The Parents Are Not All Right

Even in the most privileged households, the pandemic is exposing the farce of how society treats families

Photo courtesy of the author

“I just want to cry,” I told my wife on Friday morning.

I had just gotten off a work call and my brain was ticking through follow-up items, adding to a long list of untouched to-dos. My wife, meanwhile, was multitasking an onslaught of work questions while also trying to manage “homeschool” time with our son — but he refused to participate. Instead, he huddled in an increasingly secure couch fort, refusing to do anything — color, read, go outside, talk to his teacher — besides sit in silence in the dark or watch his iPad. (Today, he opted for sitting in silence in the dark).

“Are we permanently ruining and psychologically damaging him?” my wife pleaded with me.

The Next Generation Is Being Shaped by Crisis

We both felt guilty for the work we were not doing — and aching for the way our son was struggling and needed us to be present and calm. But that’s exactly what our current schedule prohibits, as we run back and forth between…