My friend’s 13 year old daughter just died of COVID-19. Please have your children take social distancing seriously. Kids aren’t immune and being lower-risk is not the same as no-risk.
Please have your kids follow social distancing rules
by Meredith Warshaw | May 27, 2020 | Newton | 47 comments
I am so sorry! As I walk around Newton Centre and the playground as well as Crystal Lake and see so many teens gathering close together and with no face coverings, on the playground equipment, etc.. I keep wanting to shoo then away and then I think, who will get sick and who will spread it to others and now, who will die. I wish I could tell their parents. Again I am so sorry!
I’m so sorry. This has been a concern of mine. I’ve been experiencing a lot of tweens and teens not adhering to social distancing while we’re on our walks. In particular in Dolan Pond there have been kids riding bikes (which isn’t allowed in Dolan Pond BTW) without masks zooming right up to us. Please reiterate to your kids that if you’re not with them they need to adhere to social distancing guidelines. If you don’t think they can be tasked with that responsibility, they should only go out with an adult present. Lives are at stake.
Before this turns into a “let’s dunk on kids and teens” post, I think it’s worth mentioning most of the people I’ve seen not socially distancing, and in particular not wearing masks, have not been those two groups. Instead, it’s been average, middle-age people.
I think it’s worth reminding all of us that we aren’t immune to COVID, and that the risk is very much still real.
My coldences. Where is girl from?
Shall we mention Karen Polito who says one thing about social distancing and then does her own thing. No one will back me on this but She is a hypocrite plain and simple.
I can report that several of my senior friends from my navy days and EPA who are deeply distressed at those who refuse the hardly burdensome request to wear a mask and they are totally enraged at political leaders who refuse to do so.
Yes, we all need to be good about wearing masks if we’re outdoors and going to be within 6′ of other people. I know this applies to all age groups, but kids have adults responsible for them. The parts of brains that have to do with planning and impulse control are still developing in tweens and teens, so it’s up to their caregivers to impress upon them the importance of physical distancing and wearing masks.
I don’t think it feels real to kids and teens, in part I’d guess, because few of them live in extended families with grandparents, the overall population in Newton is much healthier than average, and few have parents working front line jobs, like cashiers at Walgreens. It’s like a car wreck that happens the next town over, you feel bad about it, but it’s not as horrifying as a car wreck in front of your house.
I don’t think we can scare them into compliance when the death rate for people under 19 is 0 in Massachusetts and I don’t want to see the police getting into an escalating argument with kids over social distancing and face masks. Fear is not a good motivator and we already know the ‘This is your brain on drug’/scared straight campaigns were ineffective.
Nationwide between Feb 1 and May 20, a total of 7 children between the ages of 5 and 14 have died from COVID. A total 1,335 children between 5 and 14 died in that time period.
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku
The Most Important COVID-19 Statistic: 43% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population, May 26, Forbes Magazine
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#64dd78a74cdb
Remind kids that wearing a mask is for the safety of the people around them and hand them one any time they leave the house. Model it by complying yourself.
Of course we won’t get 100% of kids complying – we’re not even getting 100% of adults. But if adults take it seriously, kids are more likely to. Don’t just give up without even trying.
And, yes, kids in Newton have parents on the front lines – many are the kids of healthcare workers.
Yesterday I drove by Crystal Lake and there were literally 60 kids closely huddled in the middle of Lake Ave not wearing any facial coverings. Where are the parents!
Meredith, where was this 13 year old from? The odds of knowing a child that age who died from covid are something like 1 in 10 million.
Rather than scaring kids about events that extraordinarily unlikely (they are vastly, vastly more likely to die in a car accident) we should be managing the transition back to normal life.
Saw Large group of kids in front of JP Licks. All with no masks eating Ice Cream. I smiled as I drove by bc I know so many of you are so mad them.
From what my teenage grandson says who lives in NH..”live free or die Pop”
I have to “piggyback” on Fred’s comment. Last weekend I was at JP Licks with my husband and we observed a group of 7 teenage young women hanging out together, not social distancing and not wearing masks (which I understand is hard to do when eating). They all started to share their ice cream and my husband found that concerning, so I said, “well, maybe they are all in the same household or family.” But then one of them said, “don’t tell my mom!” so there went that theory!
Meredith, to follow up Craig’s question, please provide information (without divulging personal or identifying data) from which the Village 14 reader can better assess the risk here.
Thanks.
