Thank you Needham Parents! Read on…

A Story from a parent of a high school senior:

“It is certainly a memory I'll forever cherish
but one that I'd give up in a second
for him to have his senior year back.”

"As my teenage son stood above me anxiously holding some sharp instruments a few weeks ago, I couldn't believe I was feeling excited to be sitting in the driveway in our make shift barber lawn chair. This isn't something he had ever done before and it certainly isn't an idea I would have suggested a couple of weeks ago, but the shaggy hair had to go. Without us being in quarantine mode, I don't think this ever would have happened. I was curious to see what being his first customer would entail. I had come out to the driveway with the hair clippers and scissors while he was shooting hoops and working on his first ever dunk. It's been great seeing him run and jump again after a scary soccer injury in the fall. To think he'd be here, trying to dunk a basketball a few months removed from a broken hip, I never would have guessed it. The injury did cost him basketball tryouts and an attempt at getting three varsity letters his senior year, but he handled it all like a kid maturing before our eyes, accepting his role as manager and doing everything to support the team from the sidelines, never once complaining. Once we learned the hard way what the best setting is for the hair clippers, he went to work on my new fade. I was so impressed at the care he took in his new found craft, checking to make sure things were level and even. A little blending in of my inadvertent bald patch was much appreciated. Pre-quarantine, he probably would have been out with his friends or playing with teammates to get ready for tennis season. He may have been going to an admitted student day at a college or done an overnight visit as he tried to pick a college. Unfortunately for him and his classmates, none of that was an option anymore, along with all the fun rituals of senior year. He ended up giving me a great hair cut and along the way we had some good laughs. It is certainly a memory I'll forever cherish but one that I'd give up in a second for him to have his senior year back. Like our family and friends, we are making the best of this strange situation. Just as his broken bone had healed and was stronger than before, I think that's a good attitude to take during this time of Corona. We will get through this and come out on the other side better for it, with renewed appreciation for the world and people around us. Sometimes we can even achieve greater things after a period of adversity, like when he threw down his first ever dunk a few days ago."

A Story from a parent of 3 children :

“It’s enough, right now, to keep myself sane
be generous and kind to my spouse when I can
and to help keep my kids healthy and safe.”

“The NYTimes had a special section on Pandemic Parenting (recently) that missed the mark. These “how to” parenting stories during COVID-19 are a waste. I am a firm believer in that. In my opinion, they just reinforce the idea that we are supposed to be gooder better best in this incredibly stressful time. The reality is, we are all the same parents now that we were before the virus -- our strengths and flaws are probably thrown into higher relief during this time, but they are not any different than they were in 2019.

And so it is with our family. My husband and I are, at our best, good at unconditional love and support, eating dinner together, family rules, and making space for silliness. At our worst, we are critical and judgmental and borderline hypocritical. We bark at them for being on their phones, for leaving food wrappers on the table near the TV, for not doing the dishes -- or even not loading the dishwasher the right way. We are on top of our kids -- especially our two teenagers -- for the behavior that we least like in ourselves. (Shhh, don’t tell them!)

The issues that get under my skin with our older kids are their time management and ability to make and keep a commitment. Which is kind of crazy, because they have a lot of time right now. But my 16 year old daughter, a junior, now has three days to finish a 600+ page book she could have been reading for the past five weeks. And the dishes she promised to wash are still sitting next to the sink.

My 18 year old son is trying to make a decision where to go to college (he has some good choices). But rather than watch the videos produced by the schools for admitted students, or reading the material that they have all sent in the mail, he is doing “research” by talking to his friends and looking at the Instagrams of kids who go to the schools he is considering.

And with my youngest, 12 and in 7th grade, the challenges are keeping up with her ambitious plans for cooking, baking and crafts. She has lots of plans but they all require certain ingredients, which we may not have. And we are only going to the grocery store on Thursdays, which is a long time to wait if you want to make a copy Chik Fil A sandwich RIGHT NOW.

Stepping back from the conflicts is the hardest, because we’re together all the time. But when I can’t, I give myself a break. I’m not a perfect parent, and they are not perfect kids. It’s enough, right now, to keep myself sane, be generous and kind to my spouse when I can, and to help keep my kids healthy and safe. If their screen time goes up, or they skip a remote class, or they talk back, I count to 10. Their strengths and flaws, like mine, are probably pretty much baked at this point anyway. And honestly -- the COVID-19 crisis will teach them life lessons that I cannot even imagine at this moment.”

