How Did 15 Days to Flatten the Curve Turn Into Over 15 Months of Abusing Children?
Of all of the many baffling aspects of our national reaction to the Covid pandemic, none has been more mystifying and, at least for the parents of young children, more infuriating, than how much kids have been made to suffer. Almost instantaneously, we went from being a kid-centric society that worked to spoil children at every turn, to one where no ramification for kids was too great a burden, at least if it allowed us to feel and pretend like we were doing everything possible to fight a virus which has unfortunately taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of mostly senior citizens. It is quite clear that most children have had their lives upended far more than the average adult (some of whom have actually benefitted greatly from the madness of the last year and a half). Almost every major Covid-related restriction on life had a disproportionate impact of kids, this despite the fact that, ironically, healthy children and young adults have been mostly unaffected by the virus itself. Here is a list of just some of the many examples to which I am referring:  School Closings  Stay at home orders  Beach/pool closings  Amusement Park and playground closings/restrictions  Theater closings  Restaurant closings  Sporting event and fan attendance closings/restrictions  Holiday restrictions  Graduation ceremony cancellations  Mask mandates (which have a greater psychological, and maybe even medical, toll on kids, with even less theoretical benefit for them than adults, given kids are often incapable of wearing masks properly.) Vaccine loopholes  It is now abundantly clear, based on over a years worth of data and observation, that several of the items on that list, especially those related to outside activities, should never have been restricted at all. Everyone, especially children and their guardians, should have had the right to take on whatever minimal risk would have been connected to doing so. One of the primary aspects of these issues which has been almost totally lost is the reality of just how incredibly short childhood, especially in this era, really is. As the father of two young daughters, seeing them needlessly lose well over a year of their maybe 5-6 year window of a conscious childhood has been both heartbreaking and maddening. Many of the pandemic-related cancellations destroyed events, like Little League baseball, or High School football, which some kids only really get two shots at in their entire lives. Then of course there was the totally absurd elimination of literal once-in-a-lifetime celebrations like proms and graduations, for two consecutive years in some bluer parts of the country. Kids generally only get a handful of prime Halloweens. One of the most painful experiences of the pandemic for my extended family  which has fortunately not had anyone get sick from Covid  was watching my then eight- and three-year-old daughters get doors of fully decorated houses, where the residents had been brain-washed by anti-science panic porn, literally slammed in their faces. If not for a rather desperate letter from my eight year old that we dispersed to the local neighborhood that traditionally does a large Christmas light display, that once-a-year event would have also likely been a disaster. But nothing tops the dramatic short and long-term impact of closing of schools, which is being grossly understated by all of those in a position of power because no one wants to admit the catastrophic damage which they facilitated or enabled. Despite the science being clear at the start of 2020-2021 school year, my second-grade daughter here in California, thanks almost entirely to liberal political agendas, had only a couple of dozen shortened in-person school days all year long, and she will be going into third grade significantly behind in several important areas (and if she is forced to wear a mask again next year, which she might be, I honestly dont know if she will be able to hold it together). For those who think that these hardships are in our rearview mirror, at least in places like California, that is hardly the case. Just this past weekend, the crowd at the U.S. Open golf tournament in San Diego was, by edict of the USGA and not directly from our King Gavin Newsom, greatly and needlessly curtailed, thus preventing thousands of children from attending as safe an event as you could possibly find (all while the USGA was running commercials on NBC centered around their commitment to growing the sport among kids). Even our policies regarding vaccines, which seem to have been extremely effective in bringing the pandemic effectively to a rapid end in the United States, seem to inadvertently target our youngest demographic for punishment. Amidst the bizarre vaccine segregation going on in much of blue-state America, kids under 12, who cant currently get vaccinated and who dont really need to be, are caught in an inexplicable loophole where they are forced to wear masks longer than anyone else, even though they need them the least, and are negatively impacted by them the most. How so many adults selfishly allowed all of this to happen is something which, in a serious society, would be studied for years and would eventually lead to some accountability for those who caused it to happen. Most have likely rationalized it all by claiming, without evidence, that these measures saved the lives of many people. A rational look at the data indicates that most of our punishment of children was really just based in a grotesque desire to virtue-signal during a crisis. Thats how utterly insane the last 15 months has been. A willingness to abuse children somehow became a signal of ones virtue. Yes, most of this nightmare appears to now be in the past, and therefore suddenly no longer a high priority. However, in a remotely just world, somewhere along the way there would be a legitimate apology from the expert class, and a promise to make sure this never happens again. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.