On March 10, I had a crazy day. I was in charge of auditions for the school talent show. I was hosting and cooking for book club that night. My house was a mess, and I was trying to clean it for book club while also getting laundry done so we could pack for a spring-break trip to New York and DC. In the back of my mind, I was obsessing over a podcast episode I’d been working on for months, about the terminology we use for moms and the work we do.
Just two weeks later, I lived in a different world. Most of the things I was stressed about on that busy Monday were completely out of the question—or even illegal. Talent show? Cancelled. Spring-break trip? Cancelled. Book Club at my house? Out of the question. And as for my episode about terminology, now we’re all stay-at-home moms—in the most literal sense.
Five weeks after that busy Monday, my world looks different once again. I now know all the ins and outs of Google Classroom. Each week I put a new family routine up on the white board, hoping this will be the one that works. I cook, I clean, and cook and clean again. I fight with children about the area of a trapezoid and who will take the garbage out. I read books to them. I forget about yet another one of their video conferences with teachers. And I wonder what my life—and the world—will look like in another two or three weeks.
I debated whether to write about the changes COVID-19 has brought to motherhood, because we’re all on Corona overload. I’ve also rewritten this several times as circumstances have changed. But it also seemed weird to go forward with my regularly scheduled content and gloss over this monumental change—The Great Reset.
We’ve all experienced other resets in our lives, both bad and good—things like job loss, illnesses, divorce, deaths, trauma, and tragic events like 9-11, and also positive things like marriage, moves, babies, graduations, new jobs. This time, Corona keeps pushing a giant reset button over and over—sometimes several times a day. No gatherings over 150, wait, make that 10. School’s going online for two weeks. Make that a month. Make that the rest of the school year.
Uncertainty is one of the trademarks of this reset. The uncertainty of how long it will last, how many people we love will get this evil virus, if and when we will get it ourselves, and how our bodies will react. We’re all constantly monitoring ourselves for signs of sickness, trying not to become a hypochondriac every time our throat tickles.
Sure, we could panic, and hunker down in fear. But we’re moms—and we don’t have time for that. We have mouths to feed, budgets to tighten, bottoms to wipe, toddlers to entertain—plus we’re trying to channel our inner Little House on the Prairie as we manage our own one-room school houses and make cheese using the lining of a calf’s stomach. OK, not that last part, but we are having to dig deep into our pantries and use stuff we didn’t even remember we had. Hello SPAM.
I’m going to talk about several of the specific ways Covid-19 is resetting motherhood both temporarily and long-term.
Faith
I’m going to go deep right off the bat, because we’re all in over our heads. The first reset is Faith.
My husband is a small business owner, whose income just stopped, like so many other businesses. When we first realized all this I started imagining all sorts of worst-case scenarios. How would we feed our kids and pay our mortgage while draining our savings to cover overhead for the business? Would we have to lay off his staff, whom we love? What were they going to do? Would we have to close up shop and start all over again when this is over?
For about three days, I felt numb with fear. I cancelled every subscription, the kids lessons, and every other expenditure I could think of (thank goodness we paid for three years of Disney+ up front). I inventoried my pantry and freezer. My husband and I charted out every asset and liability. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I closed the office door while I crunched numbers and let the tv and computer babysit. I had a few good cries. I constantly thought about all the other people who were suddenly jobless, many with no savings at all—or worse, fighting for their lives in the hospital–and I cried some more. I felt completely overwhelmed at the enormity of it all.
And then I sat up one morning and realized that I already know the antidote to fear: faith and hope. I decided to trust in God and in all the good people around me and move forward.
I’ve made religious study and prayer both individually and with my family a non-negotiable part of every day. And we’ve been holding church at home on Sundays, which has been a surprisingly spiritual experience. Last Friday I participated in a worldwide, 24-hour fast and prayer. It was incredible to think about uniting in faith with millions of people all over the world.