A Story from a parent of 2 children:

“Our children are 9 and 11, and I’ve never had
such quality time with them in their lives.”

“Pre-pandemic I was constantly on the go, and really on the verge of burnout. I was counting down the days to our first Disney vacation! The pandemic hit.

That was cancelled, but we gained much more. Our children are 9 and 11, and I’ve never had such quality time with them in their lives. Our daughter, unprompted, wrote a letter one night at dinner about how she loves each of us, even her brother, even when they are fighting...it was really sweet. I’ve been in and out of the hospitals in New England for work during this: so I’m aware of the suffering of many, and the awful loneliness people who are passing are experiencing. You feel it from the moment you enter the hospitals, which have never been quieter, cleaner, and eerily menacing with the virus surrounding us. I feel for those who are suffering and for their families; and I’m thankful that, if there is anything good to come of this, it’s that I have been able to strengthen the bonds that hold our family during this time... I’m rested and ready to resume “normalcy”, and thankful for the time we have shared.”

A Story from a parent:

“Even though this season of forced intimacy has felt suffocating at times,
it has also reminded me that this time together with my children
under the same roof is quickly drawing to a close.”

We have been spending much more time together around the dining room table during pandemic season. Often this is painful. The sibling rivalry between my teenage children has become inflamed; in fact, family dynamics that were already present--positive as well as negative--have taken on a greater intensity. However, it is also more likely that there will be times of rich and extended conversation during and after meals.

One of these conversations unfolded into my son's lengthy and detailed reminiscences about the house, and neighborhood, in which he spent 10 of his first 12 years of life.

In addition, my son has recently received his permit but has had few opportunities to practice his driving. Going to Sudbury Farms doesn't really count.

Thus, when my son said, "We should go visit our old house," I was all over it. "Let's drive there tomorrow afternoon," I replied.

So, we did.

And with him in the driver's seat--figuratively as well as literally--we took the thirty minute trip back to the old neighborhood. We navigated interstate, state, county, and local roads, and finally rolled slowly down the cul-de-sac to see the house. He revisited every road in the meandering subdivision, each named in the way that only a '50s subdivision could have been named--after the tribal names of first peoples. We drove past his schools, playing fields, former playmates’ houses, the home of a 5th grade teacher, our old church, the place where he learned to play the clarinet, the town library--all the while, the river of memories flowing through our conversation as the scenes flowed by our windows.

My son is nearing the end of his junior year in high school. We are looking at colleges (virtually). Even though this season of forced intimacy has felt suffocating at times, it has also reminded me that this time together with my children under the same roof is quickly drawing to a close. Memory lane is growing richer and more precious.

A Story from a parent:

“It took a pandemic,
a room make-over and an earlier-than-usual wake up
to reveal a new happy place.”

My Private Sunrise

During the 15 years I worked from home as a freelance writer, my view from the window over my desk faced North. When I started commuting to an office a few years ago, I swapped out my large, corner desk for a compact desk to fit a bed in the room. I’m back to working from this room every day, since me and my co-workers were told to start working from home on March 16.

Now when I sit at my desk, I look eastward over a first-floor rooftop into my neighbor’s yard; and beyond that, a strip of woods and wetlands.

One of my favorite ways to start the day is to watch the sun rise over the wetlands through the mostly bare branches of the trees in the woods behind our homes. Just before the sun peeks over the horizon, it turns the color of the water in the marshes a bend of rose-pink and blue-grey. It illuminates the bottom of drifting clouds, coloring them pink. The tops remain grey. The clouds form a ceiling over the pale gray landscape, lit by floodlights from below.

The sun first appears through the gaps in the branches as a quarter-moon-sized sliver of a glowing, orange ball. The light intensifies when the ball gets all the way above the horizon. I put on my sunglasses to watch it glide up the tree branches, change color, and get wider and less defined.

One morning, the light from the sun created an image of a cross — with the ball forming the center and connecting 4 rays of light stretching N-S-E-W. Every morning, the calls of the birds flitting around my neighbor’s bird feeder come together as a soundtrack for my private sunrise show. The sounds of my family waking up mark the end of the show and start of the next phase of my day.

I’ve lived in my house for almost 20 years. It took a pandemic, a room make-over and an earlier-than-usual wake up to reveal a new happy place. I may never have noticed if I were still spending my mornings getting ready to leave the house for the office.

