Young people and the plague

So many things to think about during this time of plague. So many people to be concerned, even anxious, about.

The infirm. The older people with weakened immune systems. People now without work and stable incomes, the homeless on our streets, the homeless in Third World refugee camps, the homeless jammed into First World holding pens because they crossed a border into lands where they are not wanted.

Then there are the essential workers in warehouses and grocery and drug depots moving the supply line of essentials we need to stay alive. The police officers and other first responders at risk while keeping us all safe. And, of course, the medical professionals whose lives are at risk every day because of governments that lacked foresight, despite knowing a plague like this was overdue.

We also need to think about young people and how we might help them cope with this traumatic time in their lives. The pre-teens, the teens and the young adults in the process of forming the identities and values that will be with them the rest of their lives.

This is an especially traumatic time for them because the coronavirus pandemic has blocked them from important rites-of-passage events such as proms, graduation ceremonies, and deciding visits to university campuses where they hope to continue their education.

Adolescents often are challenging to understand and to deal with because they are undergoing hormonal, physical and mental developments. They live in a state of restlessness that generally is restrained by schooling, sports, music and other activities with their friends.

Now there is no school, no organized sports and no social gatherings with friends, which are so important to adolescent life. And, perhaps no summer jobs.

Isolation is something that no adolescent wants. It is understandable that they might feel deprived and act rebellious.

I feel for these young people, and for their parents trying to help them understand and cope. I can’t offer much to the young people in my life, except to share an experience from my childhood.

As a child I often wondered why my mother walked with a slight limp. I found out why during another time when the country was gripped by fear of another disease.

Between the late 1940s and early 1950s, an estimated 11,000 Canadians were left paralyzed during a polio outbreak that became the most serious national epidemic since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

People were urged to stay away from crowds to avoid spreading the disease. That meant staying away from the most important summer event in the life of any kid in Port Arthur-Fort William, now Thunder Bay.

That event was the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition, the annual fair offering rides, games, shows – all sorts of exciting sights, sounds and smells.

I whined to my mother about her refusal to take me to the Ex. It was a mean decision. How stupid to deprive me of a once-a-year event just because of some silly thing you couldn’t even see. How could it hurt to go to the Ex?

My mother, no doubt tired my whining, had enough. She lifted her skirt to reveal a shrivelled left leg and said: “you can’t go to the Ex because I don’t want you to get sick like I did.”

I later learned that my mother was stricken as a child by polio in 1921, the same year Franklin D. Roosevelt caught what was believed to be polio and lost the use of his legs. She was paralyzed and spent years relearning how to walk, with crutches, then a leg brace.

I did not get to go to the Ex. Some other kids did, and some kids caught polio, although no one knows if they caught it in the Ex crowds or somewhere else. If I remember correctly, one kid in our neighbourhood died.

My mother probably did not know the term ‘social distancing’, but she did know that staying away from other people during outbreaks of disease was critical to protecting her children.

It was tough on her trying to get me to understand. It is tough on today’s parents trying to have their children understand that they must accept very difficult sacrifices.

Clear communication, understanding and sacrifice are what will get us through this.

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