"i would rather see my friends more often than have a thousand dollars"
"i would rather see my friends more often than have a thousand dollars"
the pandemic, as experienced by a 9 year old
"i would rather see my friends more often than have a thousand dollars"
My son said to me yesterday, unprompted - that he'd rather see his friends more often than have a thousand dollars - and I made it into a meme so I'd remember.
The past 12 months have impacted so many facets of normal, healthy, vibrant living, and I will not normalize that loss for my children - nor will I be tricked or shamed into calling it something else.
Our kids' mental health is complex, and their social and emotional needs cannot be swept under the rug.
People talk about how "kids are resilient" - but also, kids grow up into adults with trauma (hey, we did).
Maybe slapping the term "resilient" onto our kids is really just a convenient way to not address their very real challenges NOW, before they need therapy to deal with the fallout and collateral damage of over a year of fear, blame, hand sanitizer, social distancing, and masks...not to mention fear of becoming ill.
Even if I wanted to, I simply cannot summon the level of fear that the mainstream narrative seems to tell me we should have - and I will NEVER try to pass that onto my children.
Kids are resilient, sure - BUT more importantly, they are hyper-aware of the very real, very urgent problems that our globe is contending with.
They see the vast incompetence of our politicians and leaders, and the numbness and complacency of so many citizens who passively uphold the status quo.
My children are also hyper-aware of the social contract, rules, and laws - and they are rule-followers - even if they also want to know the "why" behind those rules, and whether or not they are reasonable.
My kids used to find excuses to go out, now every excuse is to stay at home.
It's hard to even quantify these little changes...but they matter.
Our kids' entire generation will have layers of trauma from this, however far removed they may be from ‘the illness’ ...
I'm so sick of feeling like we're not supposed to be grieving all aspects of this.
I have always recognized that health, like immunity, is a complex thing.
It's not only anti-science, but supremely arrogant, to imagine that we have it all figured out.
Even the things they call "best practices" are only that, and not a silver bullet.
No such thing as one of those…
That said, it's important to recognize that mental health is not secondary to physical health - they are intertwined, and deeply impact each other.
There are many valid things to be fearful about over the past 12 months … and it’s absurd to let every other aspect of our lives atrophy and choke - just because there’s a new illness on the block.
We know so much more than we did last March.
Even for those whose health is more precarious in general … it's so much more complex than just masks, jabs, and social distancing.
{and no, I am no longer fearful of getting sick from you-know-what}
What about the fear and loss around both long-term friendships and casual connections?
… of seeing strangers' whole faces in public?
… of being able to communicate through facial expressions?
For my kids, they’ve had the experience of moving closer to the city - yet feeling more lonely than ever.
They have anxiety around mask-wearing that keeps them from wanting to go anywhere for longer than a few minutes if they have to cover their faces.
Worse, they ALSO feel the pressure of “not fitting in” because we don’t comply.
The people we thought we would be connecting with are busy popping blue pills, and it’s pretty disorienting, to be honest.
Are we allowed to be fearful of depression, apathy, lack of physical activity, and the vicious spiraling of mental health concerns that we’re seeing in society??
Can we worry about those things too?
Are we privileged? Yes, of course.
But that does not mean the past 12 months have been free of suffering.
I'm so, so tired, friends. Let’s be done with this game, yea?
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