It’s easy to talk about faith conquering fear in abstract terms. It’s another thing to really test it. The results have been astonishing and humbling. In March, I went 20 days without going to the grocery store, and we ate better than we had in a long time. Every time I was almost out of fresh produce, a neighbor or friend would turn up at our doorstep with an extra bag of lettuce, carrots, cabbage, or green beans. My in-laws dropped by with some milk and bags of rice.
We have faith that we’ll figure this out, however long it lasts. Sure, I still sometimes feel a bit panicky, but I refuse to give in to the fear.
We’re all affected by this pandemic in different ways of course, and we all fear different things. For some of us, this is compounded by existing struggles with depression and anxiety. But even if we can’t get rid of the fear completely, a transfusion of faith and hope will do us all some good.
Brene Brown said recently, “This pandemic experience is a massive experiment in collective vulnerability. We can be our worst selves when we’re afraid, or our very best, bravest selves. In the context of fear and vulnerability, there is often very little in between because when we are uncertain and afraid our default is self-protection. We don’t have to be scary when we’re scard. Let’s choose awkward, brave, and kind. And let’s choose each other.”
Family Time
The next reset I want to talk about is family time. With some notable and difficult exceptions—like those on the front lines at hospitals, grocery stores, etc.—most of us find ourselves at home more than we ever have been. The whole family. All at the same time.
Of course, this comes with blessings and challenges, all rolled up in one. The way the balance tips depends partly on the ages of the kids, and partly on work situation—many families are trying to figure out how one or both parents can work from home while also somehow taking care of the kids.
In a recent article for the New York Times, called “This Togetherness is Temporary” the fabulous Mary Laura Philpott wrote about this conundrum of COVID family time: “It’s emotional whiplash to go from wishing for a few more hours a week with the kids to being holed up in the house together ’round the clock. I feel guilty about loving lunchtime on weekdays with them, a little joy I didn’t think I’d ever get back. I’m so sorry they’re missing school and prom and graduations and sports and everything else. I will never forget this chapter in our lives. I hate the reason for it. All these things are true.”
It’s okay if we both love and hate all this family togetherness. It’s okay if we’re constantly bouncing between the two, or even feeling both at the same time.
My husband is still going into work at this point, figuring out how to move forward, working on projects he doesn’t usually have time for, training staff, etc. But he gets home at 5:00 and sometimes even earlier for the first time in our 20-year marriage. Perhaps the even more drastic change is that we’re not spending every afternoon and evening in the car, driving to piano lessons, athletic practices, or church activities.
So from 5:00 to about 8:00 it’s family time. We go on a walk every evening. Sometimes this is fun—and sometimes it’s more of an exercise in patience than actual exercise, what with kids scuffling with each other and whining. But it’s a way to guarantee that we all get outside and get moving each day, and a great way to have some of those more casual conversations with the kids. As a bonus, there are so many neighbors also out walking that we don’t feel so isolated.
We’ve developed some fun new traditions on these walks, mostly in an attempt to quell the whining. We have little races along the way, with head starts for the littles, and we all take turns quizzing our four-year-old with questions like “What is the opposite of cold?” and “What do you call a baby sheep?” We have a set of cards with conversation topics, so we sometimes bring those along.
This is also the first time we’ve been able to include my husband in family dinner, which has been so great. Then we read scriptures and pray together and commence the bedtime routines. Again, it’s not always pretty, but it’s a lot less hectic than the usual run around.
My friend Linda Crawford is soaking up this time with her young adult and teenage children. She says, This may not be news about our family: we’re each other’s favorites. There is a lot to give me pause about quarantine, but staying in this house with these people is not one of them. We take lots of drives. Sunday walks are back on track with the college kids home. Other than the bits of anxiety, and having school assignments to complete, it’s been just like that week between Christmas and New Year’s: blissfully free-form time together.”
Annalee Slaugh is a very different stage of life, with three kids seven and under. But despite the heavier workload and intensity that her young kids bring, she says, “I’ve loved Being a kid again with them and enjoying the things they enjoy like games, crafts, “recess” time outside. All has been good for my heart and soul.”
