Parenting During the Pandemic

No parents are perfect, and parenting during quarantine is anything but.

By George Wacker ’03

Our 4-year-old, Dahlia, probably eats a few more Mike & Ike’s than she would have if this pesky pandemic weren’t around. She stays up a bit later some nights than maybe she should. She’s definitely gotten more than her fair share of screen time (even though I have to admit there are some very educational apps out there).

I’m sure we’re not the only parents who have seen a few rules of the house slip a bit. And I’m here to tell you that’s okay. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It took a while, but we aren’t as hard on ourselves as we were at the start.

COVID-19 has affected each and every family. Some were able to adapt relatively quickly, while others saw their worlds turn upside down, having to work from home or help their children learn from home or a combination of the two. Of course, there are also the myriad other responsibilities of running a household. Have you been to a grocery store lately?

When this all began for my family on March 13, 2020, we prepared as if we were going on a camping trip. We’re fortunate in that we already work from home, so we figured we just needed to hunker down for a few weeks and go out less often. We listened to medical professionals and ordered a few masks from Amazon—the cheap ones since we didn’t think we’d need them too long—and we stocked up on groceries as much as was reasonable.

We spent the first few months “Zooming” with friends and, admittedly, basking in the novelty of it all. Never before had our lives changed so drastically, and all we had to do was stay home and work and watch Netflix and keep Dahlia happy? Okay. We could do that.

By July, the summer was getting a bit long, and it became apparent that things weren’t going back to the status quo anytime soon. The party was over, in a way, and my wife, Crystal, and I started asking ourselves if we’d been doing the best things for our daughter.

We spent the first few months “Zooming” with friends and, admittedly, basking in the novelty of it all.
Never before had our lives changed so drastically, and all we had to do was stay home and work
and watch Netflix and keep Dahlia happy? Okay. We could do that.

Dahlia isn’t entering school until next year, so thankfully we didn’t need to worry about that. But was she socializing enough? Were our weekly trips 
to the park where we sort of interacted with other kids—socially distanced, of course—sufficient? Was staying at home most of the time going to affect her? Is wearing her mask any time we go out going to be something she won’t be able to deal with?

But Dahlia took it all in stride. She understood that there was a “germ” out there that could make us sick. She understood that she needed to wear her mask to keep herself and others safe. She loved playing with friends but was just as happy Face-timing with Grammy in her bedroom for an hour.

For Dahlia, it was pretty much life as usual. This wasn’t her new normal. It was just her normal.

She loves her days playing with her toys and learning some new words with apps and other games. She loves being able to see her grandparents every so often. She loves reading a book at night with Mom. She doesn’t realize that life has been turned upside down even though she’s aware that something is going on.

And, to be honest, Crystal and I are glad for this experience. We’ve learned during this pandemic that we’re lucky to have each other. Family has never been more important than right now, and while the jokes about being quarantined together make the rounds on Facebook, they are mostly just that—jokes.

While this new normal may be normal to one member of our family, we believe that the strength and closeness we’ve gained during these unexpectedly close months will allow us to face whatever normal is out there in the future.

George Wacker ’03 is president of the Moravian College Alumni Association and founder of Lehigh Valley with Love Media in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.