{"id":2457804,"date":"2020-04-29T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=324999"},"modified":"2020-04-29T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:00:00","slug":"britta-gustafson-pandemic-parenting-might-prevail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/britta-gustafson-pandemic-parenting-might-prevail\/","title":{"rendered":"Britta Gustafson: Pandemic parenting might prevail"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/britta-svs-022620-1-768x1024.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/britta-svs-022620-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/britta-svs-022620-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/britta-svs-022620-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/britta-svs-022620-1.jpg 1249w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">Unclear guidelines and inconsistent messaging; that\u2019s not just the government\u2019s response to this pandemic, it\u2019s becoming my unintentional parenting mantra, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I was going to be the \u201ccool mom,\u201d the one my kids and their friends would go to and trust with challenging information.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cGoing to be\u201d are the key words. As we were all beginning to grope around in the dark, searching for leadership, guidance and reassurance during this crisis, I had already lost my cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Jaw dropping, I blurted to my kids the announcement that school had been closed, and then, in a near frenzied state, I made them take like five showers while sipping on zinc, thermometers in their mouths. I left the news on and talked candidly on the phone.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">My kids quickly learned to read my facial expressions to gauge whether to ask me what was up, or to run.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">So now, over six weeks in, they expect blunt, unfiltered honesty from me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">How can I gauge the severity of each new wave of information I\u2019m presenting to them? Particularly when it often contradicts the very last thing I read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And I\u2019m a little busy. I was wearing multiple hats before as a single mom with a full-time job. But let\u2019s add in full-time, distance-learning teacher for two separate grade levels and of all subjects, including band and Spanish; I\u2019m not fluent in either. To be honest I\u2019m not even fluent in fifth grade math.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I roll my eyes at the more than 45 daily emails my 8-year-old son is now supposed to manage. Today his teacher asked him to clean up his inbox, so he hit clear-all and went outside. Cool mom me high-fived him in my mind, but teacher mom me had to spend the next hour trying to find out why school accounts don\u2019t save deleted emails.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I\u2019m still mastering the art of creative cooking and homeschool housekeeping, too, which never ends. I\u2019m also now the household nurse (DIY stitches, yep), online\/screen-time family autocrat, disciplinarian\/referee, entertainer, the family visionary and optimism cheerleader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In the first few weeks I felt capable of, albeit dysfunctionally, juggling a few extras. Now I\u2019m just throwing them all as high as possible, hoping for a tiny reprieve as I try to catch one or two while the majority pummel me on their return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Making time for mindfulness and gratitude helps. It\u2019s just that making time is not simply semantics. And the inhuman level of social media pressure to share all the awesome, awe-inspiring ways we are taking advantage of this together time never ceases. When my head hits the pillow, I\u2019m one blink away from all the fears creeping in and keeping me up all night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Cool mom me wants to say damn the man. I just don\u2019t know which man to damn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">My kids want to understand why I\u2019m not taking them to Moab and Lake Powell every weekend like their friends. The rebel in me believes that staying at home is really the nonconformist action right now. And I wish I didn\u2019t have to be the bad guy in my kids minds but we live near and care about people in compromised age groups and in high risk categories. Uncool as it may seem, I think we should keep our distance, wear our masks and do what\u2019s right for the most vulnerable among us. Limit the assault on our health care workers by actually walking the talk. But look how awfully full the parking lots and recreation center parks are already.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And I can\u2019t give my kids the full story. I don\u2019t want them to see what it might be like to actually say goodbye to their grandmother in a Zoom meeting. I can\u2019t tell them that the curve isn\u2019t really flattening, that the U.S. is still seeing more cases everyday, that Colorado has the fourth highest caseload west of the Mississippi, and that the supply chain is weak at best. That medical science is suggesting this virus is unpredictable and that more comes out each day about how dangerous and complicated a killer it is. I can\u2019t tell them that reopening means that a second wave is inevitable, or that preventative measures like contact tracing become irrelevant once we have tourism here again. They can probably deduce, but I can\u2019t say to them, that our government is humiliating and that we are basically on our own. Or that my guess is as good as theirs as to what\u2019s happening next. (At least I\u2019m not telling them to drink bleach.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I always thought adults knew best. Now I know we are just older, not wiser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Let\u2019s exchange a piece of my mind for a little peace of mind; after all, if we always agree what will we talk about? Britta Gustafson appreciates an open mind; share yours and email her at <a href=\"mailto:brittag@ymail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">brittag@ymail.com<\/a><i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"><\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/snowmass\/britta-gustafson-pandemic-parenting-might-prevail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unclear guidelines and inconsistent messaging; that\u2019s not just the government\u2019s response to this pandemic, it\u2019s becoming my unintentional parenting mantra, too. I was going to be the \u201ccool mom,\u201d the one my kids and their friends would go to and trust with challenging information. \u201cGoing to be\u201d are the key words. As we were all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 21:50:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}