It’s been wonderful to see some of the fun, spontaneous ways families are enjoying this time together. Family sleepovers, movie nights, exploring outside, baking together, and inventing new games.
I’ve also loved seeing all the different ways families are being creative together, which is especially evident on YouTube these days. One of my favorites was a family friend, Jana Heller, who had the idea that her family should recreate a music video by Journey. They filmed it scene for scene, and it is just amazingly funny and accurate. I’ll link to that too.
But there’s a dark side to all this togetherness. Together is the opposite of alone.
Alone Time
Which leads me to the next reset: Alone time, or the lack thereof.
With Covid-19, it’s either feast or famine. Some people are super lonely, including some of my extended family, and my heart aches for them. The rest of us can’t find a minute to ourselves. Moms with kids at home fit in the latter category, obviously.
Last week I posted on Instagram about just one of the instances when I just couldn’t take the togetherness. I was arguing with one of my kids over the matter of a penny in a math problem. He was more interested in getting his way than getting it right. Another child was practicing the piano loudly in the next room. An alarm was going off in another room—I don’t know why. Another child was asking for help with a math program on the computer and a fourth child walked in asking for gummy bears.
There had been so much asking for gummy bears, by so many different children that day, that this request was what made me snap. I ran out of the room, grabbed my gummy bear stash, ran to the living room, and threw all of the remaining packets of gummy bears into the air, yelling, “Mom time out. Don’t follow me!” Then I ran to my room, grabbed my book and stuck my fingers in my ears so I didn’t have to listen to them fighting over the gummy bears.
In the best of times, solitude is elusive for moms, and it takes even more creativity during this pandemic. I have definitely gotten used to having at least 9 hours a week to myself this last year, because my youngest started preschool. All of a sudden that’s gone, and I’m really feeling it.
In response to my Instagram post, several moms shared their own creative tactics for squeezing in some alone time—many involving secret treat stashes; a little more screen time than we’d like to admit for kids, mom, or both; and lots of creative hiding places. Abigale Palmer is a self-described introvert who said, “I literally hide at least 3 times a day just to be “by myself”. The other day it was behind my sons bedroom door with strawberry short cake in hand. Another mom, Lisa Salazar, put on a movie for her kids while she laid in their fort outside reading her book uninterrupted.
My favorite idea was from Mary Karlee, who said, “The first Saturday after the quarantine I woke up Saturday morning passed out job lists and then once I thought about actually making the kids DO the jobs I sorta panicked and fled. I didn’t say a word to anyone — just snuck out the back door, jumped in my car, still in my pjs, and drove. I came home four hours later and felt much better.”
Thankfully, this lockdown is happening in the spring, so we can at least send our kids outside, though it’s really hard to explain why they can’t play with the neighbors.
But escape isn’t the only thing that works. We can also set boundaries. Since my office has been transformed into the school room, I set up a table in my room for my new office. I announced to my kids that this is where I will be from 1 to 3 every day, and it’s where they will not be.
My favorite example of setting boundaries comes from another of my favorite writers, Celeste Davis, who blogs at marriagelaboratory.com and hosts a podcast called Marriage Theraoke. She wrote an oh-so-timely article called “Staying at Home With My Kids for Six Weeks: A Story About Boundaries.” Among other wisdom, she shares a brilliant technique for setting boundaries that I’m totally stealing: She says, “Each kid gets 5 favors from me a day. This includes even the simplest favor like, “Mom! Look at this!” or asking any question- anything that causes me to interrupt what I’m doing) After that, they have to meet their own needs somehow.” Her intent was to make them aware of how many requests they make in an average day—and it’s been working. For example, when her daughter asked her to fix the pencil sharpener, Celeste asked, “Do you want to use one of your favors? She replied, “Nevermind, I got it to work.” Her son asked her to get him a spoon, and she asked him the same question. He quickly reconsidered and got it himself.
