![]() ![]() He had a barking cough and a high fever that we tried to tell ourselves wasn’t so bad, even though he was listless and quiet - much quieter than usual. Just a few weeks ago, my 5-year-old son’s recurring RSV forced us to the ER late at night. I monitor her constantly, though, listening for worsening symptoms, especially a cough, particularly her breathing. My daughter’s fever is under control now, with just enough medicine in our last bottle to hopefully get us through the week. That’s the state of parenting in 2022: care packages of baby fever medicine, overnighted by thoughtful strangers. Luckily, we still had one spare bottle, a gift from an internet acquaintance who had mercifully mailed me some meds from the U.S. In Toronto, where I live, there’s a shortage of kids’ fever and pain medication all of our pharmacies and grocery stores are lined with barren medicine shelves, with parents reaching out desperately on social media and WhatsApp groups and whatever hodgepodge networks of care we’ve patched together to try and acquire basic medical needs for our children. I started to panic as I rummaged through our medicine cabinet, fearing the worst, that we might be down to our last dose. It’s not hard for me to find happiness and excitement in the experience of parenting - still I struggle with how to navigate the external crises. I looked wearily at my phone to check the time - it was now 3:30 a.m. And then as she snuggled up closer, I felt an intense heat radiating from her limbs, the telltale burn of a fever. From the depths of my slumber I thought I heard a tiny sniffle, but I turned over and tried to keep sleeping. ![]() She seemed restless and uncomfortable, wiggling around the bed and rumpling the sheets. and wrapped her little arms around my neck. After all that, parents are now facing a terrible winter of health scares: Many doctors are warning of spiking RSV cases and both medicine and emergency-room bed shortages.Ī couple of nights ago, my 2-year-old daughter crawled into our bed around 2 a.m. Particularly after the last couple of years, where I worked a full-time job with a toddler and a newborn at home, trying desperately to keep my sanity and my job and maintain kindness and patience with my children, all while worrying they or I would get incredibly sick at any moment. Still, I struggle with how to navigate the external crises, the feeling of parenting in a burning fire that only other parents seem to see or even care about. It’s not hard for me to find happiness and excitement in the experience of parenting - I love being a mother. Joy is the centerpiece of our family even in agony and fear, we huddle around love and laughter and feel our way through the world with tenderness. But I also can’t parent from a place of despair. It’s easy to lose perspective sometimes on where the line between parental concern and overthinking is, though there’s plenty to agonize over: the planet, the state of democracy, ailing pediatric hospitals, a sharp rise in illnesses amongst our kids. He explained he was fine but that he’d simply think about this information “forever.” I thought he’d honestly forgotten about it after that night, but he brought up the list of animals we’d talked about a week later, showing off to his sister what he knew about the world. I asked him if what I said was too sad and he shook his head no. That it was unfair to make an almost-5-year-old contemplate the vulnerability of the earth. But then as we talked about which animals were in trouble, he got quiet and told me that now that he knew whales were scarce, he would have to “think about it forever.” I panicked, suddenly worried I’d given him too much to think about. He boasted that he already knew what “endangered” meant, that he’d learned it in school. And when I’m really lucky, we talk about the big things: something they learned, or that made them happy, or that hurt their feelings.Ī few weekends ago, my son and I talked about really big things - about the planet and endangered animals and what it all means for us. We end up talking about the little things: what kids said at recess, what games they played with their friends. It’s equal parts laziness and a desire to hold on to this ephemeral moment, this slice of time when they still want to curl up with me and tell me about their day in whispered voices. Sometimes I take a shortcut at bedtime and let the kids get into bed with me. Photo-Illustration: by the Cut Photos Getty Images
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