I am not going to pepper a grieving parent with questions about details of their child’s death.
I’m also not telling everyone to live quaking in fear. But I definitely was a parent who insisted my son wear a helmet when riding his bike. I made sure he had his vaccinations. And if he were still a minor, I’d be reminding him to wear his mask any time he left the house, reminding him that it was for the sake of people around him as well as for himself (and he’d be reminding me if I forgot).
Meredith, helmets for biking and vaccinations for polio and mumps are easy, low impact precautions that it are reasonable for kids to take to prevent correspondingly low likelihood negative outcomes. Shutting down schools and youth sports are enormously harmful, difficult, high impact precautions that we have imposed on our kids for the lighting-strike likelihood of a child dying of covid.
To reiterate, not one single person under 17 has died of covid in Massachusetts.
It is vitally important that we “follow the science” as we send our kids out into the world, and playing with friends at Crystal Lake is a way to demonstrate to our local leadership that we will not tolerate asymmetric precautions much longer.
@Craig – Schools were not primarily shut down out of fear of the risk to the students, but out of a much more general fear that if the virus were allowed to spread unchecked our entire health care system would be massively overwhelmed with very large number of (yes mostly older) casualties. There was no way to effectively staunch the spread of the virus in the community at large if 100’s of kids were intermingling amongst each other every day and then returning to their families and communities every evening.
Look at the direction of all the infection/death curves in the hard-hit states. Look at when they institututed wide-spread lockdowns. Look at when the curves began bending downward after the imposition of those precautions. Look at where those curves would have been had the precautions not been taken.
Yes, we now all do want to begin getting on with our lives. The best way to do that is carefully, gradually, steadily relax the most onerous restrictions first and continue from there … all the time keeping a close eye on the infection stats.
The message of “don’t worry about spreading this virus around, it probably won’t hurt you”, is an amazingly callous one, especially to instill in our kids. Aide from that, its the most likely way to lead to another future lockdown, if a future sudden spike occurs.
First, Meredith, I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s loss. The fact that we have discussions about death and tragedy in our community where “I’m sorry” isn’t the primary thought is unfortunate. We are neighbors. We can cry together, feel the pain of others. These occasions call for solace, not twenty questions.
To more specific issues. Seems like social media threads regarding kids and COVID-19 all seem to end up containing the refrain, “kids don’t die from it”. Meredith’s post isn’t meant as data. It is meant as an anecdote that disproves the blanket statement, to remind us that “seldom” isn’t “never”, that even decimal points are made up of grieving families and friends. We can’t save every one. But we can remember them as the people they are.
Yes, for COVID-19 death or serious symptoms among young people, particularly kids under 15, is fortunately unusual. There are, however, a large number of major caveats to that observation, ones that may have direct impact on our community, and do have an impact on our public policy.
First, current and emerging research is showing that kids can and do get infected, and even if asymptomatic they appear able to shed viruses at a high rate. How much? How often? We are still learning.
Second, while kids may be less likely to contract the virus, they tend to have larger social circles than adults, which offsets their relative immunity from a community infection point of view.
Third, kids are part of a society filled with adults. Schools are filled with teachers and staff. Households have parents, grandparents, and neighbors. Kids come into contact with coaches, bus drivers, store employees. This is clearly a potential risk that is under study by multiple researchers. We are still learning about what that potential is. If we talk about the very real psychological impact of COVID-19 social isolation, we must also acknowledge the potential trauma that would come from the loss of a family member, favorite teacher, or coach to the disease (especially if it came through a student).
We have mixed evidence about the role that children play in disease transmission to other kids and to adults, mostly because our testing has been limited to symptomatic patients. Our knowledge is growing rapidly. Hopefully we’ll know enough soon to help guide us as we make decisions about school next year. This NY Times article describes the current state of research relatively well:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/coronavirus-children-transmission-school.html
The idea that “COVID-19 doesn’t kill the young” leaves out what else it may do. Again, many kids (and adults) appear spared serious symptoms. However, if you do become symptomatic, it can be a heck of an ordeal. And we are learning that that ordeal may last for a long time, with a variety of pulmonary, hematological, and neurological symptoms emerging after “recovery”. Let’s celebrate that COVID-19 doesn’t take many kids from us. But let’s not downplay its cost to individuals and to society, potentially for the long term.
