Member-only story
This Is Us
Maybe This Is a Different Kind of Adventure
Discovering the silver linings of self-isolation
Yes, it’s a dark, unpredictable, overwhelming storm cloud — but there are some glimmers of light for those of us self-isolating during the coronavirus pandemic:
Increased kid + parent time
In 2016, when my son was 2.75 years old, we were concerned about his speech. I made a list of the words he could say: there were only about 20. Then we went on a 62-day road-trip across Canada. Just me, my husband and our son in a 1986 Ford Frontier motorhome.
By the end of that trip, Isaac’s vocabulary was too large to write down. It wasn’t as if we’d ignored our kid before then, but that intensive, 24/7/62 time together helped him blossom.
Four years later, my son and I spend all day, every day, together at home: his cough and fever on March 16 meant lockdown for our little family, just as “self-isolation” and “social distancing” became important terms in Canada.
This is my six-year-old’s dream come true: daily playtime and constant snuggles with his mom. His manners have improved. He gets angry less often. I’ve never heard him laugh this much.
It won’t surprise me if “Pandemic 2020” becomes one of my son’s happiest memories.
To nurture this, I try to keep my screen time low. It’s hard to resist checking for news, to take the pulse via social media of how our society is handling this plague.
I try to not worry about money, and the inevitable recession. When he asks why he can’t visit his grandparents or aunt, I explain that we’ve both been sick with a cough, and so we’re staying home to avoid spreading germs. There’s no need to use big words like “pandemic” and “quarantine.”
Community building
It’s beautiful to see how people are connecting and helping one another through this. We live in a small Canadian town of 3,600 people. Families are putting cut-out paper hearts in their windows, volunteering to deliver groceries, buying gift certificates to support local businesses, and posting grateful messages to essential service workers on the front lines.
