All parents have a protective instinct regarding our children. Naturally, mothers and fathers err on the side of overcaution.
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, most parents (even if some won’t admit it now) got scared and took extraordinary measures to protect our children. We canceled play dates for the month of March. I even told my son not to pick up a frisbee he had found in a ballfield.
Recommended Stories
After all, this seemed like the flu, but worse. And the flu disproportionately affects children, even killing them.
By the end of the Spring, however, we had all learned a lot about what makes the coronavirus different. For one thing, it doesn’t really spread on surfaces. More importantly, COVID doesn’t really spread outdoors. And most miraculously, children are far, far less likely to get it, less likely to spread it, and far less likely to get seriously ill (or even show symptoms) when they do get it.
If you don’t believe me, please read this article, “The Kids Were Safe from COVID the Whole Time.”
It seems that many people never moved on from the March 2020 understanding of COVID and children. If you want to see what the media and our school systems fed to parents and how it trickled down to children, check out the happy stories of 8-year-olds getting vaccinated now that some vaccines have been approved for children as young as five.
While the balancing act of vaccinating young children against COVID is a tough call (the minuscule risk of the vaccines is roughly equal to the minuscule risk of pediatric COVID), different parents have different reasons for vaccinating or not vaccinating their children against the coronavirus.
I suspect many parents vaccinating their children are vaccinating them against quarantine more than against the coronavirus. But in other cases, it’s clear that families have seen their lives completely upended by the fear of a little child getting this virus.
Check out these stories from a Maryland vaccine clinic this week:
“It makes me feel great because I can go places,” said Helen Talada, 7, who got vaccinated. “I’m happy that my family is a very safe one.”
“I got my vaccination,” said Zachary Fultz, 8, who got vaccinated. “I want to go out and do things more, and I can’t play with my friends anymore because they’re not vaccinated, and it’s not safe.”
Or from New York City, where one 6-year-old said he would finally “do normal things again,” such as go inside a grocery store, and his twin sister said she might go to a restaurant. Another mother said her daughter will finally have more play dates.
That 6-year-olds were locked away from the rest of the world for the past 20 months isn’t a sign of the virulence of this virus. It’s a sign of the virulence of irrational fear. The people who made parents and children this afraid and caused them to lock down far beyond the point of common sense did a grave disservice to children.
