What COVID and Idaho taught me about parenting

I don’t know about you, but I spend about 70% of my day worrying about how bad I’m screwing up my kids. They for sure ate too much sugar today. I’m sure I said something I hope they don’t repeat. And we probably could have watched a little less TV this weekend.

(On a side note, two weeks ago our 5-year-old nearly proposed to my 30-something friend from college who was visiting for the weekend because he “like likes” her. I blame this on the Disney Channel, but I digress…)

Anyways, I was surprised last week when our daughter has a profound announcement. As we’re driving an hour through snow blown potato fields (because that’s what it takes for us to go out to brunch on a Sunday), she, completely out of the blue, announced “Mom! We can’t go ANYWHERE for Easter this year!”

“Oh really? Why is that?” I’m baffled.

“Because it’s just so FUN here for Easter,” she tells us with stars in her eyes.

Okay. Let’s back track.

We haven’t even lived in our town for more than one Easter. We have experienced exactly ONE Easter in Small Town America and that was April of 2020. You remember April 2020? That month we went into the throes of an international shut down? The month we were all left scratching our heads. The month we were all afraid to lick our fingers to separate the plastic baggie edge in the produce aisle of the grocery store - if you even DARE step foot in one of those death traps! ;o)

See, what was supposed to happen was that after a depressing Christmas in 2019, without my family for the first time after we moved, we had plane tickets booked to Chicago so we could celebrate Easter with all of our traditions. And believe me, we have a lot of traditions. Church on Good Friday. Blessing Easter baskets at a different church on Saturday (it’s a Ukrainian thing). Then more church, brunch, and egg hunts on Sunday.

I know. For a girl who grew up despising church, this is the tradition I love. Go figure.

After a tough move, we were going to have the best damn Easter in Chicago. Ever. We HAD to. As a parent, I HAD to make this happen. I had to make this right for my kids. (Pause please as I adjust the weight of their worlds on my shoulders.)

But here is what really happened.

What really happened was that the world collapsed. Your world collapsed. Our world collapsed.

We waited on a glimmer of hope, but the week of Easter we solemnly cancelled our flights back to Chicago.

And there were tears. So many tears. The kids had tears because they couldn’t have their normal Easter. I had tears both because I couldn’t have my normal Easter and because we’d moved our kids across the country and everything felt ruined. I’m sure my husband secretly had tears because he was now stuck in the house with all of our tears.

There were tears. You get the point.

But we picked our chins up and did the best we could. We Facebook Lived Good Friday service in Chicago. We Zoomed an Easter basket blessing across the country from our kitchen table to my family’s Chicago living room. And my sweet mom, in all seriousness and valor, did the best Ukrainian Priest impression I’ve ever seen. No joke. And we attended a virtual Easter Sunday church service on a computer screen.

But the truth was, I felt awful for my kids. And I felt like it was all our fault that they couldn’t have normal, because we were the ones that moved them across the country. (Never mind the debilitating global pandemic.)

We’re really good at guilting ourselves as parents, aren’t we?

So imagine my surprise, almost a year later, when our now 9-year-old tells me how amazing Easter was last year. She clearly doesn’t remember the tears like I do.

What she remembers is this: Her Chicago grandparents sent her an Easter basket that we surprised them with on Easter morning. We had Easter brunch at my in-laws’ house and they had an egg hunt for them in their house (because, naturally, the April Idaho snow and cold kept us inside that day). And when we got back to our house later that day, our house had been “egged.”

From our tiny church, in our tiny town, someone had hidden tiny eggs all over our front lawn for our kids. (And by front lawn, I mean 45 degree angled patch of grass on the side of a mountain.)

She remembers an amazing Easter.

Kids’ brains are funny. She doesn’t remember that’s when COVID hit. She doesn’t remember the cancelled flight. She doesn’t remember the tears.

She remembers happy.

And I’m happy she reminded me that we’re not messing our kids up nearly as bad as we think we are.

For whatever reason you think your kid hates you, they probably don’t. Whatever you think you mess up, you probably didn’t. However you think you’ve screwed them up, they’re probably fine. Give yourself some grace, my friend.