There’s some preliminary data showing that teenagers older than 15 may be impacted differently than younger kids, more like adults. At the age when we generally believe we should give more control, more autonomy to our children, seems like the least we can do it give them enough information to do rational risk assessment. That’s hard right now because we ourselves don’t know, which makes “let kids be kids” seem a kinda irresponsible. We will know more in a matter of months, however, as large-scale tracing studies continue in other countries.
On this issue and most other ones, I try to follow a rational course wherever it takes me. I try to follow Craig’s “follow the science” advice, along with a rational risk and benefit analysis, a sense of empathy, and genuine concern for others. (Sorry Fred, no anger. No desire to control.) I think you’ll find Meredith as a track record of the same.
However, I come to a significantly different conclusion that Craig. A whole lot of experiments are happening around the world right now that we can learn from about what works and what doesn’t. We should do that. But we’re just coming down from one of the worst disease peaks in the nation. COVID-19 still touches too many of us. We’ll need courage to move forward, but this isn’t the time to become cavalier and erase gains we have made.
Craig, the problem with the kids playing with their friends at Crystal Lake is that there are also elderly who like to spend their time there too. The older people have masks on and the younger ones do not. If the idea if the mask is to protect others then we should thank the older people enjoying the Lake for protecting our youth. Seriously, the last couple of days Crystal Lake looked like the scenes at Lake of the Ozarks last weekend and apparently those crowds were asked to quarantine for the next 14 days. The kids are home, not really attending any sort of school and want to socialize, who can blame them. I am not concerned that they will die, because they will probably be fine but who among them are asymptomatic and spreading it to their parents, grandparents, the older people trying to get their walks in?
Jess, I was at Crystal Lake yesterday and observed plenty of social distancing. There was nothing preventing an older person from swimming or walking around the lake, and thankfully spread of covid outdoors has so far proven to be very rare.
For the time being grandparents and even younger adults with obesity or other risk factors will need to make some hard decisions about spending time with younger people who are out there in the world. The science in this case is (or should be) all about protecting the most vulnerable.
Jerry, flattening the curve so as not to overwhelm the hospitals was resolved well within the first 30 days of the lockdown.
@Jim Epstein – please go back and read all the articles on flattening the curve. It is NOT a “one and done”. If you stop taking precautions, the curve pops right back up again. This has happened in countries like S. Korea and Singapore that thought they had things in hand and opened back up again.
@Mike Halle – thank you for saying everything I would have wanted to say and more, and saying it so well!
@Everyone – It’s not difficult to explain to your kids that wearing a mask is a way to be a good citizen and protect the people around you, that they could have COVID-19 and be contagious but not realize it so wearing a mask protects their friends and neighbors, that their friends might have asthma or diabetes or another condition that makes them more likely to get seriously ill or even die if they catch the virus.
Good blog post on masks by Erin Bromage. Central message: My Mask Protects You; Your Mask Protects Me
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/what-s-the-deal-with-masks?postId=5ecfe526ea75df00175707af
Meredith, at the height of this pandemic, the hospitals were not overwhelmed, so even a re-spike will not do so. The lockdown was to flatten the curve, not reduce overall the incidents over time. The goal posts, as justification for the lockdown, have been moved over time.
@Jim Epstein – the hospitals were not overwhelmed because social distancing was implemented. If the mayor of Boston had acted like NYC’s mayor, we would have been in much worse shape.
The goal of distancing is to flatten the curve and to spread out incidence so that more of the eventual infections will occur after we’ve found effective treatment and possibly even a vaccine. These things have been said from the very beginning.
@Jim gets his Covid-19 info directly from Trump. A “stable genius” by all accounts; a taker of hydroxychloroquine; a shamer of mask wearers and ingester of bleach and sunshine. God help us….
Meredith, from your comment, you and I apparently agree that the aim of social distancing was to spread out the incidence, or so that more of those incidents of infections will occur over more time and later. Which is my point that unless future incidents are expected to spike the curve at one time so that hospitals are overrun, there’s no further justification for the lockdown.
@Jim – you are reading selectively. I also said clearly that if we stop distancing, the curves will spike again. That’s what epidemiologists and public health experts have been saying since the start of physical distancing.
Distancing isn’t getting rid of the virus – it just slows its spread. If we stop taking precautions, then we’re back where we were at the beginning with exponential increase in cases.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/05/29/public-health-risks-reopening
Dr. Walensky is a Newton resident
Jim, this is a public health crisis, not some political game of gotcha.
“The goal posts, as justification for the lockdown, have been moved over time.” No. The goal post is, was, and will be saving lives. Period.
