A friend said recently, “It is as if we are living in some
dystopian novel”.
Like many of you, I have been slowly adjusting. I have been
thinking of this time as “a time that is set away”- different and somehow almost
suspended.
When we first embarked on our Springtime of Pandemic
Parenting, I suggested that we all relax a little. That was when I thought that
by the time summer rolled around, I would be vacationing far away countries,
and visiting colleges with my oldest, rather than living each day in my same
t-shirt, answering the routine question “What are we going to do today?” with
the routine answer “Not much”.
Early on, I encouraged you all to be a little more child-led
in your approach to the Spring. Let your kids watch movies and play their video
games. Let them Facetime their friends and make messes creating with all those
amazon boxes. Whatever you needed to do in order to just survive the realities
of living together 24/7, for this short period of time, was unlikely to create
lasting damage in your children.
And here we are many months, MONTHS – not- weeks- later, and
it is time to change our mindset. Because the “time-out-of-time approach“ works
on vacation, or summer break, or some shortish time frame. But it is not the
optimal approach for everyday parenting.
For almost 1/3 of the year, we have been socially distancing
and quasi quarantining. Every medical or scientific person I have heard
interviewed, says that this is going to be around for a while. Not months, but
years. The fall looms in the distance and yet in our area we still do not have
a cohesive return to school plan.
We cannot continue to parent as though this was a time set
aside. We have to return to full time intentional parenting. We have to find
ways to not just survive around each other, but to embrace what it means to be
a family and the thrive in these different circumstances. We need to look for
the opportunity every day to say yes to love.
To teach, and learn, and explore, even though we can’t leave the house.
We need to prepare ourselves for chaos outside our homes,
but cultivate peace in our own little domestic church. Because it isn’t likely
to get better for a while. It is up to us to make life better through the
daily, moment-to-moment choices we make to serve our children with joyful
hearts.
This it the time when we grow in virtue. It isn’t in the easy
times - it is in the struggle. So consider it joy my friends, to be faced with
adversity, and rise to the occasion.
Because it is this struggle that prepares us for eternity.
It is time for us to return to basics. We set our alarms
again, we institute bedtimes, we write out to-do lists, we set goals, we
strategize problems, we don’t put off for tomorrow what we can do today.
‘Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own”. Matthew 6:34.
We don’t
know what is coming tomorrow, but we do know what we can do today to show love
and spread joy. So do that. And tomorrow, with all its troubles, uncertainty
and worries, will take care of itself.