She also set limits for when they could use there five favors, or more specifically, when they can’t. She told them, “Mom is off limits for favors, questions and interruptions during recess, reading time and quiet time.” This is another article you’ll want to read for yourself. You’ll find the link in the show notes.
However you can manage it, please prioritize and schedule in a little time to yourself. I feel for you moms who don’t have any kids that are old enough to babysit, and especially for moms that are parenting solo. Savor some extra-long showers, reserve nap time for things that fill you up instead of trying to be productive. Crack down on bedtime so you have some time to yourself in the evening. When I was in that stage, sometimes I’d lace up my tennis shoes as soon as I heard my husband pull in from work at night, race through the door and say “See ya!” I’m not even a runner, but it felt so liberating to just pound my frustration from the day into the pavement. It’s even more effective if you do the Phoebe run from Friends.
Another important thing to remember is that it’s not just us who need alone time. It’s been really interesting to me to see how the different personalities in my family have adjusted to so much togetherness. I have one in particular that needs to retreat to his room for hours at a time with a book to just take a breather. I’m hoping the hammock we just set up in the backyard will be another good place to get some space, although so far it’s never held fewer than three kids at a time.
One-on-one Time
The next reset has been my favorite one so far. Family time is great and all, but in my normal life, I never feel like I can get enough one-on-one time with my kids. Since we’ve all been home, I’ve finally been able to meet my goal to spend time with each kid alone every day.
My favorite new tradition has been reading aloud to each of them individually each day, or at least most days. This has been on my parenting wish list for ages. I’ve tried group read-alouds, but it’s hard to find a book that is interesting to a four-year-old, a fourteen-year-old, and everything in between. I hand-picked a book for each kid that I knew they’d love, which was half the fun for me, and then I’ve found the best times to read to each of them in our new daily routine. For my oldest, the best time is while he puts Legos together. He pays attention best when he’s doing something with his hands. My middle son, who is ridiculously nocturnal, sleeps much better if I calm him down with a book. Another loves for me to snuggle in while he’s waking up and read then.
Another fun tradition we started is buddy bike rides: my two oldest sons and I each take one of the three youngest kids on a bike ride two or three times a week, rotating who goes with who. It’s been a great way to help the kids connect with each other and with me.
For many moms, this slowdown has given them time to get to the projects they’ve been meaning to do with individual kids. Andrea Nielson, one of the hosts of the podcast Family Looking Up, wrote, “It is sad that it takes a pandemic for me to realize I have not spent enough quality time with my kids. My youngest son has been wanting to work on a wood project. Since we have some downtime I decided it was a great time to pull out the power tools and make this bunny cage. I am grateful for this sweet boy that teaches me that youth is a short moment and it won’t be long before he won’t want to hang out with his mom anymore.”
Gabrielle Montero is in the COVID epicenter of the United States—New York City, trying to work and go to school at home while taking care of her son. To say it’s been hard is an understatement, but at the same time she’s been able cherish the moments she has with her son. She wrote, “I was a nanny for a long time. It was my faaaaaavorite job. And boy did I look forward to Mondays, when the adults would leave and us kids could explore. One of my favorite parts was doing “cooking classes” with them. [Now I’m] Taking the opportunity to do the same with my son. Time I didn’t ever think I’d have with him.”
You don’t have to be creative or bookish or cookish to spend some extra one-on-one time with your kids. Snuggle up to watch a show together. Take a walk together. Or just lie in bed with them and talk through the day. Do what works for you and each kid.
Specialization
The next reset is specialization–identifying your strengths as a mom. It’s easy to get intimidated by moms in social media land who have turned their house into a crafting wonderland over the last month. Some are rocking regimented schedules and routines, some are decorating homemade seven-layer cakes, others have transformed their kitchen into a science lab.
But the lovely Brooke Romney said it best in her article, “Coronavirus is not a motherhood competition.” She wrote, “ The Corona Virus is not a competition to see who loves motherhood or her children the most. It’s not a race to be the most structured and productive or the coolest and most laid back parent. It is not a contest to see who can educate the best or who can throw it all out the window without guilt.
