Illustration by Chris Danger
Summer 2020 has not gone as planned.
For those of us lucky enough to have our health and financial well-being in this time of COVID-19, our disappointment lies in the loss of less essential but still vital components of life. Packed baseball stadiums, the sharp crack of a bat, the taste of beer and hot dogs. Sweaty outdoor concerts with music and laughter underneath star-strewn skies. Family vacations and cookouts with friends.
As a parent, the long quarantine months of spring gave way to what at the onset felt like an interminable season. No camp. No vacation Bible school or ballet lessons. No play dates or playgrounds or museums. Activities I had counted on to get us through the lawless, school-free months were gone.
I cycled through a range of emotions, from panic to denial. Mostly there was a lot of blank staring into the void as I imagined myself isolated at home with three children under 4 years old for the foreseeable future. But then, as all parents must do in challenging times, I took a breath, gathered myself and forged ahead. My sweet children, clueless of the madness around them, deserved as magical a summer as possible. And so, instead of filling our days with classes and camps and indoor play spaces, here are the ways I’ve saved our quarantine vacation.
1. Sprinklers on all day; clothing optional
We may not be able to go to a big, chlorinated pool and play with our friends, but my goodness, does a hose, a baby pool and the ability to strip down in the backyard come a very close second in my children’s view. Our neighbors may think my children slightly feral, but at this point I’d let them run down the street naked if it made their summer feel special.
2. Gardening
I may or may not be Tom Sawyer-ing my children this summer. In my defense, I feed and house them without making them pay rent, so I figure the least they can do is provide some free manual labor in return. My children typically have a 5-second attention span when it comes to pretty much anything, but if I let them dig in the dirt, they get so laser-focused that I literally have to pry the shovel out of their hands.
3. Tractor rides
My husband recently acquired a riding lawn mower. And there is almost nothing that brings my older kids more joy than to take turns riding (slowly) around our yard on his lap. “Dada’s tractor” is their current sun and moon and stars. They may not be acquiring social skills from their peers or all the developmental tools they need at this point in their lives, but after this summer, my kids will know the fundamentals of proper lawn maintenance.
4. Walks
We take morning walks. We take evening walks. We take stroller walks and tricycle walks and wagon walks. We walk with snacks and stuffed animals and dinosaur figurines. We walk in fairy princess dresses and pirate costumes and sometimes in just our diapers. I’ve found that no matter the state of the world, there is a purpose and a peace in forward movement, even if that forward movement involves a whining 4-year-old, a babbling 2-year-old and a crying baby.
5. Quarantine guilt parenting
No matter how lucky I know we are, I, like many parents, also feel a tremendous amount of guilt. And that has led to a phenomenon of this pandemic best described as guilt parenting, a condition that involves a lot of online purchases that normally would not happen. This summer, my kids have acquired a splash pad, a water table with a flower that actually grows when watered, a rope swing, a T-ball set and a back-ordered play set that may or may not arrive before their college graduation.
The truth is, as parents, we feel a little helpless right now. We want our kids to have magical summers, the kind we had, ones that were blissfully, beautifully normal. We also want them out of the darn house. But because of the world around us, that’s impossible. However, we’ve soldiered on and adapted. We’ve gotten creative and also guilt-purchased half of Amazon’s toy inventory.
We will remember this as a time of stress and fear and worry. But something tells me, as I watch my mud-covered children go on naked tractor rides in our backyard, they may remember this summer as one that was perfect in an entirely new way.
Elizabeth Becker is a writer, a registered nurse and a mom of three. Read more about her life and other parenting epiphanies at lifeinacoffeespoon.com.