CINCINNATI (AP) – No popcorn sleepovers and Disney movies. No dance recitals or holiday shows let alone a grandparents day to visit the kids’ classrooms.
No hugs.
The first 12 months of the pandemic represent a lost year for many in the largest group of grandparents in US history. Most of the country’s approximately 70 million grandparents are in the fourth quarter of their lives and the clock has kept running.
“When I work with older adults, I see a lot of depression, a lot of increasing loneliness,” said Nick Nicholson, professor of nursing and aging researcher at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. ‘It’s been really hard … the fear, the despair, the social isolation. Over time, there are so many adverse effects. The sooner we turn off the bubble, the better, so that people can start healing together. “
The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Last week offered some first steps forward for Year 2, saying that fully vaccinated grandparents could visit a single household with healthy children and grandchildren without masks or other special precautions.
Doris Rolark blew air cushion at her mask-wearing grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they delivered gifts on her 78th birthday last month. She resumed the hugs last week after the CDC guidelines were announced.
“It was great. I get excited to see the rest,” said the woman from Middletown, Ohio, who has three grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. “I hope things get better now.”
Joe and Nancy Peters had one of their 11 grandchildren visit last week when they “gently returned to normal,” he says. Both retired educators in their seventies, they were used to being deeply involved with the grandchildren, all of whom lived near them in the suburbs of Cincinnati, before the pandemic and associated safety restrictions hit.
It was especially difficult to lose time with the youngest.
“They are 3, 4 and 5 years old and a whole year has passed,” says Nancy Peters. “They’ve changed a lot … and Amelia would say to her mother every day, ‘I’m going to have a sleepover with Grandma when the coronavirus is over.’
“And now she’s not 3 anymore,” she says.
Both Peters and Rolark have been fully vaccinated as the shot rate has increased nationwide in recent weeks, with an estimated 60% of people over 65 having received at least one dose so far. But the CDC reports that only 10% of the population as a whole is fully vaccinated, reminding that vulnerability increases with ageThe CDC says eight out of 10 people who died of the virus in the United States were 65 or older.
Nicholson says that while some older adults “just break open the door to get out” after a year of isolation, others remain concerned about varieties of species. and other unknown things ahead.
“They wonder: is it safe?” he says.
IMPERATIVE: ATTENTION
Joaniko Kohchi, head of the Institute for Parenting at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, says grandparents and other family members need to be careful when trying to return to something that passes for normalcy.
“There will no doubt be an adjustment period that will continue; planning and flexibility are very important, ”she says.
Also unknown: How many older adults have been hurt not only emotionally but also mentally by the loss of personal contacts and other activities outside the home during a year.
“I think it can be really difficult to always see the same two or three people,” said Arman Ramnath, whose Indian-born grandmother Vijaya Ramnath, 94, lives with his parents in Columbus, Ohio, even before he was born. “It ages you faster.”
While many grandparents keep in touch through phone, text, and video chat, others cannot access or use such technology. A study conducted last September and October has found resilience among older Americans, but also signs of problems, with many reporting reduced happiness and some reporting increased loneliness and depression on the way to winter.
In good weather, the Peterses had ridden on and received many driveway visits, including a one-man dance recital for them by a granddaughter. They went to dozens of outdoor events such as baseball and football games last year, but were unable to attend the grandchildren’s indoor basketball games.
“It’s been pretty tough,” said Joe Peters, who talks about the gym-hopping Saturdays in previous years, when they played no less than eight kids’ basketball games in one day.
Many grandparents actively help babysitting their children and school or daycare, so pandemic barriers against them have created a “lose-lose” situation for families, Nicholson says.
Rolark, of Middletown, Ohio, has always been active with the offspring. She raised three children as a divorced single woman, and two of her great-grandchildren lived with her in high school. Her offspring paid her back during the pandemic for all those years of her support when she also had a full-time office job at a steel company.
“ I couldn’t have made it without them, ” says Rolark, who says great-grandson Amarius Gates shoveled her driveway over the winter, while granddaughter Davonne Calhoun and others in her large family ran errands and helped her with it. household.
HOUSEHOLDS, FACILITIES FIGHT
Nursing homes and other supported care facilities have also faced challenges in keeping grandparents connected, as many cut off contact visits due to concerns about virus spread. “It’s been lonely,” said Deb McGlinch, a patient at Versailles Rehabilitation and Health Center in western Ohio.
She was used to frequent visits from her granddaughter, Kortaney Cattell, 20, to play card games like Uno with her. She has been able to video chat with Kortaney and seven other grandchildren, but has missed their card games. They recently resumed the remote friendly match with a virtual slot machine game.
McGlinch says that instead of just talking small talk on the phone, now “we can have fun.”
One in ten grandparents in the US now lives in the same household with at least one grandchild. This has long been common in some Asian cultures. In Ramnath’s family, his maternal Indian grandmother, Saroja Seetharaman, rotates between her three children and their six grandchildren, in Dallas, Atlanta and his home in Columbus.
Ramanth, 27, has been nervous about getting close to his older grandmother, Vijaya, especially when he just got back from Washington, where he is a Georgetown University Law School student. He studies remotely, but sometimes has to go to school to pick up books.
Like the grandparents who complain about lost time with their growing grandchildren, grandchildren can feel bad about missed opportunities with their elderly loved ones.
Ramanth would have liked to spend some time with her over the past year to learn more about the family history. She once met Mohandas K. Gandhi, India’s late famous leader and advocate of nonviolence. She attended a tea hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. And he has seen photos of her late husband, a senior Indian naval officer, with the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“This is a time when I wish I could talk to her more about her life as she gets older,” said Ramanth, who hopes to have more contact soon now that she is fully vaccinated. “Sometimes it can be a bit sad. You can’t spend that much time with someone even if they live with you. “
Dan Sewell, the AP correspondent in Cincinnati, and his wife Vickii have nine grandchildren. Follow him on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/dansewell