Coconino Voices: An Open Letter to the Parents of Flagstaff

I thank The Daily Sun for publishing my special editorial today (embedded below), written to parents and families in Flagstaff (and everywhere else) experiencing hardship and sacrifice during this unprecedented time. This was inspired by many things but put into focus by Sunday’s letter to the editor complaining about the closure of our parks and the mental toll it can take on our children.

It’s a hard and scary time to be a parent. Our lives have been disrupted in every imaginable way, and every American is grappling with these changes. But beyond our own disruptions, it is agonizing to watch the disruptions our children are facing and to be unable to protect them and their routines and their daily joys from the uncertainty and loss that are all around us.

The schools are closed. The sports seasons are canceled. The playdates and daycares and birthday parties have vanished. The clubs and lessons and library trips are halted. The playgrounds are barricaded.

My children are 10 and 14, and I watch them face each day with pain in my heart, as they talk wistfully about friends and play practice, basketball and music lessons. They watch holidays and birthdays pass in isolation and ask when they’ll get to see their cousins again and how we will celebrate Easter and whether they’ll get to go swimming at the Aquaplex this summer. It’s hard to have no clear answers, to admit that I don’t know, and to see them wish for so many little joys they can’t have.

I share your pain. I share the feelings of inadequacy when I’m asked to help my kids through their new online school routines while keeping up with my own two jobs and trying to tend to all of our physical and mental health in the face of cabin fever. None of us knows how to do this right, none of us had time to prepare, none of us knows where this is going.

But in the face of all of this change, and in light of our fears for our community and the very real suffering experienced by the ill and by their families and by our healthcare and first-responder heroes, I also find myself watching my children with something more than fear. I am watching them with hope.

Our children have been asked to sacrifice, and their sacrifices are very real. They are experiencing trauma and loss and anxiety. But they are also making important and formative memories.

They are learning that school can mean many things. They are learning that their teachers and principals put them first and that education is essential. They are learning that when all else is disrupted, their homes and families are constant (and yet I do realize there are far too many who do not have this comfort to fall back on). They are learning that healthcare workers are heroes and that healthcare and online connectivity are both essential human rights.

They are learning that Americans and humans make voluntary sacrifices to protect the most vulnerable among us — they are watching us put human lives above our great economic engine. They are watching videos and images of quarantines and isolation and face masks and hospitals in Europe and Africa and South America and Asia and they’re learning that we are one species and that some challenges transcend national boundaries. They are learning that boredom can catalyze creativity.

They are learning how to resolve their own sibling battles, bake bread from scratch, plant an herb garden, and mute themselves on Zoom. They are learning to take the time to reach out — on a screen! — to isolated grandparents. They are learning that Star Trek: The Next Generation is the greatest and most binge-worthy show ever made. They are learning to conserve toilet paper. They are learning to self-motivate in their lessons.

Our children are a little less protected and a little less innocent, and that comes with sorrow and heartache. But these times are bringing lessons that may make them a little more responsible, a little more independent, a little more creative, a little more patient, a little more compassionate, and a little more thankful for what they have. They just may grow up to be more aware of the rest of the world, more considerate of human rights, more thankful for home and family, and more appreciative of the power of education and healthcare than if this crisis had arrived in another generation.

The so-called “Greatest Generation” was given their title not because they were given every opportunity, but because they showed resilience in the face of hardship. They rose to the challenges of their time. I want to protect my children and I want them to resume their lives and to access their neighborhood playgrounds. But I also want them to learn and grow, and I see them doing that before my eyes.

(Austin Aslan is a Flagstaff City Councilmember.)