Guess what? We are in a global pandemic.
Before you read on, please click to read the Twitter thread above. It is genius.
During each phase of the pandemic, as people fight against restrictions, I have the same thought. It goes something like this- “Guess what? We are in a global pandemic!” So yes- our children are scared. They are not scared because we are parenting poorly or because of the government or because the school board is stupid. They are scared because we are in a pandemic and pandemics are scary- or in the case of the comparison, the Titanic is sinking and that is scary. So yes- our children are traumatized. They are not traumatized because we are parenting poorly or because of the government or because the school board is stupid. They are traumatized because we are in a pandemic and pandemics are traumatizing- or in the case of the comparison, the Titanic is sinking and that is traumatizing. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
We are the helicopter generation of parents. We are used to controlling the lives of our children- for better or worse. Our own childhoods, on a societal level, were fairly uneventful. No world wars, no plagues, nothing to teach us directly about suffering on a global scale. Therefore, we are in unchartered territory here. We can not control the fact that our children have drawn the short straw and like it or not, part of their childhoods will take place during a pandemic. This is depressing but there is still something we can do which should be encouraging. We can control is how we react to the pandemic.
We are still in this pandemic because people have refused to act like we are in one- much like how the fictional people in the Twitter thread refuse to believe that life boats will save them from the sinking Titanic. Like it or not, viruses mutate when they are able to spread and Covid has spread because we have been unable to reach herd immunity. If we had all socially distanced, worn masks, quarantined and gotten vaccinated at the appropriate times, our lives would be very different than they currently are. You need look no further than to countries who have done so to know the truth of this.
Now, those of us who have behaved like we are in a pandemic since March of 2020 are tired. We are very tired. We have quarantined, and masked. We have missed family events and vacations. We have vaccinated and boosted.
The Twitter thread ends with this line: “…never moving until they are satisfied, regardless of their ignorance of evacuations or boatmaking, even if they're blocking the lifeboat line for everyone else.” We have done all the things but we can’t get to the lifeboats. We can’t make this pandemic go away because people are blocking the lifeboat line. And this is what is making us all so tired. The lifeboats are there but we can’t reach them.