To clear the context for a reader in the future, COVID-19 disrupted all of our life style in a way we have never seen before. Almost all countries fall for complete or partial lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. In Ethiopia too state of emergency was declared. Schools at all levels closed. The government allowed non- essential workers to stay home and work from there. Every emergency action including quarantining, testing, isolating, medicating and every recommended preventive measures are being taken since the outbreak of the pandemic has been declared.
So much is the same in our home except that I am allowed to work outside given the company I work for is fully operational with the necessary precautionary and preventive measures in force to ensure employees wellbeing.
Since the schools’ closure order was issued, my only son (Z. Aman) has to sit at home every day all the time. In the normal times, the only time he wanted to be at home was either during the night or when he had to be fed. He has almost the same behavior to his father when he was his age. For COVID-19, it took us words to convince him that going outside is dangerous and it has been more than two months since he stayed within a 75 square meter-home.
Being the only child in the house, I have a due concern for his physical and emotional wellbeing even if I knew that his beautiful mom is taking care of him and spending all the time besides him. As much as my huge concern, I am also amazed by his creativity and resilience he portrayed day in and day out. Every evening I got home, I got surprises. The sketches he draw, the playground he organize, the shapes he design and create out of paper, the toys he emulate, his stylish approach to get his mom and dad to be onboard to his own plays without explicitly talking about it and so much more is quite an amazing experience.
Ya, yesterday’s surprise was not different. He made paper funnels/cones out of paper, wrapping them up with plasters. He asked his mom to prepare him popcorn and put them inside. By the time I arrived home, I was lucky to have one cone full of popcorn. If it was in good times, we would have gone outside walking and throwing the popcorn from his funnel to our teeth. Now, we walked inside and did as he wished.
Later as I reflect, I was amazed with his ability to adapt to the unforeseen and let my worries gone. I rather bowed to myself to provide him the environment to try new things and learn more with his own imagination.
From the COVID experience, I also learnt that we as parents really have a bigger influence on the way we brought up our children for a much better future. It does not take us much effort to persuade our kids to stay home and it would also be the same in all their affairs. As a matter of fact, I hardly see Aman’s Friend’s during this same time period and I can assume that they are doing the same wherever they are.
Kids are so much to the present than to the past or the future and that is why I think their resilience comes from and it would be helpful to learn from them.
Shout out to all the wonderful young boys and girls out there staying home and giving their families the freedom to protect their families, communities and the country at large from the pandemic we have never experienced in human history