What it is, is a pause. An opportunity to figure out how best to love your children in the way they need to be loved and a chance to understand how YOU find joy in motherhood. It’s going to look different than the way your neighbor does it or your favorite Instagram mom does it, but it is going to be just right for you.”
The more moms I’ve gotten to know through How She Moms, the more I’m able to enjoy Instagram. When I see pictures of moms doing awesome things with their kids, instead of feeling like a failure because I don’t do those things, I try to think about how amazing it is that they do those things, and that I do other things. I specialize in reading with my kids and playing music with them. Other moms actually decorate for holidays and play baseball with their kids. Others watch movies and play games with them.
This is a great time to figure out what you love and what you’re good at and lean into them—and let yourself lean away from the things you’ve always hated to do but felt like you should. (Beside laundry and diapers. You still have to do some of those things you hate.)
My favorite podcast episode about this is Episode 16 of the 3 in 30 Podcast: How To Be The Mom You Are (Instead of the Mom You Think You Should Be). I’ll link to it.
Schedule
On to another obvious reset: our schedules. Here’s another topic with endless variations based on circumstances, personalities, ages of kids, jobs, etc. But what we have in common is that none of our schedules look like they did a month ago.
I have to admit, like many of you, it’s been really refreshing to wipe the slate clean and re-evaluate what we “have” to do each week. Things that we thought were set in stone have just vanished. No piano lessons, no dance classes, no gym schedule, not even church! We don’t have to get the kids to school on time or pick them up. Our cars, for the most part, just sit idly in our garages.
Instead, except for the ubiquitous Zoom conferences with teachers or co-workers, there’s not much scheduled on our calendars. This, however, does not necessarily mean we have less to do.
I’ve actually been quite baffled by the posts about all the free time we’re supposed to have on our hands right now, because I haven’t been this busy in years. It’s just a different kind of busy. My housework load has multiplied exponentially, with the kitchen alone. Cooking and cleaning up after three meals a day for 6-7 people is a full-time job in and of itself. Then there’s helping with and monitoring online learning for four of my kids and all the other parental duties. I squeeze a little bit of How She Moms stuff into spare moments and I have a new walking schedule to uphold—where’s all the time for puzzles and Netflix?
But boredom is obviously happening out there somewhere, probably mostly for moms of little kids, or so many people wouldn’t be posting ideas for how to keep kids entertained or organizing their closets. I thought about collecting some of the great resources for kids activities and educational resources online, but so many podcasts and blogs have already done that I think we all have more resources than time to use them.
Regardless of how much we have on our new plates, we face the challenge of creating a new schedule from scratch. Do we keep it fast and loose and revel in the lack of structure, or do we make one of those color-coded schedules we keep seeing?
Joanna Ludlow, a mom of five, who is on Instagram as @happymoms4life, quickly realized she needed more structure in her schedule. On March 25, she posted, “Enough is enough! This haphazard craziness that leaves me in tears each night and the kids browbeaten, has to end! Here’s to having a better, more smooth running life, less anxiety and less stress. When they’re in school, all seven hours of their day are scheduled, no wonder they are able to accomplish what they need to accomplish! We tried for the last week and a half to have a nice loosey-goosey schedule and it has been me yelling at everyone to do this and do that all day long.” She created a schedule to make sure they all got up by at least 8:30, and then scheduled loose blocks for school, meals, exercise and free time to give structure to the day.”
One of the best pieces of advice about homeschool schedules I heard, early on in this remote schooling experiment was from Joy Cherrick, a homeschooling mom of six who was a guest on the Mom Hour podcast. She talked about how she gives herself a lot of grace about homeschooling during stressful times like having a new baby or moving, and this pandemic definitely qualifies as a stressful time. Before jumping into a regimented schedule, she takes at least a week to really observe their natural schedules and patterns before setting up an official family schedule.
