Opinion | I've been trying to teach my kids about collective responsibility during the pandemic. It's too bad our political leaders are undermining the message. By KathiValeii
A mother with her two daughters wearing masks to guard against spreading COVID-19 on a walk, May 9, 2020 in Salerno, Italy.During the pandemic, I've been trying to be a good role models for my children. Telling them to social distance, limit contact with others, and wear masks.
For an 8-year-old, the pandemic restrictions are unpleasant but make sense. She feels it's her job to not only adhere to the rules but to encourage others to, as well. If I were only parenting a rule-following third-grader, my job would be pretty straight-forward. But, I'm also parenting a teen, and with the conflicting messages from health authorities and national leadership, it sometimes feels impossible to teach my kids about collective responsibility during a pandemic.
My son's friends were soon playing video games in each other's basements, shoulder-to-shoulder. We had to start all over again discussing how, while the virus might not be deadly to him, it could be to others. We had to rehash how long a person can remain infected without symptoms, and why that made it particularly dangerous to everyone they interacted with.
But, the real reason we took our dinners to the living room and turned the TV on to "Community," is because we needed a distraction to keep us from arguing with each other. We needed moments of levity and belly laughing. What was there to talk about at the dinner table besides the things we couldn't do, the friends we couldn't see? And ultimately, it often circled around to being our fault.
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