research increasingly suggests pre-teen children are in no significant danger and their schools can operate safely for pupils and teachers.
All these mental crutches were cruelly kicked away on Monday when I received a letter saying my two youngest children will return to school for only two days a week. Naturally, they are the wrong days to fit around work. Half the school’s pupils will be in class on Mondays and Tuesdays, the other half on Thursdays and Fridays, with Wednesdays reserved for cleaning.
Similar letters have been landing on doormats across Northern Ireland. There is a variation in how schools are planning to reopen but with social distancing halving classroom capacity, a halving of teaching time is an inevitable response.
Perhaps my wife and I could reorganise our life around this new schedule if it had some sort of permanence but suddenly it is clear that is an absurd expectation.
If there is a suspected case of coronavirus among staff or pupils, whole classes or year groups will be sent home for weeks. How can this operate during flu season, which commences with the new school year and runs until Easter?
If there is a second wave of coronavirus, as may already be under way, will all schools shut down again? If they are not closed, how many staff and pupils will turn up?
Even routine, rapid testing will not prevent constant disruption of a type no working parent can accommodate, especially when grandparents must be shielded and private childcare is overwhelmed.
This will presumably continue until a vaccine is universally available, which could take years. Haphazard attempts at home schooling will not replace that much lost education, no matter how much online learning improves.
In short, this is not going to work - even if one parent in every household stops working, which for most is not an option.
I do not believe the long-term nature of the problem has truly dawned on parents until now. Too many of us have been in denial.
As reality sinks in, Stormont will face a crisis on a different scale to the row it had over closing schools in March.
All parties will come under unprecedented pressure from their voters to get schools back to normal, yet this will be impossible without either doubling the capacity of the system or abolishing social distancing.
Doubling capacity would cost £600 million a year in staffing costs alone, assuming another 20,000 teachers could be hired, which would a tall order even with Northern Ireland’s over-supply of applicants.
Social distancing is the minimum strategy for managing the epidemic. It should be the last restriction lifted in any given setting and a mountain of evidence will not be enough to lift it in schools without controversy. Teachers would have to be ordered to take a degree of risk.
Something is going to give. So intractable is the problem, it is not implausible it could bring devolution to another juddering halt.
