Kids Will Be Kids-Won't They?

摘要

LET US PLAY the ever-popular, Would you rather . . . ? Would you rather have a cabin in the mountains or an uptown apartment? Would you rather have dessert for breakfast or breakfast for dinner? Would you rather have someone you love die and not be able to go to the funeral because of COVID-19 shutdowns or skip the prom? You know that the news media has succeeded in terrifying the populace when people grieving a loved one are preoccupied with the terrible suffering young people are experiencing due to COVID-19. Yes, even my grief support group on occasion has become more focused on the inconvenience of young people doing their studies at home, and rarely socializing, than about their own gaping, raw loss. No doubt this is a combination of generosity of heart and compassion for their own young loved ones. Whether science bears out grounding the entire under-18 generation is another question entirely; it seems not to be the case as of this writing, but governance and science are not the best of friends, partly because many politicians do not understand science is really a verb.