What Will We Tell Our Grandkids About The Last Two Years?

Nana, what did you do during the pandemic?

Mar 16, 2022

What Will We Tell Our Grandkids About The Last Two Years?   A couple of months into the pandemic, I bought a cheap plastic box and started shoving Covid-related odds and ends inside. (It's too ugly and chaotic to call a "memory box.") It holds the slapdash masks I sewed out of pillowcases in those first weeks, some public health flyers, and the "I Got Vaccinated!" stickers from my five-year-old's trip to the American Museum of Natural History for her shots. That box is my own little attempt to answer a question explored on Scary Mommy by Emily Mendenhall, a medical anthropologist and professor at Georgetown University: What are we going to tell our grandkids about this? How will the last two years shape us for the rest of our lives?  She recalls how the Blitz stayed with her grandmother for the rest of her life: "My Nana was always jumpy. She told countless stories about coming of age in London, watching for bombs near her home in Parliament Fields during World War II. Her mother panicked when she and her twin sister missed curfew." I remember my dad telling me how his mother refused to let anybody waste food, because she'd lived through the Great Depression — you had enough for leftovers, or you cleaned your plate. What will start the convo for you and your grandkids? A stray magazine cover from April 2020? A crumpled mask in the pocket of a hand-me-down jacket? Maybe it'll be one of those school projects they don't tell you about until way too late.  "We'll not only talk about these divided states of America for several decades, but I suspect we'll also feel the mistrust of this time for generations," Mendenhall suggests. Maybe by the time I've got grandkids, I'll finally be ready to unpack everything I shoved into that box.  – Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor   READ MORE

FASHION All Hail Rihanna, Queen of Maternity Wear   Anybody else watching Rihanna's parade of maternity looks and wishing they'd taken some more fashion risks when they were expecting? Not that I wouldn't take those maternity jeans with the huge stretchy panel back in a heartbeat. Read More   FAMILY LIFE What's The Going Rate For The Tooth Fairy These Days?   Turns out the average is around $5, but we've got some big spenders out there going all the way to $20. (In this economy???) As an alternative: an exciting, shiny $1 coin. Read More   TRUTH TALK Is My Kid Ready To Know I've Been Married Twice?   Kids have so many questions: "Is Earf the smallest planet?" "Does whales have bellybuttons?" Katie Arnold-Ratliff wonders when her son will ask about her life before she met his dad, and what she should tell him. Read More

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I Loved Having A Pandemic Baby   "Just when I thought I knew what I was doing, I got a whole new parenting experience: raising a pandemic baby, who is now a thriving pandemic toddler." Hampton Williams Hofer, who delivered her fourth child early in the pandemic, reflects on the differences between pre-pandemic and pandemic babies. Childbirth in a mask was miserable, but she treasures the memory of her son proudly introducing his new sister to his entire virtual kindergarten class and a million other small, quiet moments of bonding. "There were no soccer games or piano recitals to rush to — instead we spent long afternoons outside in the yard, the boys running around with neighbors, the baby on a blanket in the grass, breathing in the fall air, watching the clouds, free from her car seat."   READ MORE

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