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This resonated so much with me, as I tried, right off the bat to have every kid do all their homework, all their chores, keep up with piano and guitar practice, help me cook, etc. Each of the weekly schedules I’ve written up have become less and less regimented and more in tune with individual kids and what they can handle.
This entire episode, called “Homeschool Moms: “You’ve Got this. Here’s What’s Most Important,” was surprisingly helpful and reassuring as I started our remote schooling journey. Host Sarah Powers interviewed two veteran homeschool moms for their advice, which I thought would be intimidating, but they were both so encouraging and had great ideas. It’s definitely worth the listen, as are the other episodes of The Mom Hour that Megan and Sarah have been knocking out of the park during this pandemic–topics like self care, cooking from your pantry, activities for kids, homeschool, and a new series, Pandemic Perspectives—conversations with people who have been affected by the pandemic in unique ways.
But perhaps the best takeaway we will get from this schedule reset is the realization that we have more control over our time and priorities than we think. Once these temporary restrictions have lifted, what will we add back in, and what will we eliminate?
I loved this Instagram post from Jessie Snider. (jsnider2) She says, “In the spring, we quickly become teammates tagging each other in while blowing winkyfaced kisses to eac hother from different cars going different places. Spring means theater rehearsals that go through dinner and into bedtime routines, it means soccer and baseball and piano recital practices. It has always been a season that we could easily find ourselves at the end of saying, hey…I haven’t seen you in awhile. But this year, at just the beginning of it all, we were all forced into a screeching halt. And while I would love for all of this to just have been episode 1 of a new tv series, and to be right in the middle of our crazy normal spring routine, I am so grateful for the extra time home, with my guy, without all of the noise of the world-learning dances from our teenagers, and taking walks around the block led by our littlest littles. When everything else is out of your control, look for the good. Speak positivity into your kids, about what a gift this extra family time is. Hold tight to your people.
Julie Bogart, who is on Instagram as juliebravewriter,
wrote, “You thought you could fit it all in. Turns out you can’t! Staying home proves, like nothing else, that most of us lead impossible lives…squeezing more and more activity into our 24 hour days until we’re frazzled, discouraged, and guilty that we didn’t get it all done. An unwitting lesson of the “stay at home” order is: home is full enough. Can you imagine the day we’re allowed to resume all those activities? We’ll burst from our houses eager for a new experience. And then—bam! I’m betting we’ll be surprised when piano lessons or that trip to Target knock laundry or baths or math off the list! So remember this moment. Groceries or spelling. Gymnastics lessons or homemade dinner. Showers or bike rides at sunset. The read aloud or the vet appointment. We can’t do it all!
So, guilt-free, on that day of liberation—remember to drop something from the agenda, knowing you’re making an exchange—the home stuff for the delicious change of pace outside it.”
It will be so fascinating to see what we all decide to add back in once we are allowed to, and what we will decide to keep out.
Education
Education is another obvious reset. Two of my kids despise online learning and have trouble getting everything done. The other two have never done better academically. They’re actually getting their work done. It’s been so interesting to watch their different learning styles. It’s definitely going to affect our educational decisions going forward, including the possibility of homeschooling one or two of them if necessary.
One of my friends had a similar experience with her oldest son, who was recently diagnosed with mild autism and ADHD. She says, “He was a poor student this 6th grade year: he’d lose assignments that never made it home for completion or he’d complete them but never turn them in for credit! He rushed through exams without even trying and was recently flagged as a student who struggles with reading comprehension.” But after starting to learn at home, she says, “We found out that isn’t true at all. He finishes his school work in two hours nearly every day, and has yet to watch the math Lesson before completing the assignment for the day. I had no idea he was actually a really great learner!
She has even noticed a fundamental change in his temperament. She says, “He is THE reason I knew I couldn’t do homeschool. He’s so hard to deal with and every parental interaction with him was a battle. But he’s relatively happy now. He seems to now have the mental space to focus his efforts on his relationships:
He’s nicer more often, he’s frustrated less often, and our entire family dynamic has changed into one of, “OK. This is doable. I hope it continues!”
