We have been wondering what parents need to hear right about now. This month marks the declared “end” of the COVID crisis. It is a time of implied “get-on-with-its” and “that-was-then-this-is-nows.”

Overall, our society tends not to think very critically upon past events; what we did well, what we didn’t. In particular, we tend to push away any thought of how those past events might linger, especially how those events might still feel uncomfortable and even traumatizing. Here we are, at the end. We have wanted to write this sentence for three long years. And yet, it is still here.

Energy — all of it that swirls around and through us — is never created nor destroyed. COVID, and its impact on parenting is still here. Our children continue to feel its effects.

It is weird how COVID hits us now. It comes in moments like during a gathering of friends, when hardly used platters and glasses emerge from a three-year hibernation. Conversation reverts to this-and-that, about nothing and everything, instead of narrow chatter about a virus, pods, toilet paper and death rates.

This pull is both new and old, feeling like both at the same time. We remember the “before,” and ghosts of those times make themselves known, pop up like memories from our own childhoods. We say, “Remember when we used to …?” You can fill in the blank here.

Remember when we used to think of a positive test only in terms of pregnancy? Remember when “quarantine” was something solely out of television medical dramas? Remember when children, as a whole, did not understand that a threat of illness could shut down their school, their play dates, their sporting events?

We remember the “during,” and find some old poster-sized calendars from those early times that sparsely outlined the events of the days when things slowed down and our streets were eerily quiet. It is loud again. And some of us, especially our children, are shocked to hear the cacophony they were once used to. It pierces through their quiet in an unexpected way. Some are still surprised at large gatherings. Everything is loud and bright.

Our children look at us and ask, “Is it safe now?” We say “yes.” We lack the confidence we had in the “before,” though.

We sometimes forget how much has changed. Masks haven’t entirely disappeared. They are both on and off faces. They bob along a sidewalk after dropping from a coat pocket or they hang from hooks in cars. For some people, masks remain on, sealed tightly around the mouth and nose.

We forget about how our children parked in front of screens, how their teachers asked them to “turn on your camera.” We forget about the television images seen by young eyes, those freezers in Manhattan. We forget Dr. Fauci pleaded with us to remain patient. We really didn’t have much of a choice back then.

But now, patience has predictably waned. We are pulling desperately at bootstraps while still hearing that our children are “behind.” They are not as independent, not as socially mature, not as emotionally healthy. We say they are “behind,” as if any one of us could magically pull them forward from the place and time that took so much from them and from all of us. This will take time. And we, and our children, will never be the same.

As parents, we feel as if the idea that we should just keep going without regard to all that’s happened is not working for us. This pandemic and the ways we tumbled didn’t resemble a topple when learning to walk. That toddler’s spill calls for an enthusiastic chorus urging resilience to just get up again and keep going, not to pause and take stock.

Our children didn’t spend “regular” time with friends for a very, very large portion of their lives. We didn’t, either. We did a lot of waiting and worrying, and some “end” by federal mandate doesn’t change what we all lost, what we feared, or that people continue to die from the virus. The grief is still here, neither created nor destroyed, often in different forms.

We are privileged not to feel as worried about contracting the virus as we were three years ago. But we feel unable to simply brush ourselves off and move on as if what we went through was not a big deal and didn’t change fundamental parts of who we are, collectively and individually.

This was a big deal. It changed us. It changed our children. It revealed what was most broken and also, thankfully, where our resilience lies, in our care of and connection to others. We see how many of you who are parents still feel “behind.” You wonder why your child is struggling, you feel guilt and shame about what you could or should have done over this time.

We see you and know that what you have done and continue to do is heroic. You raised your child through a global pandemic, a rare and seismic event. We wish there were more space to do what grief experts suggest — to trust that ambiguous grief is still real grief and learn to give it tenderness and time and attention, for the fullness of nurturing hurt instead of a rush to pretend everything is fine.

Sarah Buttenwieser is a freelance writer who lives in Northampton. Alice Barber is a local child therapist who lives in Easthampton.

]]>