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COVID-19 Quarantine—Day 77
May. 23rd, 2020 12:08 pmUgh
Someone on my friendslist posted something today about how parents need to stop shouting about how kids won't wear masks and kids need socialization. She's a teacher with health issues. Like, we're not shouting about this to be entitled or to be mean or whatever you think. We keep saying this because any return to school plan that depends on grade-schoolers consistently and properly wearing masks is doomed to failure and should not be tried. And people keep suggesting these stupid plans.
On socialization. I have a seven year old only child. We live in a 1200 sq ft townhouse with no yard. My kid hasn't been outside for more than about 45 minutes at a time in 11 weeks. He hasn't socialized in any way with anyone under age 25 in person in the same amount of time. (He spends hours a day on FaceTime with one friend, and a few hours a week with another. That's it.) He has taked to his aunt in person for a cumulative total of about 30 minutes over three "visits", spends about 30 minutes a week playing in his great-grandmother's backyard and talking to her at a distance, and has played in his grandparents' backyard for about an hour on two separate occasions. Other than that, he has us, his parents. This is not healthy for anyone or sustainable over a longer time period. It is probably permanently stunting his social growth (and it wasn't a strength area to start with) and I'm expeciting significant social anxiety (we've had issues before) when being around other kids becomes possible again.
Physical activity and screen time are the other concerns. Between school, FaceTime, the Nintendo Switch, and videos, he's probably spending 10-12 hours a day on various screens. I mean FaceTime is social time, and the Nintendo Switch is also often social time. I feel better about video games in general than I do about watching videos. Video games involve thinking and creativity--not just passive absorbing. But Mark and I were "joking" that if he has the genes for shitty eyesight, we'll know about them by the end of this. (Nearsightedness is an interaction between genes and close work and eyeball development. You have to have both the genes and the close work. Before this, he spend so little time on close work that the problem wouldn't have developed.) Will used to spend 3-4 hours daily outside playing, even on school days. Outside play involves a lot more movement than anything inside. I've been noticing a decrease even inside lately, which I find concerning. His swim school is reopening the first week of June. I still have no idea if I'm sending him or not. The HOA pools are closed until county health says otherwise--and honestly, I don't see any way to have them open without significant crowding. The neighborhood is dense enough that we can't really hang out outside, we have to keep moving and there's a lot of crossing streets and walking in the road to maintain distancing.
Right now, I feel like I've been locked up for three months for no actual reason. Because the assorted governments in charge of this response have neither the political will nor the staffing levels to enforce a lockdown that would actually accomplish what it needs to accomplish, we still haven't tamped it down enough on a regional level. (My actual city and zip code would probably be fine, but we're not at all separable and the bigger city to our south has significant community transmission on the east side still.) On a national level, I'm pretty sure that we've decided to be Sweden and just not tell anyone that. On a state and local level, we have no viable exit plan. No timeline. Not even any list of metrics/goals that would allow for being around people outside of our households. School wasn't even in the presentation about reopening. I don't care about shopping. I can live with takeout only indefinitely. I need friends for my kid. I need friends for me. I need somewhere to go to be alone (or for my husband and kid to ever leave the house). Right now, I'm looking at an entire summer in my house with my husband working 90 hour weeks and my kid having nothing structured to do and no social outlet. My AC only sort of keeps the house cold. And it sounds like we're seriously expected to do this until a safe vaccine is developed.
We cannot do this for two years. Does anyone seriously think it is reasonable to expect that the next time my kid plays with a friend will be after his 8th birthday? He was 6 when this started.
Someone on my friendslist posted something today about how parents need to stop shouting about how kids won't wear masks and kids need socialization. She's a teacher with health issues. Like, we're not shouting about this to be entitled or to be mean or whatever you think. We keep saying this because any return to school plan that depends on grade-schoolers consistently and properly wearing masks is doomed to failure and should not be tried. And people keep suggesting these stupid plans.
On socialization. I have a seven year old only child. We live in a 1200 sq ft townhouse with no yard. My kid hasn't been outside for more than about 45 minutes at a time in 11 weeks. He hasn't socialized in any way with anyone under age 25 in person in the same amount of time. (He spends hours a day on FaceTime with one friend, and a few hours a week with another. That's it.) He has taked to his aunt in person for a cumulative total of about 30 minutes over three "visits", spends about 30 minutes a week playing in his great-grandmother's backyard and talking to her at a distance, and has played in his grandparents' backyard for about an hour on two separate occasions. Other than that, he has us, his parents. This is not healthy for anyone or sustainable over a longer time period. It is probably permanently stunting his social growth (and it wasn't a strength area to start with) and I'm expeciting significant social anxiety (we've had issues before) when being around other kids becomes possible again.
Physical activity and screen time are the other concerns. Between school, FaceTime, the Nintendo Switch, and videos, he's probably spending 10-12 hours a day on various screens. I mean FaceTime is social time, and the Nintendo Switch is also often social time. I feel better about video games in general than I do about watching videos. Video games involve thinking and creativity--not just passive absorbing. But Mark and I were "joking" that if he has the genes for shitty eyesight, we'll know about them by the end of this. (Nearsightedness is an interaction between genes and close work and eyeball development. You have to have both the genes and the close work. Before this, he spend so little time on close work that the problem wouldn't have developed.) Will used to spend 3-4 hours daily outside playing, even on school days. Outside play involves a lot more movement than anything inside. I've been noticing a decrease even inside lately, which I find concerning. His swim school is reopening the first week of June. I still have no idea if I'm sending him or not. The HOA pools are closed until county health says otherwise--and honestly, I don't see any way to have them open without significant crowding. The neighborhood is dense enough that we can't really hang out outside, we have to keep moving and there's a lot of crossing streets and walking in the road to maintain distancing.
Right now, I feel like I've been locked up for three months for no actual reason. Because the assorted governments in charge of this response have neither the political will nor the staffing levels to enforce a lockdown that would actually accomplish what it needs to accomplish, we still haven't tamped it down enough on a regional level. (My actual city and zip code would probably be fine, but we're not at all separable and the bigger city to our south has significant community transmission on the east side still.) On a national level, I'm pretty sure that we've decided to be Sweden and just not tell anyone that. On a state and local level, we have no viable exit plan. No timeline. Not even any list of metrics/goals that would allow for being around people outside of our households. School wasn't even in the presentation about reopening. I don't care about shopping. I can live with takeout only indefinitely. I need friends for my kid. I need friends for me. I need somewhere to go to be alone (or for my husband and kid to ever leave the house). Right now, I'm looking at an entire summer in my house with my husband working 90 hour weeks and my kid having nothing structured to do and no social outlet. My AC only sort of keeps the house cold. And it sounds like we're seriously expected to do this until a safe vaccine is developed.
We cannot do this for two years. Does anyone seriously think it is reasonable to expect that the next time my kid plays with a friend will be after his 8th birthday? He was 6 when this started.