This glimpse we’re all getting into our kids’ learning process can help us identify where they need some extra help, where their natural talents lie, and how we can better help them once we get back to regular school.
In addition to academic education, this pandemic is teaching our kids a lot of life lessons that can be hard to come by in normal life. For one, it’s a good lesson in scarcity. For some kids, and us parents too, this has been a real wakeup call about what we take for granted, and I’m not just talking about toilet paper. We’ve had to figure out what we can cut out of our budgets, how we can make our food stretch, and how to go back to that Depression Era adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
Yes, the sacrifices can be hard, and the future can look scary, but there is a lot to gain by teaching our children not to waste food and other resources. A little bonified scarcity can be a great teacher.
Adversity is often the best teacher for our kids, and the lesson it teaches best is resilience. I love the way Lynette Shepard, host of the podcast How To Raise Grownups talks about this. She said,
“This quarantine is hard on everyone. But you know what it will help build? Resilience. Your kids will learn that they can do hard things. They will discover that challenges don’t last forever (because this WILL end). They will develop faith in their abilities to weather the storms of life, even the ones that shut the whole world down. They will realize that difficult circumstances will not break them. The resilience that they will build over these next weeks and months will be a blessing to them for the rest of their lives.
I don’t know a single soul that would choose to go through the chaos that we are now forced to tackle. There are no easy answers to any of the challenges that we must collectively face each hour and each day. But what can we learn? And what can we teach the kids who are looking to us for guidance and support? How can we all emerge a little stronger and a little more resilient? How can this massive inconvenience become a stepping stone for us and our kids to grow?”
And another great lesson for our kids is boredom. Despite what you see on social media, you are not your child’s cruise director. We all know what kind of creativity can blossom out of boredom. Each boredom session starts with the kids whining and complaining about being bored, until they realize how boring that is. If you make it through that part alive and refuse to bail them out or turn on the electronics, forts go up, costumes go on, books open, and so do all sorts of new possibilities. I have two standard responses to bored whiners: I either say, “If you’re bored, you must be boring.” Or I give them a job to do. I just happened to grab a book called Unbored from the library right before quarantine, and it’s full of great ideas kids can explore themselves. I highly recommend it.
Compassion
The final reset I want to talk about is compassion. I feel like one of the most beneficial changes we’ll all experience through this challenge is to care more deeply about and for each other in new and innovative ways. We’ve seen drive-by parades, inspiring chalk art, painted rocks, families and friends playing games over video conference, cards of encouragement for healthcare workers, and doorstep deliveries. Neighbors are checking in with each other and greeting each other more heartily when we’re out for walks. Here in the Denver area, people have started the weird tradition of howling every night at 8:00 to support those affected by and those serving us through this pandemic. It’s been hilarious, fun, and oddly touching to join in.
We’re connecting with each other in new and different ways. My friend Whitney Thomas is quarantined on her own with her four children while her husband is stationed in Thailand with the Army. Her mother in law volunteered to help the kids with their remote learning by taking over reading time with all three of her school-age children. She bought a copy of the books each of the kids are reading and they trade off reading pages over the phone. This helps in so many ways—it takes reading off Whitney’s plate, occupies the kids, and connects the kids with their grandma in a special way.
Jackie Schlerf, host of the Supergirls Podcast shared a cute story about her niece Ruby, who drew a picture of a snail and taped it to the window so her neighbor could have something fun to look at while we’re social distancing. The next day, the neighbor posted a response on her window: “There once was a snail named Simon…” They now go back and forth, adding to the story. Ruby’s mom said, “Our neighbor doesn’t have any young children and she definitely didn’t need to do anything like this. But she did. Suddenly my house and the world feels a little less isolated. We’re all in this together.”
There isn’t much we can control about our current situation, but we can resolve to be more connected, more resourceful, more resilient, and more compassionate as we endure and eventually emerge from this crisis.
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