201028 Covid Children

Sign at the playground, before the caution tape was put up.

Oct. 28 
  

We are seeing the beginning of the age of the Covid Children. It would make a good novel, set in the Black Death, or now. Or is it the Miri Episode on (the original) Star Trek. "Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah." 

  Our children have gone months without the usual social and  educational development and we will probably be doing this pandemic for another year, or 5.

  Robin and Indre just received a new set of Kiwico Kits, which are home-delivered make-it-yourself science projects, and Indre asks her father, "Will we still get kiwi kits when it's not covid anymore?" 

  The kids must wear a mask to go out and play: talk about sci-fi! Cooties is real. In earlier years many of the children from school stopped at the the park to play together before going home. Most have not been to a park since March. Swings and slides were caution-taped until August, but I haven't seen anyone in our park even since then. 

  Children have been separated from grandparents and cousins since March as well. No extended family gatherings means that these relationships are atrophying. Aunts, uncles and cousins form a larger circle around the nuclear family that is accepting of who we are, engenders automatic friendships and shares our history. So the covid children will continue to miss out on that as covid months turn into years. 

  Recreational activities, from Girl Guides to dance classes, organized sports to birthday parties are sharply curtailed or non-existent, so the social and developmental learning from these venues is cut off as well. 

  Adolescents and young adults are not dating or partying or going to movies. (Or are they?) Their after-school activities, study groups, hobby and friendship groups are thin or non-existent. The social learning will be different, limited by the restrictions of social distancing. The pressure of protecting themselves and others from illness is ever-present; the pressure from authority figures to conform to safe protocols will clash with pressure from peers to rebel against the restrictions. Shopping with friends, casual get-togethers, meeting for coffee - not happening. So much of the high school and post-secondary experience is actually outside the sphere of the classroom: coming-of-age milestones and the transition from child to adult. How will the covid generation be affected, what will be their weaknesses and strengths?

  Covid children are missing many things but they are gaining new opportunities and unexpected advantages in this new whirled. Computer literacy, already at a significant level, has seen a big leap as more social interactions move on-line, between peers, relatives, and in education. My second grandson,  Cricket, who is almost 4, knows me and interacts effectively on FaceTime. Robin went from very sideways (and upside down) to FaceTime functional in a few weeks, while K and I were in Quebec. Reading, crafts and family games are on the table again. There is a heightened awareness of the world around us and because children have to participate in the covid response they are being included in the conversation for a change. 

  So far I have been talking mostly about middle-class children; however the larger picture of the millions of poor children in Canada and around the world is dark. More families are facing worse poverty as covid hammers the economy. Children already at risk are more isolated from social supports; families already struggling are under more pressure with fewer resources to turn to. This is where the effects will be most noticeable - a generation suffering deprivations the likes of which haven't been seen since World War II, the Depression, the Black Death. Ring around the rosie, all fall down.

  The political world is in turmoil as well, rocked by the pandemic and its ripples spread into people's lives  adding more uncertainty and change.

  Children experience world events against a short life background, without the perspective of an adult, and take new lessons into the future, make changes, sometimes revolutions: they survive. The Plague in the fourteenth century saw major social change as rich and poor alike adjusted to the death toll. The Depression spawned a generation of thrift-conscious wary adults, the second war brought on the social upheaval of the sixties. We can't bemoan or try and fix this. It is the way life is. Part of the new normal will be covid children - The Covid Cuckoos. (John Wyndham ref.)

I walked by the school this morning. The recess crowd is much smaller. But there are groups of children clumping together and others playing some variation of tag, closing in and running off. Few children are wearing masks. It doesn't look very different.

Keep safe.  

Mumma Yaga