If COVID Happened When You Were Young, What Would You Do?

As we hopefully near the end of COVID-19 and return to doing the thing we used to love doing, it gets me thinking if a pandemic happened while I was a kid, things would be much different.

I feel that the pandemic was awful on everybody obviously, but the kids took a big hit with all this COVID-19 stuff. They were forced to stay home, adapt to learning a different way through virtual learning, have no contact with their friends. No birthday parties, sports, field trips. Forced to wear an uncomfortable mask, and sacrifice making lasting childhood memories with friends. It's been hard on them, no doubt.

On the plus side, the pandemic occurred during a time where we have amazing technology and the kids could at least facetime with their friends, and watch hours of videos on YouTube. Whatever they want to watch is at their little fingertips.

If the pandemic happened when I was growing up, I would get bored real quick. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and we at least had video games to keep us occupied. The internet was in its infancy when I grew up and there's was no way I could tie up the phone line for hours on end exploring America Online 2.0 on my free 15-day trial floppy disk that came in the mail.

On the plus side, hand sanitizer was popularized in the 90s so, there's a chance we would've had that to use, but other than that it would be really hard to make it through a pandemic playing rummy or throwing a ball against a wall while waiting to see if there's going to be a new episode of Family Matters on T.G.I.F. this week.

How would you handle a pandemic when you were growing up?