It’s been awhile since I have posted on this blog. Not that there were less safety issues related to kids–no, certainly not. Many events have intervened, Covid-19 has restricted everyone’s mobility. Family travel in order to shelter in place safely took time and planning. Masks, gloves, social distancing, use of hand-sanitizer, grocery shopping shocks–What, no toilet paper?–no Kleenex, no papertowel, no coffee filters…huh?!
Obtaining things necessary to make sheltering in place palatable and passable for family requires some extra efforts in shopping for safety as well as shopping safely. Makes one feel a little bit as families must have during World War II, with the inability to purchase food staples (I’m talking sugar, flour, and yeast!!! They were just not on the shelves where I live!), rationing your family’s food because you don’t know if meat or poultry will be available next week and saving your pennies, because even though price gouging is forbidden, it occurs in small ways.
Other disconcerting issues that go along with the concerns about the Pandemic’s spread are what do we do (or do we?) about people who don’t and will not wear masks…I don’t really get what that is about–are they such gorgeous human beings that they don’t want to cover their faces… are they inept at making a mask or they don’t have the materials (a bandana or scarf will work)… or are they just plain reticent or lazy? Do they not understand how germs are spread? Really?! It hurts me when I see a parent bringing children into the local grocery…and none of them have masks on. So mom is exposing the whole crew to whatever may be floating in the air while she checks the potatoes…
This brings up another glitch in the proceedings…how about people who pick up a product with their ungloved hands (where have those hands been? And what have they touched?) and put it back on the shelves as they didn’t want it anyway… okay, now their germs are on that product (along with the shelf stocker’s, the truck unloader’s and possibly the store manager’s and soon the check-out person’s…who knows?). How many hands have touched your store’s products since they left the processing plant…before they left the processing plant? And did the people in the processing plant have Covid-19…get tested? Who knows?! I know people who wipe down their groceries with disinfectant wipes upon bringing them into their homes. I always wash fresh produce, but while it seems ridiculous, it may be necessary to protect your family!
Back to child safety. Right NOW, parents need to be paying more attention than ever to their kids’ Internet habits. Apparently this stay-at-home period of sheltering in place has spawned some very bad actors on the Internet, including child predators. Please, moms and dads, pay attention to what your kids are looking at, chatting with, reading, playing games with, on their computers and cell phones! A sex offender in New Jersey recently solicited an 11 year-old girl to provide undressed selfies. Fortunately, this man was arrested…But how many of these bad-deed-do’ers are not found out? It takes watchful parents to keep kids safe!