We can talk about how to do that most effectively. We can talk about how to balance restrictions with compliance. We can talk about how much of a price we have to pay to save the lives we can.
But to say that because we achieved a specific goal or met a particular metric so now we are done is not how we treat any other public health or safety crisis, and it isn’t how we should, or are, treating this one.
“Flatten the curve” was an important mantra during the pandemic because overwhelmed hospitals is a worst case scenario. It’s something that most people have never experienced in their lives. It provided a clear focus. It kept medical professionals out of a position we never want them to be in: having to say, “we are full up, we can’t treat you”. These weren’t hypotheticals. Plenty of people died in the hallways of hospitals in Paris just weeks before we saw disease surges in the US.
And yes, we rose to the occasion. We isolated ourselves. We converted floors of our hospitals to COVID wings. We changed how we did things. We prepared for the worst, changed our behavior, steeled ourselves for the battle, and avoided the peak.
No one ever said that was the end of it. Ultimately, our larger goal was buying time. Time to understand the disease, how is spreads, how to treat it, how people recover. We are doing that right now, thousands of researchers across the glob.
We’re also buying time for new treatments to make the disease less deadly and mitigate its longer term health threats.
We’re buying time to figure out what we can do safely, so that ordinary life doesn’t have this new spector of disease and death hanging over it. The smarter we are, the more we can return to normal.
Finally, we’re buying time to develop and test vaccines. Vaccines are typically one of the poorest funded and least glamorous areas of medicine. Not any more. While we don’t know if a vaccine is possible, it’s a trillion dollar question to find out. Either way, it takes time.
Maybe that wasn’t clear somehow. Maybe it got lost is the good intentions and concern and fear and anguish and confusion and even anger of millions of social media posts. But the direction of those working behind the scenes to save lives and rid ourselves of the threat of this virus really hasn’t changed.
Meredith, yes, incidents may spike, but IMO not sufficiently to overwhelm the hospitals (justification for the lockdown), which is a non-selective reading of my comment.
@Jim – have you been reading the scientific literature and listening to the virologists and epidemiologists? I have, Mike Halle has even more thoroughly, and Newton Mom posted a talk from a hospital expert.
YES, the spike will be high enough to be a problem. It was a problem here even though, thankfully, we didn’t get as overwhelmed as NYC because our area mayors were more proactive and listened to the experts. Hospitals don’t have to be overflowing to be having serious problems. We did get to the point where staff were over-worked, people had to work outside their specialties (meaning in areas they weren’t qualified for), hospital staff got sick and some died because there wasn’t enough PPE – and there still isn’t.
And even when the hospitals aren’t overflowing, people die. And many of those who survive severe cases end up with serious consequences that may be life-long, such as damaged lungs.
My grandkids Are coming to visit Sunday. We will not be wearing masks to JP Licks. I can’t wait for the dirty looks.
Fred, using grandkids as props in lame pandemic theater – why bother?
Easy mask-optional alternative? JP Licks delivers!
Enjoy your family and the weekend.
Double fudge!
When this all started, the primary objective was to slow down the growth rate of this disease to protect the health care system from being overwhelmed. (The experience in Italy was a terrible indication of what a huge surge could mean, even to a region with sophisticated doctors and nurses and a well designed network of hospitals.) The series of steps to contain spread worked quite well in Massachusetts, thanks to a thoughtful governor, mayors, and public cooperation.
Having dodged that bullet, the primary objective now is to reduce transmittal of the disease to avoid cases overall and to reduce the chance of a second spike. Buying time in this way also makes it more likely that the scientists will figure out effective treatment regimes (and maybe vaccines) before more people get sick and die. Whether that works depends on continued prudence in our interactions.
There is no ideology behind all this. The degree to which re-opening occurs and the speed with which it occurs should be based on factual assessments and the best judgment of epidemiologists and other experts.
Each of us has to make a personal judgment as to the degree to which we choose to put ourselves and others at risk. We have that freedom here in the US. We’ll soon see if we are responsible enough to use that freedom wisely.
Paul, great comment overall. You and Mike Halle are both good at saying what needs to be said without judging or shaming others. I particularly like your last paragraph.
A few things:
1. Teens, even young teens, generally find a way to do what they want to do.
In that vein, parents can explain why wearing a mask is important and the kid or teen can understand completely but that doesn’t mean they’ll comply – even though they agree that they should. Peers perceptions are much more important than their parents’ at these ages. We’ve had to deprive these kids of their friends’ company for a couple of months – an eternity – and I think most of them handled it as well as could be expected.
