Sunday May 10, 2020 ~ SOUTH VANCOUVER ISLAND
Editorial | by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
This is the first Mother’s Day during which the best thing you can do for your Mom is not go near her. The COVID-19 virus rules everything right now, and we are still learning how to outsmart it.
The basics of hand hygiene and physical distancing are quite rudimentary but they work, and they will continue to help as the world awaits a vaccine and/or in the meantime some effective treatments.
Wearing a mask is helpful to prevent spreading the virus and offers another measure of protection from the viral spread of others. So far there has been no sociopolitical discussion about the identity aspects of covering much of one’s face in Canadian society (not to mention the ‘muzzling’ substrata response among feminists), but that will come.
The most important thing we can be armed with on Mother’s Day or any day in this pandemic going forward is information. How the virus spreads and infects — and how we can manage that — are the main things for anyone to know going forward.
Meanwhile we try to still enjoy what life offers at its best — the people, the experiences, the opportunities, and the safety if we are lucky enough to afford that.
Being told to self-isolate at home seemed an easy command from government leaders. But to do so is something of privilege. Not every home is a safe home, or equipped with all the needs for an extended home-stay. COVID-19 is stirring up all sorts of things we’ve turned a blind eye to before — such as poverty, the disadvantaged edge of being a frontline low-wage worker, and that not every home is a happy home.
In BC as we prepare to open up the economy again after about two months of self-isolation, it’s going to be a summer like no other. Provincial parks are opening up again next week. Some children will be back to school in June. In summer there will probably be activities (camps) for children. Teens will probably become even more virtually connected, finding the virtual world very much more their domain. The Z-Gen grew up with technology but they are already in their young adult years. It will be interesting to see how this pandemic generation of children and teens evolves.
COVID-19 is making us rethink everything. At least we have nice summer weather now in which to enjoy the outdoors as best we can. It will be another thing again to deal with pandemic conditions in the fall and winter in more inclement weather.
We think of mothers in the broadest context in the 21st century, which is wonderful. Your birth mother brings you into this world which is a miracle in itself. Also miraculous is the contribution of a mothering-touch over the years from numerous directions, if you’re lucky — a sister, a roommate at college, an aunt, grandmother or caring neighbour.
Being a mother is one of life’s greatest blessings, though one of the greatest responsibilities and most dangerous journeys of the heart — there are no guarantees, no safety net for the countless decisions we make along the way as parents, no salve for emotional wounds but also no hearts too small in which the joys are held. To have one day a year where the calendar is marked with pink and the doorstep adorned with flowers is a nice touch to acknowledge all this.
Reminders about Moms and parenting. Ah, 2020.This year it seems there is a lot of attention to being in touch with mothers on Mother’s Day, as the stark realities of COVID-19 (to which we are still a bit numb as a society and economy) only begin to set in. If we needed a reminder to truly appreciate Mom, COVID has delivered!
Just as the pandemic has started to make us realize the importance of seniors, now we will begin to perhaps recognize the real role of mothers in our emotional sphere of being. Many of us blame our parents for things, until we grow up and realize that self-responsibility is the way forward. It’s a tough world out there, and our parents usually do their best to protect their children with the circumstances and resources that they can muster and provide.
Until COVID-19 we relied quite a bit on the school system to help carry the load of raising a child. Anyone who has been suddenly thrust into the role of teacher-at-home during the pandemic probably has a renewed sense of appreciation not just of what teachers do, but how dependent we’ve become as a society on dropping off kids to school so we can go to work. And perhaps how much time we’ve been apart from our children as they grew up so fast.
One of the best silver linings of the pandemic so far is the time we’ve had for parents to be rebond with their children. It will be a wonderful Mother’s Day on May 10, 2020 for every mother — to be alive in such a time, to have greetings and visits from children, to know that love will endure.
====== About the writer:
West Shore Voice News editor Mary Brooke is the proud mother of four grown children who are accomplished and stable adults who instinctively self-actualize. The best we can do for our children is teach them to survive, prosper, explore and love in this difficult but amazing world.