The children are beginning to break. Brodie is quoting from Joe Rogan podcasts and Teddy is suggesting we’re the last family on the block actually enforcing social distancing. They’re very tired of screens and…us. They are looking to adults for answers and assurances, and we don’t have them. With summer right around the corner, they fear this stunted life is going to drag on and on: a purgatory without restaurants or movies, spike ball or sleepovers. School is being overly optimistic (when they aren’t being completely cagey) and hints school in September. So if they’re going to be sharing desks and germs in the fall, why can’t they play videogames together in our basement now?
Friends, the because it could kill grandma argument has worn thin. The invincible teenager trope endures. We need a plan and real answers to the repeated question:
“When can friends come over?”
My kids have fantasized about having a “chicken pox party” emulating our own moms from the ‘70s who organized play dates with our spotty classmates so we would “get it over with.” They mused that if all teens purposely contract COVID-19 and become immune at least they could return to some sort of normalcy? In their fantasy no one gets particularly sick, goes to the hospital, dies, or inadvertently kills grandma. In this fantasy they’re also willing to sacrifice their friends with underlying conditions or other hidden and unknown risk factors. I guess. It’s just a fantasy where the invincible teenager trope is reality.
One of their friends is saving money to pay for his own antibody test, desperate for some proof that he should be allowed the free reign usually afforded high school seniors in the last marking period. The odds that any sort of tipping point of teens are antibody positive and immune are probably low; but then again, they were swapping pathogens freely until mid March and could have been asymptomatic. If we don’t test them, too, we won’t know. And because we don’t know, we’re acting out of the abundance of caution necessary in these unprecedented times—which they hear as “because I said so.”
So what do we do? Children sense hypocrisy and inconsistencies more keenly than my puppy hears the rustling of snack wrappers. Right now a reasonable person could ask why golf is allowed, but not tennis? As beaches and pools, restaurants and salons, summer camps and daycare centers open, it will get more and more difficult to justify why my kids cannot play NBA 2K on the same couch with their buddies.
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
As we move forward, we are going to need to be personally responsible for our own safety and for the havoc our kids might wreck on suppressing a second spike. Are you, or do you live with, someone who has risk factors that would predict a more severe or deadly course of COVID-19? You should probably continue to WFH if you can, limit grocery runs, hold off on social situations in confined spaces, and know if your kids are acting in less socially distant ways. If you feel like your nuclear family is at a lower risk, you might feel more comfortable getting that pedicure, braving the beach bar, or letting little Jenny’s friend sleep over. But a short week after we begin to do these things, a lot of us are going to get sick. And the ones who don’t know they’re sick–and are shedding virus all over the place– could easily be our kids.
Once we start doing normal things, we’re going to forget that the goal of social distancing was never to prevent us from contracting coronavirus at all… just not all at the same time. Basic psychology predicts that we’ll erroneously assign a lower risk of contagion among people we know. I mean, they’re our friends! No one has symptoms! But coronavirus is the honey badger of diseases: corona don’t care.
Parents are already allowing small, local quaran-teen groups, swear they are shielding them from the at-risk and elderlies, and trusting them to self-police a group with no assurances that it is COVID-19-free. Is this advisable? Low risk? Nope. And though it may be inevitable, the safety of this is pure fantasy. Also, though I love them deeply, teenagers lie all of the time. The children, and unfortunately permissive parents who let them share recycled air in rec rooms and basements, are going to push the boundaries of what is safe. Epidemiological models and tales of super-spreaders at clubs, cocktail parties, and churches predict that it only takes one asymptomatic carrier to kill grandma.
Even the strictest mandates won’t prevent everyone from contracting COVID-19: it’s too contagious. As those rules are lifted, it’s up to all of us to protect each other. Here’s what we’re suggesting for Summertime at the Lee House:
No hangouts inside. It is safer to meet up in the fresh air (on the deck, around a pool, in the backyard) where the likelihood of swapping spit droplets is minimal. Activities need to be limited to ones where they can stay 6 feet apart. Tennis? Yes. Spike ball? Riskier.
No car-pooling. If absolutely necessary, everyone is wearing a mask.
Chemo precautions. When I was in treatment, the kids had to change their clothes and wash their hands before they could see me. After (outside!) hangouts with their buddies, they need to decontaminate when they come indoors. Let’s be honest, teen boys need daily if not more frequent showers. They should also be carrying Purell in their pockets.
Honesty. This will be the tough one. Grandma & Pop Pop and A-Ma & A-Gong have been quarantining since early March and miss their grandsons. Right now we’d feel comfortable having them visit because the only place my kids have been is Zoom School. But if our boys aren’t honest with us about their own vigilance to social distancing and hygiene as opportunities arise, the elders cannot visit… not without risking killing grandma.
My boys have already grown tired of me suggesting a walk on the beach as an activity… and it’s not even June. Good luck with your kids. xoxo
Blooms and Bubbles 