We didn’t see Grammy for three months.
好。技术上，我们锯我的母亲 -上变焦or What’s App or whatever technology she could figure out. We even had some drive-bys, where she would sit on her stoop and we would stay in the car. But we couldn’t真看到她，而不是我们想要的方式。
My sister and I both live in New York City, 20 minutes (me) and 10 minutes (my sister) from my mom. Duringnormal times（记得那些？），我的女儿和我姐姐的儿子，无论是5，珍惜他们每周约会与他们的格莱美奖，与家过夜，她小时建筑物的操场或者只是在她的电视机前懒洋洋地躺在四周。（“不问，不说”，是我们家的免费保姆规则）。
But when schools closed down on March 15由于Covid-19, my sister and I had to make the difficult decision to stop seeing our mom. No babysitting, no sleepovers, and more significantly, no安息日晚餐and hugs and snuggling before bedtime. It was an extra difficult decision because our mom lives alone, and we worried she’d be lonely. But, as my sister so poignantly put it, “We don’t want to kill her.”
When封锁began, everyone naturally wanted to keep their families and loved ones safe — but it all came at a price. Keeping kids home from school meant they would have no socialization; staying home from work meant no commute or meetings (LOLSOB), but had parents buckling under the pressure of杂耍工作and childcare and couples at the ready to kill each other.
And staying away从祖父母？这是一个真正的悲伤的时刻为所有。
我记得在布鲁克林靠近我的外公外婆长大。我曾经在每周五去那里，术后早期yeshivadismissal. I’d grab a Kit-Kat, play Rummikub with them (turning their tiles right-side-up), and I’d bask in my grandmother’s attention to stories about my day.
“These are the best days of your life,” she always said, which perplexed me.
“但是你去年说的！”我总是回答。
I was loath to deprive my own daughter of her special relationship with my mother. (“Who’s your best friend!” my mother always says to her, although she probably says it to my nephew as well.)
And I was loath to leave my mother by herself.
截至今年3月推出进入4月 - 我们有我们的吵闹Zoom Passover seder- 四月流血进入5月，纽约市谢天谢地似乎是平整的曲线。而且，周到的跨家族辩论后，与医生，并实施额外的预防措施的讨论，我们计划与格莱美州北部的度假胜地。在一间大房子。随着一个院子。不像我们所有的城市公寓。
现在，我不是说别人应该与他们的父母做。这一切都取决于你住的地方的病毒，国家，和你父母的情况。例如，我们还没有看到我的爸爸，因为the pandemicbegan because his wife is immunocompromised, and that’s a risk we don’t want to take.
但随着春季伸展到夏天，许多国家放松了限制，许多祖父母来锁定出来。对于在东海岸的某些人来说，这是因为该曲线已经被夷为平地，风险已经降低。其他的 - 即使在数字是攀岩的地方 - 花适当的预防措施, such as quarantining before visits with extended family. Plus, the balmier summer weather made it easier to plan outdoor gatherings and playdates, as the virus is harder to spread outdoors in non-crowded spaces.
“直到最近,我什么都不做——他们in school,” Gail Simpson said of her grandchildren, who, like her, live in Los Angeles County. “Everyone was sheltering in place — they didn’t want to infect me with anything.” Her grandkids weren’t into talking online, however, or listening to her read them books, and the drive-by visits were short.
然后，在开始夏天，思念她的孙子的个月后，辛普森轻描淡写地给朋友：“也许我会开营Savta，”她说，使用希伯来文的“祖母”。那天晚上，她的女儿女婿叫：“我听说你开营！”
So Simpson and her husband started taking care of each set of grandkids one day per week. Their days consist of hikes and treasure hunts in the morning,arts and crafts，午餐，游泳，和电影在下午的时间。
In my family, in June, we rented a house upstate for the month: my sister’s family, my family, and my mom. Judging by the way the kids flew into Grammy’s arms, I’d say it was a tie as to who was happier to see whom. And that’s not counting the two sets of reallytired parentswho had had no childcare for three months.
是否有遵循3个月上午6时的哭声唤醒的幸福上午沉默了名为“为什么没有人plaaaaayingwith me?”
孩子们都在楼下，兴奋地醒来什么感觉就像破晓时分对方了，现在他们有他们的祖母让他们肉桂吐司，裁判自己的iPad的战斗，谁知道还有什么。（记住：不问，不说）美国父母无意中发现楼下的时间 - 已经洗完澡，刷我们的牙齿，甚至刷我们的头发— we all felt ready for our day in ways we hadn’t felt prior tothe pandemic.
这是从大流行的育儿和工作的drudergies和平，长达一个月的缓刑从家里in a small apartment. But for some people, of course, grandparents aren’t only emotional support or bonus caregivers — they are a necessity.
In March, Dana Trobe, a single mom in New York, was trying to work with her 4-year-old by her side. “I couldn’t work and ignore my kid all day — there was only so much TV she could watch,” she said. “It was untenable.”
所以筹伯检疫两个星期，然后去纽约Rye，生活与她的父母 - 她的妈妈刚下过一场车祸，也需要帮助恢复。“我真的觉得还有没有其他选择，”筹伯说。她的继父，神经外科医生谁突然发现自己关在家里，因为他急需手术被认为是“非必需”，承担了大部分育儿的同时，他的妻子和恢复工作筹伯在她的人力资源企业管理工作。
“It’s an unintended but wonderful consequence,” says Jack Stern of grandparenting during the pandemic. He notes that his own grandparents died在大屠杀他只提出了男生，所以他从来没有来得及跟女孩幼儿园。“特别是因为她没有父亲，我的是她生活的主要男性人物方面发挥了巨大的作用，”他说。
纽约把它的曲线，形势变得更加容易 - 尤其是筹伯带她的保姆黑麦兼职，和她的母亲恢复。尽管如此，筹伯计划在回城end of the summer让女儿能上学。
“我想她都会怀念这个”筹伯说，她的女儿。“她从来没有这么多的我的注意，她崇拜她的祖父母。她在天堂“。