I have always been rebellious, never took the first answer, looked for backdoors and questioned authority. It’s in my genes – but it’s also why I’ve been an activist since I was a child. My grown kids were and my three teen grandsons are just like me in that respect. We also have a healthy respect for others and recognize that there are different perspectives that are also valid ones. Regardless, even with the best of intentions, parents’ just cannot, and in my opinion should not, control their kids every act.
2. I went with my son to CT yesterday for a VERY planned out visit with my daughter and her family, including three teens. We had the very best of intentions, had all been mostly staying home, both parents are lucky to be able to work from home, and basically followed through on all COVID-19 recommended behavior. We sat six feet apart outside on the deck. Everything was going great and then without thinking I asked my middle grandson to get me a drink which of course he did. He even showed me how he used a small glass to scoop the ice to go in the drink instead of his hands. All well and good except he was holding the glass he gave to me. He was instantly apologetic but what could we do. Then he cried and guiltily confessed that sometimes he walked with a few friends on the greenway trail in Cheshire. I know he loves me and would never want to hurt me so I told him it was ok. I would be fine. (His mother wasn’t quite so nice.)
But as I said, what can you do.
3. The difference between phasing in reopening in MA and CT is extremely obvious. As soon as you enter Connecticut the number of cars on the road magnifies exponentially. CT is basically open for any business who chooses to be. It hit me like a ton of bricks – as I had no idea. I’m quite pleased with MA’s more cautious phasing although something political has to be going on for liquor stores and Dunkin, going into the store, to be open the entire time and for the first phase of reopening to include churches and hair salons but not local retail businesses who could have you order and pay on-line and pick up your order curbside.
Did anyone see that the Supreme Court ruled against a church in California that wanted to reopen against the governor’s orders? Yeah that happened but some churches here were packing them in like sardines last Sunday.
How come social distancing isn’t being discussed with these punk rioters? Let’s see who defends them.
@Marti – yes, teens find ways to do what they want. Parents cannot control that. What concerns me are parents who refuse to model the responsible behavior, explain that it’s to protect others (because even though teens feel immortal, they understand that other people aren’t), and just say “kids will be kids” without even trying.
I understand that teens do dumb things for a wide variety of reasons. I certainly did my share. I’m sure my kid did, too. That doesn’t mean we sit back and say that’s fine. Your grandson understood the potential consequences of his actions and felt badly for potentially putting you at risk.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw 4 teens sitting on a patch of grass in a park having an animated discussion and clearly enjoying themselves. They were about 6′ apart from each other and wearing masks. It made me very happy to see that.
Much has been written about Millenials….and how you they feel entitled to receive endless support and participation trophies, then blame others when they don’t get that promotion. And what do we Gen-Xers (or Boomers) say? Take accountability for your own actions and future! You can only control your own actions and don’t worry so much about everyone else.
Every teen I know takes Covid very seriously within their families (especially for their grandparents). As Marti noted, teenagers by nature are rebellious. They don’t like vegetables because we want them to eat healthy. To hint that parents of teens are not parenting by example or are bad parents is simply blaming others for their own fear.
Take care of yourself.
Be responsible for your own safety. Not feeling safe with 6ft? Make sure you’re 12 ft away from anyone else. Crystal Lake too crowded? Go somewhere else. Kids have just as much right to be at Crystal Lake as anyone else.
Kids have ONE shot; 12 short months; to be 12, 13, 14 or 15. For most of these kids, they WILL losing a significant amount of their teenage time. Hundreds have lost their Senior Proms and high school graduation. Give them a break.
Covid is contagious, but it’s not magic. The CDC lists 6 tactics of prevention. Masks are dead last on that list – and NOT required if 6 ft can be maintained.
It dies with a hand washing of regular soap and a bit of warm water. Primary form of transition remains infected hands coming in contact with their own nose or mouth. It’s not like a zombie chasing you down the street to chomp on your brains. Just don’t touch your face! I’m more afraid of a stroke, heart attack or cancer as they are way LESS predictable.
Take accountability for your own safety. Focus on not touching your own face vs who’s doing you dirty for not wearing their mask outdoor. Be well and god bless.
Thanks Matt. I almost entirely agree with comment. Good one.
I am a parent of a senior, and he has lost graduation and prom and . . . .
