The recent lockdown has done a lot for bringing parents and children closer together.\u00a0 Lots of moms are reconnecting with their kids as daycare and schools have shut down.\u00a0 And that\u2019s great.\u00a0 Maybe a few families will reconsider the value of a two-income lifestyle.<\/p>\n
But for the extended family, things are quite a bit different.\u00a0 In my family Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas are gathering times when three and even four generations gather for a big meal and a long weekend or holiday to catch up with each other and reconnect with parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandchildren and grandparents.\u00a0 Everybody plays his role and we perform all the rituals we\u2019ve come to expect.\u00a0 We repeat all the old stories but with new faces in the younger ranks and maybe an older face or two missing.\u00a0 We hear about who is graduating or going off to college or has a new job or is getting married.\u00a0 We try to keep the younger children from getting bored by playing cards or listening to their latest imaginary adventure.\u00a0 The older folks talk politics and world events.\u00a0 And everyone eats way too much and for a little while gets to feel much younger again.<\/p>\n
Well, not this year.\u00a0 For the first time in several decades we can\u2019t get together.\u00a0 I won\u2019t be seeing my brothers and sister.\u00a0 I won\u2019t even see my own children or their families.\u00a0 So, no grandkids, no babies.\u00a0 No fattening and delicious roast beasts or birds.\u00a0 Just a regular dinner, just me and Camera Girl.\u00a0 Very sad, very strange.<\/p>\n
And I imagine this disruption is being replicated across the country in millions of families in every city and town.\u00a0 The upshot is that in addition to our jobs and our savings being thrown into disarray and possibly suffering a terrible economic recession we are also isolated and our normal relationships upended.\u00a0 No one wants to be the cause of someone getting terribly ill or even dying.\u00a0 And if you have extremely elderly parents in their late eighties or nineties it\u2019s reasonable to say that for the sake of saving their lives, they should be kept isolated at least until we understand this disease a little better.<\/p>\n
But now the Health-Nazis are starting to insinuate that we may have to go through this disruption again in the summer and then every year when a fresh seasonal mutant of the coronavirus is identified.\u00a0 Well, I\u2019ve got news for them.\u00a0 Not me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not in my eighties or even my seventies but even at my age there is a higher death rate than in the general population.\u00a0 I might catch it from a school age relation at a holiday dinner or get together.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s too damn bad.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to allow this charade to go on after this first silliness is ended.\u00a0 Comes the Fourth of July I\u2019m inviting everyone over for a barbecue and if that puts me in the hospital or sends me to my grave then at least I\u2019ll have had some excellent steak and way too much pie and ice cream.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll get a chance to see my children and their spouses and my grandsons and granddaughter swimming in the pool and eating hamburgers and watermelon on a hot summer evening.<\/p>\n
Now understand, if this thing were a threat to the young then I would understand why caution would be needed.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s a disease of the old and the chronically ill.\u00a0 For those individuals, death is a real consideration without the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 If I were someone who wanted to maximize my odds of living to be a hundred and twenty then I would probably live in a bubble and avoid all contact with the young and active.\u00a0 And for people of that mindset, isolation would be their own choice.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not and I won\u2019t.\u00a0 The authorities are going to have to come up with some better way to minimize the effects of this thing.\u00a0 My suggestion is to end air traffic to China.\u00a0 Apparently, that country has a never-ending supply of virulent respiratory diseases.\u00a0 We can\u2019t afford to let hundreds of thousands of infected people shuttle between China and the West every Chinese New Year just because we don\u2019t want to hurt their feelings.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s my thought.\u00a0 I\u2019ll get through this present phase without the consolation of enjoying the company of my extended family.\u00a0 We\u2019ll do a video get together and share some time together as we eat our sad meals apart.\u00a0 But if they think I\u2019m going to keep doing this in the future they are dead wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The recent lockdown has done a lot for bringing parents and children closer together.\u00a0 Lots of moms are reconnecting with their kids as daycare and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818],"tags":[2371,2372,83,2432],"class_list":["post-10577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-family","tag-health-nazis"],"yoast_head":"\n