Covid is a Sucker
Being a parent now very much resembles the exact moment that you are walking with your child in an alley in city, and they attempt to pick up and subsequently eat a sucker off the ground.
Your child has been good all day, and there is really no reason why he cannot have a sucker, he just cant have that one. And when he asks when he can have a new sucker, for real , you come to find out that ALL THE STORES ARE OUT OF SUCKERS EVERYWHERE, AND NO ONE KNOWS WHEN ANYONE CAN OBTAIN A SUCKER... EVER... AGAIN.
That's how it feels to parent these days. You want to give your kids back what they had, for god sakes, you want back what you had too, but you just cant do it now. And with the most often apposing information and diabolically bizarre scenarios you have to provide as your reasoning, your defense, your answer, it's not a surprise that they look at you as if you have a third eye.
I thought I had got the parent thing down, 3 all over the age of 15. Everyone did good in school, generally holds their shit together and is usually pleasant to be around. Taking that as an accomplishment of our co-parenting, I find myself constantly referring to the "special moments" that the kids can look back on and thank us for.
For example when bed time became bedtime. When we both stopped pussyfooting around the issue and letting our guilt and agendas cloud our view, we decided to be a united front. We would back each other and form the coalition that would eventually create a human that developed decent bedtime habits. This was, in fact, a moment in time in which they will (if they don't already) thank us for.
Or the moment the kids figure out that if they misbehaved while at a restaurant, they would no longer be welcomed to stay. Again, as a united front, we orchestrated it before hand, prepared that one of us would leave the restaurant with the misbehaving child, while the other parent enjoyed the meal with the remainders.
That didn't take but one formal run through to become an invaluable point of reference in which the kids certainly will thank us for in 10 years.
How about when we secretly called the grade school and asked the principal to acknowledge that we would be "arriving late" (because someone was dilly dallying).
The principal talked about the importance of being on time to school and without a doubt, we never needed to "chase down the school bus" or arrive late and in shame again. Punctuality became a moment achieved.
I review each chapter of our Parenting History Book, I look for clues as to how I can handle NOW better. There must be a clue, an answer, an indicator of success. All the old moments came from a desire to unify. So why cant I find glimmers of understanding within those old stories that will illuminate how to give my child hope when I'm so confused myself.
And yet here we are, possible moments upon moments passing, and we are bumbling around like idiots. It's as if I don't know how to parent anymore. How do you tell your now 140lb -15 year old that he cant have the sucker off the alley floor when he is clearly bigger, stronger and more determined than you are?
And the sheer likelihood that he would get sick from that sucker is probably low. His immunity is strong, he'd probably be fine. But there is that off chance that he wouldn't be alright. Then what?
Coronavirus is a real sucker. A sucker of joy, connection, socialization, and mental health. It's also a sucker to have to learn how to parent all over again.