COVID With Kids
quality time
moments that matter
Around the world parents are contending with a new set of issues and concerns. And while plenty of families have been dealing with the impact of COVID-19 for weeks and months, the journey is just beginning where I live. There’s a constant hum of anxiety under everything. It’s at the dinner table, conversing with us, wondering how long we’re going to be able to feed our children, and it’s whispering in our ears as we wake up in the morning, hissing about what this day will bring.
Yet the birds are singing. This is probably one of the first things I noticed as things in North Carolina—where I live—began to slow down at the end of last week. I noticed the birds singing. We live in a fairly wooded community, so there is often birdsong. Somehow, though, it now seems louder and more melodic, more dominant. Over the weekend last weekend I pondered this and the conclusion I’ve come to is that the birds aren’t any louder. It’s just that everything else is quieter, including me. This virus has forced my family to slow down, way down.
While we’re distancing ourselves from others, it’s forcing our family to come together, in ways that we are all handling differently. My husband is as stressed as I’ve seen him since—in the span of three years—he graduated college (on the 10-year plan), got his first “real” job, got married, and had his first child. Acid reflux that had all but abated since that time has reared up again. I see him lashing out for aid from any category. He feels ill, he feels pointless, he feels anxious. More than anything, I think, he feels overwhelmed. We all have our seasons as parents. I love being with young children—as exhausting as it is—but for my husband, the task of watching young kids while also working is the tipping point. And things haven’t even really gotten hard yet, the voice whispers to me.
On my side—and it feels guilty and precarious to say so—I’m seeing my children more than I ever did in a typical week. In the morning, reading them stories, I’m not calculating how long I have before I have to force them to get dressed. I’m not timing breakfast. I’m not getting in the car, ahead of a long commute, knowing I won’t see my kids for the next nine hours. Yes, it’s challenging meeting work demands and family demands at the same time, but that’s nothing new. I think that’s the struggle of working parents all the time. For me, it just feels like work has finally been shouldered out of its position as bully in front of the crowd. Life feels both more busy and more balanced.
And then there’s that feeling of doom. It’s not a rational thought—it’s the voice of my anxiety telling me falsehoods. Both my husband and I are incredibly, incredibly fortunate to have salaried jobs, both of which continue to pay us as we work remotely. This support to my family is, in some ways, the only thing keeping that voice of doom at bay. But we know and feel that that doom is so much closer for so many people. We worry about our beloved childcare providers who will only continued to be paid so long as parents keep their children enrolled (even if, like us, they’re not actually sending them to daycare). We worry about all the restaurant workers, cashiers, healthcare workers, city workers, gig workers, and low income families who are either not working—and not getting paid—or continuing to work, despite risks to their health. We worry about the grandparents in our lives, who we are both relying upon for childcare help so that we can keep working, and who we are also trying to shield from risk. Throughout the day we fluctuate between two poles of human emotion: the one that wants to hoard all the hand sanitizer and the one that knows we’re all connected. We’re torn between the impulse to give and the prudence to preserve.
My children are singing too. We’ve had conversations with them that are, finally, beginning to sink in. A week ago, my son (age 3) was shouting to the neighborhood that he had coronavirus (he didn’t) and refusing to wash his hands. Yesterday, by contrast, my uber-picky daughter heard my explanation about not wasting food and finished whatever undesirable thing was left on her plate. But largely, they’re oblivious to the perilous whisper and this, above all, is our most precious gift. Hardship hasn’t touched them, not yet anyway, and I’m grateful for each day it passes them over. They are smart and strong, and if I can keep them safe and healthy, I know they will be resilient. Never has it felt more imperative to also keep myself healthy—in mind and in body. Today—the only day that matters—my children were cheerful as I left for my home office (our tiny camper) and wished me a good work day. I’m not sure that has ever happened before. Usually, they’re sad to see me go and cling to me for “one last hug”—despite being blessed with wonderful schools and wonderful teachers. Our closeness, our slowing down, is making them happier. It’s an interesting time, to say the least, when joy and tragedy seem to hover above us simultaneously.
If you are reading this, I hope you are well. I hope you have enough to eat and enough on hand to pay the bills. I hope you have earmuffs to block out the voice of fear. I hope you are finding at least one thing in your life that is singing louder than before, and I hope the song is sweet.
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