Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

“And how are the children?” The 2021 Discipleship Planning Guide, from American Baptist Home Mission Societies, focuses on this question, a greeting of the Maasai that puts the importance of children’s wellbeing at the center of the measure of a society’s wellbeing.

I ask, “and how are the children?” and I’m met with stunned silence.

A silence that tells me that we’ve forgotten about the children in our midst.

As we all have tried to find footing in the shifting sands of pandemic protocols over the last year, children, those with disabilities, and those with compromised health conditions have consistently been an afterthought to the conversation, if ever a thought at all. I recall a conversation with my therapist months ago, asking if I was crazy for feeling like I was screaming into a void about the status of children in this pandemic. “No,” she replied, as she recounted nearly every client who is a parent asking the same thing.

From churches to restaurants and government officials to family friends, I hear lots of people saying, “everyone is vaccinated, now we can do things in-person!” But when I bring up my asthmatic four-year-old or pandemic-born one-year-old, I’m met with blank stares or dismissive comments about them “not getting it as bad.” Do my kids not count as everyone? Does our immunocompromised friend not count as everyone? What about our neighbors who couldn’t access vaccines until very recently? Or those in communities where the vaccine is inaccessible? Just who is “everyone”?

I recall reading somewhere that it is people such as these to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs.

We’ve been told throughout the pandemic that children don’t get the virus as bad—except for those who have developed Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). Or those who have died. With the Delta variant raging through the country, more children are being admitted to hospitals with serious illnesses. Not to mention that we know nothing about the long-term effects of even a mild case of COVID-19. We do know that there can be serious long-term effects in both adults and children, even those who have experienced a mild infection. As the mom of two small children for whom I have big dreams of a long and bright future, I’m not ready or willing to take that risk.

Sure, risk is inherent in anything we do. But just as I won’t let my 4-year-old ride his bike without a helmet in the middle of traffic, I’m not going to put him in an unventilated room with a maskless public. There are precautions we know work, and that’s what I’m sticking with for now.

As one who has joyfully been vaccinated, I understand my duty—as a good citizen of my community and as an ambassador of Christ—to care for the least of these and to not be a stumbling block. The government says I can run around maskless if I’d like, but Scripture says, “watch out or else this freedom of yours might be a problem for those who are weak.” (1 Corinthians 8:9 CEB).

I am extremely grateful for such safe and effective vaccines that are available. The vaccines are doing their job at preventing hospitalizations and death, and these miracles of science are to be celebrated as we continue to learn more about COVID-19.

And yet, with vaccines only recently available to those 12 and older, with our youngest and most vulnerable kids still ineligible to receive the vaccine, and with the Delta variant changing everything we thought we knew about COVID-19, our society seems to have forgotten about the children.

Let us celebrate that gradually our world is reopening. But first, let us ask one another, “how are the children?” And if we can’t answer that, it’s time to reconsider just what it is we are doing here.