One year since Quebec’s first Covid diagnosis
It’s one year since the first case of Covid-19 was diagnosed in Quebec, in a woman just back from Iran, one of the countries hit earliest and hardest by the coronavirus.
It’s also a year since I last sat down in a restaurant, and I imagine the same is true of most of us.
The media keep playing two sides against the middle. This weekend’s grievance is that hotels have been told not to open their swimming pools, which some had hoped to do to capitalize on spring break. That bringing people together in this way is still something that oughtn’t to be going on is handwaved in favour of the storyline that it’s so hard on the hotels and on the disappointed families. Listen people: the coronavirus doesn’t care.
Lots of pieces this weekend on how to keep your kiddies amused and busy for a week. I hate to sound like the keep-off-my-lawn guy, but do kids really need their parents constantly making efforts to keep them entertained? I remember needing nothing more than free time to either go outside and horse around in the alley, read a book, or grab some paper and pencils and draw things. There was never enough time for the things I wanted to do. Had my parents tried to entertain me it would’ve been bizarre. I don’t believe modern kids are as unresourceful as all that, but the parenting attitude has changed completely.
MarcG 11:02 on 2021-02-28 Permalink
I live near a little park and can confirm that kids are still very easily entertained by spiders, empty boxes, leftover construction material, snowballs, running up and down a small hill, etc.
Meezly 11:55 on 2021-02-28 Permalink
“Keep them entertained” is probably not the best choice of words but it’s simpler to say than how to keep kids on a structured routine that allows for a good balance of free time and positive stimulus?
Keep in mind modern parents & kids are now faced with a pandemic. They have already been limited by social restrictions for several months. Now spring break is here and many parents cannot afford to take time off work but are reluctant to send them to service de grade because Covid and
kids can’t spend time their grandparents
kids aren’t allowed to go over to each other’s houses
it’s still winter so not so easy to be outside for very long
Many parents are tired and at their wit’s end. Many kids have had to isolate in recent weeks because of Covid cases at school. My kid’s class had a case and even if the other kids test negative, the whole class still had to isolate for 10 days!
That meant not being allowed to go outside, not being able to play with each other. So I imagine kids are pretty sick of books and drawing things, and maybe even video games and zoom.
Yes parenting was different way back when, but even though this phrase is clichéd it still holds true, these are unprecedented times.
Kate 12:34 on 2021-02-28 Permalink
Mmm, I would’ve loved it, you know? Stay home and draw pictures and not have to deal with the teacher and the other knobs in my class? Bliss.
I realize not everyone is inclined this way, though.
CE 00:24 on 2021-03-01 Permalink
Every time there has been a snowstorm and the kids head for the parks for some sledding, I’m always struck by the ring of parents standing at the top of the hills. Why does every parent need to be there? When I was a kid (not *that* long ago), parents rarely accompanied us to the tobogganing hill, I would assume it was a few precious hours of silence and relaxation for them. I feel like being a parent these days must be extra exhausting!
Kate 11:07 on 2021-03-01 Permalink
CE, that’s the change. Kids rarely play now without parental supervision.
When I was a kid (she said, shaking her cane) my parents stayed home and we hauled the toboggan up to Mount Royal ourselves on the bus from the west side, sledding on the hill above Beaver Lake, not the Park Avenue side. So when it started getting dark, you’d just go home. But nobody would let kids of 10 or 11 do that now.
Kevin 11:08 on 2021-03-01 Permalink
CE
As a kid our parents used to drop me and my siblings and friends off at a hill and come back later.
That ended after the third time one of us was seriously hurt and had to lie there moaning and/or bleeding until they showed up.
Kate 11:29 on 2021-03-01 Permalink
How seriously, Kevin?
One time, some idiots thought it was funny to drag their empty sled directly into the path of ours. I got a cut on my face when our toboggan – descending at speed with 3 or 4 kids aboard – kicked theirs up in the air. I don’t want to be all Four Yorkshiremen about it, but after dabbing off the blood in the chalet bathroom I just went home on the bus as usual.
My family never had a car, so it was never a question of getting picked up. You want to go somewhere, here’s a couple of bus tickets. See you later.
dwgs 08:25 on 2021-03-02 Permalink
Oh, bus tickets!! Luxury!! We used to have to take a flying leap at the bus and hang on to the outside for dear life.