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We’re not long into the “stay home” moment, and already The Boy and The Girl are chafing at the confines.
The Boy is the family extrovert, and he had a taste of freedom at college. He’s almost vibrating with pent-up social energy. On Monday alone, I had to say “no” to several attempts to escape. I feel bad for him; he has done everything we’ve asked of him, and more, and he winds up getting grounded anyway.
Left to his own devices, he rarely gets up before the crack of noon. When he does, none of his friends have, so he’s just puttering around. He got desperate enough to completely rearrange his bedroom, mostly to have something to do. At least in the afternoon his friends are up. They've resurrected their earlier interest in Minecraft and play it with each other. One of his friends dropped out of college last January and returned home to Florida; that friend is part of the Minecraft group. Actual Monday dinner conversation:
TW: [Friend] is part of the Minecraft group?
TB: Yeah.
TW: How’s he doing?
TB: Dunno. We just played Minecraft.
TW: (sigh)
It happens.
I’m actually looking forward to his classes resuming online, if only to give him something to do.
The Girl is still in high school, so being around parents all the time isn’t quite as foreign. She and her friend group -- roughly a dozen, mixed-gender, mostly theater or music types -- established a Skype group that starts around 1:00 in the afternoon and just sort of keeps going. Kids join and drop out throughout the day. Over the course of the day they all make appearances, but at any given time, there might only be three or four. To my Gen X mind, it’s both impressive and clever. But to her, it’s a pale substitute for actually hanging out.
I get it. In my teen years, I was frequently sequestered from my friends, either because of the dual-custody shuffle -- did I mention Gen X? -- or because I lacked a car in a suburb that assumed them. It wasn’t fun. We didn’t even have the internet, and phones only worked for one-house-to-one-house voice calls. None of that means much to her, of course, and there’s no reason it should. At that age, you just want to hang out with your friends. And that’s the one thing the CDC is utterly clear should not happen.
We, and they, are lucky in a lot of ways. And they know that. Being stuck at home certainly beats being sick. But if they’re this jumpy after only a few days, the next few weeks could be a bumpy ride.
