Raising Kids Among Zombies

There are always threats that you fear will harm your kids- and as they age, the threats go from the purely physical kind to the physical AND emotional kind. When they’re growing in a uterus (yours or somebody else’s), you worry they might stop growing, that their little heart might stop its comforting beat. At delivery, there are too many ways that their body can miss a safe transition. In infancy, it’s SIDS, in toddlerhood it’s…everything (the dumb is big like their heads). As they get older, the dangers they face continue to be the big, bad villains like car crashes, stranger danger, and illness, but they’re also friends excluding them, them not liking themselves, them not finding peace and wholeness and safety in their skin, their family, their community.

The physical threats during COVID have made us all more twitchy and it feels like there are zombies everywhere. Now, when the kids are riding their bikes, they have to be aware of their surroundings so that they don’t pull out in front of a car or run into a wall, AND they have to stay away from all people because it can only be assumed that all people have COVID and that all people are trying to breathe their sick right into my kids (forever open, talking) mouths. Human interaction means threat to kids in additional ways now. Of course, we also moved to a brand-new place where EVERYONE is a stranger, so the world feels a little less safe in that regard, even as my kids are of the age that they want more independence to explore.