Fintan O’Toole suggests giving every child in Ireland a medal for their resiliance during the rona

Yes.

This morning.

Tough on the unjabbed.

Loves the chiselers.

Via Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times:

‘…it’s been hard for children. It has stayed hard for what is, from a child’s perspective, a very long time. And we adults don’t have a good answer to every kid’s question: are we there yet? We keep telling them that we nearly are and then the road becomes long and winding again.

There’s a word we adults like to use about kids because it makes us feel better: resilient. It keeps the wolf of anxiety from our own doors, stops us worrying too much about them.

It is true: kids are durable creatures. What choice do they have after all? And learning to be mentally tough is, in an often harsh world, a necessary survival skill.

But being resilient doesn’t mean not finding it hard going. Or not needing to be thanked and reassured and made much of.

I actually think, mad as it sounds, that the State should give every child in Ireland a medal. Just a token, a tangible gesture, a touchstone of collective recognition, a reminder to the rest of us that the experiences of children are too often left out of the narrative of these times..’

Which comes first, the medal or the jab?

Only you can decide

This Christmas we should focus on what children give us (Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times)

Previously: We Don’t Know Ourselves