A thought experiment about children

[Chessie678]

Imagine that pre-covid there is a mother with a 6 year old son.

She becomes very scared of the child getting or spreading “diseases”. For this reason she keeps the child inside most of the time and does not let him play with other children. She tells him to stay away from others in case he infects them and makes him change his clothes and scrub his hands whenever he has been outside. She doesn’t take him on trips and the only time they go out is to walk around their local neighbourhood. He is not allowed to attend any clubs or play sport.

The mother’s behaviour escalates and she begins to keep her son off school for long periods of time, citing the risk of “diseases”. She stops contact with the child’s grandparents and cousins, telling the child that he might murder his grandmother if they see her. If he gets ill she locks him in his room and brings food to the door.

Sometimes she will send him back to school for a period but makes him wear a mask and tells him not to touch anything or get too near another child.

Having worked with vulnerable children in the past, I think this scenario would far exceed the threshold for social services intervention and suggests severe mental health issues in the mother.

Clearly the rationale for how we are treating children at the moment is different in that the threat from covid is much more severe than the threat from the “diseases” which the mother is concerned about but the treatment of the child is essentially the same in either case.

People on here often say that children are resilient and adaptable and I agree that they can be. But the idea that subjecting a child to this sort of treatment could make them stronger is rose tinted at best – more often abuse in childhood leaves scars which carry through into adulthood.

My view is that the end doesn’t justify the means so far as children are concerned i.e. there are some things which you should never do to children however noble the goal is. I am very concerned that we have started to normalise the current restrictions – just today I have seen posters on here claim that it doesn’t matter if children don’t have any social interaction with other children or any education for months at a time.

I’m aware that many mothers on here will have done everything they can to mitigate the impacts of covid on their children so I’m not trying to say that all children are being abused or will be scarred by this but I do think that what we are doing to children as a society is completely unethical and will have serious long-term effects for many.

My DS has been off school for a year now. We didn't go on holiday, no ppl visiting/going over to theirs.
Regardless he has had an active social life, daily contact with multiple school mates. Even I was part of many conversations as they regard me as a cool, but totally weird mum, so I'm okay to sometimes listen in :)
Yes, there will be some minor issues when this is over. But nothing major.
In a healthy family environment no kid will -let alone a whole generation- will be harmed beyond repair.

I find this generalization of a whole generation being totally fucked forever frustrating.

I think this just shows that we still haven't got our heads around the fact that this isn't 2014, when viruses happened somewhere in Africa. This is 2021, where we are slap bang in the middle of a pandemic. Of course there are going to be scars. This shit is a defining moment in children's lives, they will always remember this. All we can do is mitigate their worries about it as much as possible. My mum remembers not having sweets until 1953 and the end of rationing. My DH's mum remembers nazi soldiers stealing their chickens and threatening her mother. It's relative. Children are suffering like lots of have suffered before, and sadly will also suffer in the future.

I'm with you OP.

It is a crazy world indded. If you had told me that this would happen back when life was normal, I would have not believed it at all!
There is a major reality that you have not considered on your opening post.
It is not one mother behaving like this. It is all mums, teachers, people in the street, even the goverment if they are old enough to watch some news. Otherwise, they will get books, videos and age appropiate material explaining why they have to wash their hands, wear masks, use gel, stay away and do not touch things in supermarkets.
The child will not see that their parents are neglecting them, treating them in a lesser way than other children are. The child will see that parents are protecting them and others by doing this. Because all society is showing them so.
Yes, this will not stop them of having negative effects, but the main trauma in your scenario is that the mother is not treating the child as others are treated.

I agree op

My Dsc has got to the point of goes in garden just with our dcs. Comes in and scrubs their hands, then sanitises. Completely unnecessary. But always says I've stepped out the door so I have to or I'll make you all poorly!
That's scary for a young child.

The fact that everyone is doing the same thing doesn’t justify it. The cane was widely used in schools years ago - that didn’t stop children being traumatised did it? And it didn’t make it right.

Kids, especially older kids do see reality, though.

In your scenario, OP, the kid is being treated differently to everyone else. Now all children are in the same boat.

I think it is far more abusive, during an actual, real pandemic, to pretend to children that everything is the same as it was before, carry on as normal, and then they pass covid on to a relative who is very ill or dies.

In some ways, as a nation we've done this. I have two children in two different schools and both were pretty much the same Sept-Dec as they were in February last year. We pretended the pandemic was over in schools (when it clearly wasn't) then it's 'oops, out of control, lockdown'. I think that level of chopping and changing and lack of adult responsibility and control is far more scary and damaging than consistent restrictions.

My friends in the US have had their child back in school on a rota system - half time in school socially distanced and masked - since the summer. It's been explained he's doing this to keep everyone safe (including his family and his teachers) - he is so happy to do it. Their rates haven't gone up much since schools opened so he has consistent socialisation in school as well as consistent home learning, still has team sports going on, and can see wider family because the government has actually done things that worked to keep infection rates down so their restrictions are consistently at roughly the same level (with tweaks up or down depending on the direction things are headed).

Whereas my kids have been in school hugging and touching their friends from Sept to December (they sit shoulder to shoulder in class) and now they're at home alone. I know which I think is better.

But at least, even here, all children, all my kids' friends, are in the same boat. They know everyone is doing the same as them. So it's not the same as the OP at all, even remotely.

