Currently, I’m one of the rare weirdos at my university wearing a mask. I’ll be wearing it when I teach. I’m mystified by the reluctance of administrators to follow simple, painless health rules.
Maybe it’s because so many doctors are saying it’s unnecessary, sort of, like this op-ed from a doctor in the Washington Post. She’s abandoning masking her kids for the strangest reasons.
I accept the risk that my kids will probably contract covid-19 this school year, just as they could contract the flu, respiratory syncytial virus and other contagious diseases. As for most Americans, covid in our family will almost certainly be mild; and, like most Americans, we’ve made the decision that following precautions strict enough to prevent the highly contagious BA.5 will be very challenging. Masking has harmed our son’s language development, and limiting both kids’ extracurriculars and social interactions would negatively affect their childhood and hinder my and my husband’s ability to work.
So no more masks because she is resigned to the fact that her kids will get a potentially debilitating, even deadly disease? Meh, if COVID doesn’t kill them, something else will, so don’t bother protecting them. It’ll be challenging, but not challenging enough to make an effort. Besides, it would mean not turning out for baseball or dance class, and most importantly, might hinder Mom & Dad’s ability to work!
Hint: if that’s what worries you, don’t have kids. That’s what kids do.
But then, I was interested in the one concrete thing she claims: Masking has harmed our son’s language development
. It’s got a link that I presumed must point to a study demonstrating that specific problem, but no, it’s a news story about growing calls to take masks off children in school. It’s a collection of anecdotes about anti-masking people complaining about how hard it is to keep a mask on their kids, and claiming, like the doctor above that it is hampering their language or even smothering their empathy. It mentions (but does not cite) one German psychiatrist, Manfred Spitzer, who claims all kinds of deleterious consequences of using a mask, but this is also a guy who argues that children should be banned from having a cell phone until they’re 18. And then, this:
Diane Paul is with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the national professional association representing speech therapists. She says referrals of children to speech therapy have increased since the pandemic began.
But, Paul adds, there are no studies to prove — or disprove — that this is due to masking rather than, as she believes, the lingering effects of remote learning and other factors of the pandemic.
Is it hard to keep a kid masked? Sometimes, no denying it. Does it cause little problems? Sure.
But I will deploy my own anecdote to counter that: my granddaughter, Iliana, has been living under the cloud of the pandemic for practically her entire life. She cheerfully puts on a mask — it’s a fashion accessory, it’s the grown-up thing to do — and toddles off to the store with mom and dad without complaint.
Also, she is extremely vocal and will chatter away non-stop, with no real speech impediment.
Checkmate, anti-maskers. Put the damn thing on and do everything you can to protect your child from disease. Why is that even in question?