But he is 18 and part of society. I expect him to be a responsible citizen. Just because he lost his graduation, doesn’t mean he is exempt from wearing a mask when we walk around Newton. Just because he lost his graduation, doesn’t mean I am hosting a gathering of his friends for a graduation party. He has lost the party. While he is not happy, he also understands that he is 18 and can understand the responsibility of wearing a mask to protect others. He isn’t a toddler. While I am VERY sad that March 12 was the last day of in person school for him, I do NOT think he is above every other citizen. He is the same as everyone else that either had a graduation or didn’t. He is part of the greater good of society. The rule is to wear a mask. He is 18. He knows he lost his prom and his graduation. He also knows that he could be a carrier of the virus and a spreader. We have those discussions alot over the dinner table. Lots of time for family discussions.
At age 18, what better time to teach my kid that he is part of society and has to obey the rules – not speeding, not stealing, not harming another person, wearing a mask. While I think the world of my son (and of course he is perfect), he is entering an adult world and if you wanted to be treated like an adult, act like an adult. My kid is special to me. But not more special than everyone else in society.
I am sorry he has no prom and no graduation. I don’t even know when he will get his diploma. All of those losses, does not equal being better than the general population. He will wear a mask.
NewtonMom,
I want to start my comment by reminding everyone that almost all of us parents have been this parent at some time – hopefully she’s not wrong – so no judgement.
I had to laugh while I read your comment because its what most mothers want to be able to say (and have it be the truth) about their teen – They do what I say and always tell the truth. It’s amazing to me that your belief, that your son always tells you the truth and does what you say, has hung in there for 18 years. Mine was eradicated earlier than that.
Teens Lie! I’m not meaning to put them down by saying that – it’s just a known fact for most teens. Most all parents want their children to become good at critical thinking and decision making – to succeed at being an independent human being. Dealing with puberty and learning who you are along with everything else – and now add a pandemic – teenage years are hard.
Both my son and my daughter have grown up to be successful good citizens,people with humility and empathy. Both of them lied to my face during adolescence – one more than the other.
All three of my teen grandsons have lied to their parents – the parents know it too – (well some of it, I think) – over mostly minor things but not always. These teens are rebellious, activists like the rest of the family – so who knows. The oldest is a graduating hs senior too. It’s a shame that high school seniors activities had to be cancelled. It’s a shame there was no prom. It’s a shame the pandemic is lasting longer. It’s shame there are no jobs for these graduating seniors. It’s a shame that, although now keeping tabs on your teen is pretty easy- so is teen ingenuity – they don’t always work as intended.
Wearing a mask – loosing senior activities. I plainly don’t think these are related.
LOL – Marti! Totally true! Of course teens lie and stretch the truth. (Even my kid)
However I know that my kid isn’t at Crystal Lake hanging out because he is either working (he still has a job) or with us. He has spent many evenings on Zoom/FaceTime/House Party. He isn’t walking around Newton except for his one hour walk (90 minutes on longer days) around Newton on a daily basis. I know some of his friends/parents of friends, and their kids are also spending endless days at home.
So, while I know my kid isn’t perfect (wait, of course he is), I do know that he isn’t hanging around Crystal Lake, or if he is, it is short, since if he walked to Crystal Lake and back to our house again, it wouldn’t leave enough time to hang.
I don’t track him on the phone, so I take his word, but he isn’t hanging with friends.
And thanks for making me laugh. :)
NewtonMom, happy I was able to share my humor. Not everyone thinks I’m funny. Love your answer and congratulate you on not succumbing to the Tracking Fever!
@Matt Lai and Marti Bowen – I never said nor assumed that if teens are clustering without masks, it must be with their parents’ approval. I raised a teen and I know that’s not the case.
However, I also know there are parents in and outside of Newton who have said publicly that they want their kids to have fun and aren’t even trying to teach them why it’s their responsibility to wear masks and physically distance.
Did I expect that my kid might speed once he had his license? Of course. But that didn’t mean I told him not to worry about speed limits, and he got no sympathy from me when he got a speeding ticket for going way too fast.
Meredith, the title of your post says differently. “Please Have Your Kids Follow Social Distancing Rules.” Directed solely at parents or guardians. I just added that even with the best of parental and teen intentions, things happen that cause them to do otherwise – break the rules.
Matt Lai, you realize that some of us millennial are pushing 40, right?
@MMQC….mic drop. ‘81? Holy cow!
Well done. :-)