#92, 3 kids 1 swab and 16 other notes on raising children during the pandemic
The new craze is family pool testing. Here’s how it works: To conserve rapid tests, the whole immediate family uses one swab and only tests everyone individually if it comes back positive. Medical experts caution against the practice, warning that it is disgusting and could lead to the spread of Covid within a household. A source who chose to remain anonymous recommended going from least snotty family member to snottiest family member.
On March 15, 2020, I tweeted that I would send this newsletter out daily during the pandemic. Against all odds, I stuck to my goal and this is issue #764 of I’ll Be Right Back.
Circa March 2021, a more innocent phase of the pandemic.
A picture of a baby came up in my Instagram recommendations and I tapped it and I thought at first it was not a real baby. It was an account by a Swiss mother and all the hashtags were #neonataleprogerie. The baby had an extremely rare genetic syndrome called Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome. Since the day that I tapped, at least 75% of the recommendations in my Instagram account have been posts from the mothers of children with severe illnesses or rare genetic disorders. I mean my grid is like: Blueberry coffee cake, laundry room with four washing machines, baby in hospital bed, baby with feeding tube lying on a Boppy, Mason jar puddings, stillborn baby, stillborn baby. I try not to click on them. I can’t think of an acceptable sentence to write about this. I don’t know what part of my brain Instagram’s algorithm accessed to think that this is what I want.
But I did click on one of them by a mom whose baby who had congestive heart failure and then got a heart transplant and is now three, although as she notes often, a heart transplant is not a cure. She is a totally engrossing writer and such an amazing advocate for organ donation. I ended up scrolling all the way down to the very beginning of her feed and reading from the bottom up.
Scrolling through a stranger’s heartbreak and suffering to get my mind off being pissed about daycare’s Covid policies, is that what I am doing? With her son now at a relatively stable point, she is writing fewer posts about his health, more about her older daughter and her new baby and more about Disney World, a place she loves. As she’s made this transition, she’s lost followers. She started getting mean comments complaining that since she had the third, healthy baby she doesn’t do as many medical posts anymore.
“If you want to watch a car accident, go elsewhere,” she wrote. And in another post a year later: “I know some people started following our family to watch our world burn and many have left when our journey stopped being so bumpy. I appreciate those who have been happy for us as we have now made it to the other side of the journey. I don’t know how long our journey will stay smooth, but I will always be willing to share our truth.”
Alice asked why people like watching scary movies or sad movies, I was going to throw off some random and not very thoughtful answer because I never watch movies, and Kevin said “Some people say it’s because it gives them a safe way to experience emotions without actually having something bad happen in their life.”
And now I’m just wondering if this is, like, a decision that Instagram made.
From Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser (Knopf, 2021).
The era where I made fun of learning pods on the South Shore, July 2020. Remember pods?
Spotted at Biden rally in Davis Square, Somerville, June 6, 2020.
February 24, 2021. Tweet deleted within hours.
She is the founder of Winnie, an app that helps you find daycare. For instance, it told me that there is a Bright Horizons a couple blocks from our house.
Roche Brothers, Marshfield, July 4, 2021.
Received December 2020.
“Hey Mom, do you have a little coat that would fit Monkey?”
“I do, actually!”
[pause] “Do you have a different little coat?”
[at Wegmans] “Mom, can we get those dog crackers that are for people?”
…
“See, there they are.”
And we’re coming up on two years of kids’ books that make me cry.
Omg i had the same ‘Algorithm shift to child medical trauma’ after clicking on the little doll-looking baby picture too. I can’t go on my discover page anymore at all.
Can you share the name of this transplant instagram account - want to check it out too. Before morning is in our rotation too...