The cane was widely used in schools years ago - that didn’t stop children being traumatised did it? And it didn’t make it right.

You are comparing being physically beaten and physically harmed to having to wash hands, social distance, and learn from home.

That's an utterly ridiculous thing to do.

What next, elbow bumps are the same as hanging?

@firstimemamma

Yanbu op. I know a toddler who hasn't seen another child at all since March last year and I do believe long-term damage has been done there. And we're not allowed to mention or acknowledge the damage at all because of the virus. It's so sad. The virus isn't all that matters imo.

Yes, but that toddler lives with their family and probably has well over 80 years of their life ahead of them. Plenty of time to get over it.

They aren't frail, elderly, scared, and living alone in solitary confinement with almost no human contact for nearly a year.

Absolute and complete fuckwittery. There's a pandemic on. Fuck's sake, I can't even. You're just plumbing the depths of denial now.

Glad to see other poster saying children aren't as resillient as adults make out. WW2 is relative. My granny is 96 she said Covid is worse than ww2. My aunt, a similar age said it was nonesense. The war was worse. This was due to differing experiences.
A child who went to school, parks and saw friends will have a different outlook than the one above.

FWIW, I asked an elderly lady the history of the village. The fear in her eyes when she described going into an air raid shelter at 6 was marked. I think our children's grandchildren will see despair in the eyes of our children in years to come.

I mean, you could say "It would be abuse to cut a child's stomach with a knife, so how is it okay for a surgeon to cut a child's stomach to remove their appendix?" It all really depends on the context and the balancing of different people's needs.

I do agree though that the balance during the pandemic has swung too far to caution. Children should be in school and playing with their friends. It's been nearly a year now of huge disruption and uncertainty for them, and it's not fair.

When I was a child it was normal for a child sick with measles or a stomach bug to stop in bed and see no one but their mum to avoid spreading it to the rest of the household. It was boring, not traumatic

But what on earth are we supposed to do about this? We can talk until the cows come home about the harm being done to children by this situation, but if the schools are closed, etc. etc.?

I think we could all complain to the government about the parlous state of the National Health Service. Maybe if the NHS had been more robust, society would not have had to close down as it did.

Grow up

My grandmother could tell you a few stories about growing up in the 1920’s.

Basic housing no heating or running water during beds working at 14 taking care of younger siblings fetching coal and plucking chickens for tea. No basic medical care, babies dying of now curable or preventable disease. Schools were for the select few who could pay. Then there was the war, rationing, bombings, hard graft for the war effort, children sent away from cities...

She turned out ok!

We put so much pressure on our going to perform for the government, but yet most kids grow up to be decent human beings.

But what on earth are we supposed to do about this?

Organise zoom chats for your kids and their friends/grandma. Do different things with them at home as treats. Don't make them change clothes when they've been outside as it's pointless. Don't tell them they're going to kill grandma?

It's not rocket science.

Oh maybe I can even a little...

Since the war comparison has come up, in the war you would have seen posters saying things like 'spreading doom and despondency is as good as working for the enemy'

What's the quickest way of making sure someone won't cope with something? Telling them they won't cope.

What are you doing @Chessie678? You're telling everybody they shouldn't be coping, and that people who are just trying to follow the guidelines and keep everyone safe are abusing their children.

Well slow fucking handclap. I really hope that no one's listening to you and feeling bad about their kids, to the point where they arrange a playdate. Or encouraging their kids to feel like they should be anxious, because that's a self-fucking-fulfilling prophecy if ever I knew one.

So, dear OP, I suggest you ask to have this thread pulled because you're doing people harm - and maybe you'll be ashamed of that one day.

So ... I think your post was really interesting. I screen shot it to send to a friend (something I've never done before) and in doing so noticed your username and I reckon I might know you!!

I agree with you. I am not on board with how children are being treated. I think a big mistake is being made.

Despair in their eyes. Jfc.

1. No one should be telling children they will "kill their granny", that's ridiculous.

1. No one should be shutting children in their rooms for extended periods of time.

1. Covid is real. This differs from your hypothetical situation in which the threat is imaginary. There are plenty of similar examples where a real threat provokes an action that could be seen as abusive if the reason was changed... Hitting a child hard on the back is cruel... unless they are choking. Subjecting a child to chemotherapy would be cruel... if they didn't have cancer.

1. Restrictions are not the same as forcing someone to give blood because preventing the NHS from becoming overun is beneficial to everyone who may need it for any reason, including children. (Although putting teachers at risk to save children's education kind of would be similar to forcing them to give blood to save someone else...).

1. Of course we should consider the long term affects of lockdown on mental health and development (for everyone, not just children). But random thought experiments that suggest children are being abused really aren't helpful (especially when so many people are already worried about their children).

A year or two of bumpy lockdowns is going to be less awful than if I get ill and can't pay the bills or parent well. Family are 100 miles away and we have no "bubble".
I'm almost post menopause and my heart has a relatively safe condition, but covid might send it haywire.
My kids are bored with local exercise but generally muddling through ok with secondary work. Worse things happen at sea as they say.

Your thought experiment is flawed.

A mother throwing her child from a moving vehicle would be abusing the child.

A mother throwing her child from a moving vehicle because it was about to plunge of a cliff, is protecting the child.

The difference is the reality of the risk.