Mothering in Uncertainty

Mothering in uncertainty

Note: Our staff is currently putting together our April issue, which will focus on sports, health and fitness. As we write, design and edit, much of what we are covering is being cancelled. This is our editor’s letter for that issue.

I sat down to write this on Thursday as the announcement came that public schools across the state will close for two weeks. This is one of many efforts underway to prevent the spread of coronavirus across our state.

Later that day, I learned that my daughter would be sent home from her study abroad program in Dublin, Ireland. With the assumed invincibility of a college student, her first thought was to make a plan to stay. She is a problem solver, after all; she had already been taking safety precautions and regularly evaluating the Irish government’s health updates.

All good things, I told her. But if anything goes wrong in the weeks to come, I probably won’t be allowed to go and get you. That’s when it dawned on her that this is whole different level of crisis.

Working from home with kids during the next two weeks? Here’s how to cope.

My generation of parents is often criticized over our efforts to teach our kids about success and failure. We get dinged for that “every kid gets a trophy” mindset linked to our helicoptering and snowplowing. I think we do this because we are parenting in a time of ever expanding technology.

But this pandemic reminds us that no matter how much we prepare or plan, no matter how many of us have Life360 on our phones and are checking in our kids, there are things that we can’t control. There are things that we will never control.

Life is unfair, unexpected and the word we will hear over and over and probably grow to hate, unprecedented.

Today as I finish writing this, the ball fields across from my house are woefully silent. I admit that I don’t know fully how to parent in this situation. I plan to welcome my sad child home, let her be sad, and then when she is ready, begin to plan for the rest of her semester. This is the best I can do, although I am sure there are moments when it will not feel like much.

The same is true for this magazine. Please know that as we prepared our April issue, we write and edit in unprecedented times, too. We have a big feature on family-friendly baseball with a sidebar on lacrosse. And most of those seasons are currently postponed. Clip out this article and save it for when the games start again. Check out our calendar and star the events you will want to go to once we are no longer social distancing.

Most of all, be safe and be healthy. Life will return to normal, and when it does, it will be all that more joyous.

About Jessica Gregg

Jessica Gregg is the former editor of Baltimore's Child. She is a happy rowhouse dweller and mother of two.

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