Surviving and Moving On

For John, BLUF:  Many of us will suffer tragedy during this Flu Pandemic, but it is possible to work our way through it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

It’s Okay to Be a Different Kind of Parent During the Pandemic

Here is the sub-headline:

When something outside your control changes your life, it’s what you do with what you can control that really shapes your children.

From The Atlantic, by CNN commentator Mary Katherine Ham, 8 April 2020.

Here is the lede plus five:

What if you woke up one day, and had to be an entirely different parent from the one you were the day before?  For much of America, that day arrived last month.

With the spread of COVID-19, millions of moms and dads have started spending a lot more time with their kids, in new roles.  I’ve noticed a recurring semi-desperate refrain in memes as well as Facebook posts and Instagram Stories:  “But I’m not a stay-at-home mom”; “I’m not a homeschooling dad”; “I’m not a Pinterest mom.”  Along with the markets, the coronavirus has wreaked havoc on our mental health and parenting strategies.

What we’re all being called to do now is learn how to parent in a crisis.  This is familiar territory for me, and the good news is that the parent you are today is not the parent you have to be tomorrow.  Your parenting identity is not nearly as intransigent as your pantsless, potty-training toddler.

In September 2015, I was raising a 2-year-old with my husband, Jake, while I was 7 months pregnant with our second child.  My toddler was easy on me—she was laid-back, sociable, and slept through the night.  Aside from a Kate Middletonian amount of morning sickness, motherhood had been relatively smooth.  I had an established parenting identity: I was a chill mom who took her kid on morning runs and road trips, a working mom, a mom with a partner with whom I could share some duties.

And then one Saturday, I became something else.  My husband died in a cycling accident in a race to benefit cancer research.  I lost my partner, I lost his contribution to our household income, and I lost my idea of what kind of parent I was.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant,” Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking, her memoir about the loss of her husband and daughter.  “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”  You’re probably feeling like you’re seated at that table now.  The coronavirus is serving up a rare and tragic mix of grief, drastic life changes, and economic stress to a huge swath of the country.

In the Air Force it is the dreaded Blue Staff Car pulling up to your house with a couple of officers in Class A Uniform, one of them a Chaplain.  You know why they are at your door.  Your Spouse has Bought-the-Farm.

I follow Ms Mary Katherine Ham on Twitter, because she is a very positive, chirpy kind of writer.  We need that kind of writing right now.  The survivors will get through this and move on to a better place, over time.

As a note, The Atlantic is offering for free their Coronavirus writings at this time.

Regards  —  Cliff