With the buds starting to open on the trees in the woods behind my house, the sunrise will lose its drama. But new scenes will appear with the progression of spring. And this ‘story from the inside’ will remain in my memory as a silver lining from my days spent sheltering in place during COVID-19.

A Story from a parent:

“I cannot let predictions about the future steal my present.
The best moments are always fleeting, and thus I must be present for them.”

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

This quote, most often attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, has been a mantra of mine for many years. It has helped ground me countless times through my parenting journey. A journey filled with unexpected and “atypical” experiences which provide a perfect breeding ground for agonizing comparison. While I firmly believe in the destructive power of comparison, I am also keenly aware of my desire to know, a craving to feel informed about the experiences of others.

Why do I seek to know? What makes me turn to stories and pictures on my social media feed? Am I seeking validation? Yearning to see my own experience, thoughts, and feelings reflected back at me? Am I looking for a way to gauge whether I am doing this whole “surviving a pandemic thing” the “right way?” Or maybe I’d settle for “good enough?” I’ve got a thousand questions in this uncertain time and it would be a relief to have just one of them answered. When I turn to my own thoughts, which amazingly, still seem to have ample time to run in circles through my head, even as I work, oversee remote school, and manage a household; what I discover is what I have always known. My family will have good moments, and hard moments. Life makes no promises to be fair, so it doesn’t really matter if the family down the street has many more good moments than mine. I cannot think or live in chunks of time any longer than one moment. I cannot let predictions about the future steal my present. The best moments are always fleeting, and thus I must be present for them. During this pandemic time, witnessing my boys, who rarely play together, join together to build a bridge across a stream in the town forest, was a good moment. They were outside! In nature! Moving their bodies! Working together! My husband and I soaked in this delight, nestled together for a moment in time handed to us by a pandemic that robbed us of our typical weekend routine.

There are hard moments, like every time my boys return to their typical mode of engagement, one seeking connection and the other rebuffing nearly all of these attempts with a level of scorn and disdain only a quarantined teen can muster. Sprinkled throughout each day there is sadness about moments lost, baseball games that have gone unplayed, school hallway conversations that have gone unspoken, milestones achieved but not celebrated, and opportunities for growth that will be lost. This sadness, mixed with fear and disappointment, disappears and reappears throughout our days. Disappointment and sadness only intensifies as I scroll past pictures of sibling togetherness on my Instagram feed or stroll past houses where I can hear the laughter of siblings playing together in their yards, when mine sit alone at that moment in their bedrooms. I compare, and joy is gone.

So perhaps I’ll learn, through this strange time, to once again return to what I know. Reality on the inside is messy. It is a mixture of good moments and hard moments. Breathe in the good. Lean in to what is true, and real, and joyful. Breathe through the hard moments. Stand rooted with what is also true, and real, and painful. No need to know how my story compares to your story, because comparison really is the thief of joy, and I need to hold on to the fleeting joy.

A Story from a parent:

"We are learning to appreciate the power of the pause...
we appreciate the time together, along with the value of humor..."

COVID response has presented both challenges and opportunities. In general, we are doing okay as a family as we have not been directly impacted by health or financial challenges yet but we are wary of what might be on the horizon. We are also concerned about the unseen toll this period of isolation and general anxiety might have on our general well-being.

Our greatest challenge has been keeping our boys engaged in their learning. We have been surprised at the variance in the quality of curriculum and instruction and wonder how much is related to remote delivery or existed prior. We are also concerned about their isolation during this critical period of social development in their lives.

On the upside, this has presented an opportunity for the boys to demonstrate greater student agency and has forced us as parents to become more connected to what and how they are learning. Perhaps we should call this "parent agency". Like other parents, this provides us the opportunity and need to look at alternatives to traditional Needham Public School instruction such as virtual schooling and wrap-around services which is a good primer as their post secondary/higher ed options will likely be altered - perhaps dramatically.

This period has also allowed us to gain perspective on challenges. Our boys like current events and history and we reflect on our minor discomforts relative to those who have been severely impacted by this crisis or people who have truly suffered from racism or war. We also appreciate the heroes and remind ourselves that our tiny sacrifices for the greater good are necessary. We have also benefited from remembering how connected we are as humans (and with other species) globally.

We also are learning to appreciate the power of the pause. We are programmed to move at a frenetic pace and get immediate service which might not always be in our best interest.

Finally, we appreciate the time together along with the value of humor - especially when together time seems like too much.