What a strange time it has been, 2020.
An understatement, I’m aware, although I find myself incapable of pairing down the year to a single statement. What a surprise it was when our roles were changed, almost as if we were playing charades and pulling new roles out of a hat. Were you a mom with a part time job? Now you had to act like a mom with a part time job working from your home computer,the office is the closet, and in addition to being your kid’s mother you also are their teacher and part time therapist. Were you a dad with a quiet office job in the city? Your office has relocated to your dining table where you’ll have to run out frantically while on a phone call with a client because the new coworker is having a meltdown over a peanut butter sandwich. Placed in these overloaded roles and under voluntary house arrest with our nuclear families our relationships were put through trial by fire. As adults we had to find our own little corner of the house to carve out “alone time”, learn to enjoy our spouse’s company even though we were together 24/7, and fill our daily routines with meaning lest we fall into the hole called “I’ll be in pajamas all day.” Our little ones similarly had their world turned upside down. Some came home from school one day not to return for months, isolated from friends and family members, they were cut off from their own little society.
With S and L it was an easy transition, after having such a hectic post-partum (to mention the biggest hurdle, we moved countries when L was 2 months), we relished in the first couple weeks of this forced isolation. We spent a lot of time with my husband, who travels half of the year for work, ate our favorite junk food, allowed ourselves to watch more television than usual, and avoided explaining a pandemic to our four year old. As days turned to months, schools remained closed, aunts, uncles and cousins continued to be off limits, and the virus moved in closer to our family circle, the heaviness of the year wore us down. My son began to ask where his friends went, why he couldn’t go to school, and why we couldn’t take him to the park. Questions, I’m sure every parent had to face and that led to those complicated conversations we were forced to navigate.
That loss of connection was the pain our little extrovert felt during lockdown.
And a battle began. Online classes didn’t work out for him and instead of making him feel closer to his classmates he felt a greater disconnect just seeing their faces on the screen. He refused to participate and we decided we’d homeschool until the situation changed. And while this accompanied by lots of time outdoors relieved his need of connection, his best friend* was not satisfied with just asking me how he was doing over the phone.
This brings us to battle number two, which raged in my house until a couple months ago. This battle is called the “Say hello to so-and-so over FaceTime.” His friend would call and spin and run and shout trying to get S to look at him while he, like a sulky teenager, sat in
the furthest place he could possibly be from the screen and pouted. Of course at the beginning, out of embarrassment and a need to show you’re not raising a kid without manners your instinct is to pressure them to say something. “Look, they’re saying hi, wave back.” “Why don’t you tell them about the bike ride we went on yesterday? “ “Why don’t you show them the toy car you like so much? “ The more I tried to push the conversation the more he shut himself off. The typical method of promising rewards( candy, tv time, etc.) seemed like too much of a manipulation and would have disturbed the purpose of the phone call which was to have a nice time being with his friend. Alas, his best friend would not give up on the phone calls and I was running out of strategies. It was a frustrating situation for me but I tried to put myself in his shoes. The best part of school was spending time with his classmates, his forte was not Spanish, but when you’re playing, tag, hide and seek or going down the slide language is not a barrier to fun. With his best friend he enjoyed watching movies together, here was where their relationship bloomed, their shared joy was sustained by a bowl of candy and laughs that didn’t need to be translated. Screens are good at a lot of things but these activities are human experiences we live and not just see.
Months went by and finally my husband began to travel again, when a little idea emerged. Instead of asking him to sit and talk to dad on the phone, I asked him if he’d like to sit down and share a couple of gummy worms with him. And just like that thousands of miles away father and son shared a treat and a conversation about dinosaurs. He finally felt like they were sharing an experience rather than feeling removed by staring at a talking face on a screen. We’ve tested the theory again with the best friend and I’m happy to report it worked.
Maybe your kids are pros at FaceTiming and zoom meetings or maybe your kid is missing that connection with the real world that mine so clearly did, the teachers hug, the best friend’s high five or the handshake of the elderly at church. How do we cultivate love for others when so many of our relationships have been put on hold or broken? I hope soon this new normal is out, and seeing kids share a lollipop on the playground is no cause for anything but a little disgust instead of fear. For now it’s up to us to be the creators of pathways from our kids to the rest of the world.
*maybe your kids best friend looks a bit like my son’s they’re usually wrinkled, some have white hair, and they’re likely called grandpa/ma, papa, nana, mimi etc.
viaggioacasa 