Activity:
Today we’re going to thank a healthcare worker! When I reached out to my friends who are nurses, they both said essentially the same thing: “home made cards or words of support are wonderful ways to cheer us up!” and “If the girls want to make some special art work for the nurses I will bring it to work and hang it up for all to see!!!!” I’ll be letting my kids choose a papercraft to say thank you. If your kids would like to make some art for this purpose and you don’t have a special healthcare worker in your life, and you live in Eugene/Springfield, reach out—I am happy to collect art in town to send with my friend at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.
Rationale:
As hospitals in Oregon and beyond are reaching capacity, many healthcare workers are feeling depleted. It has been a long and arduous year for us all, but many healthcare workers have been exposed to risk they never anticipated while sequestered away from their families. Taking some time to say thank you to frontline workers is important because it may comfort the people who are risking their lives not just because of a deadly virus, but also because that virus has become devastatingly politicized.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, recent research suggests that the resistance to taking basic precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is, in fact, an empathy problem. In a transnational study, researchers from Aarhus BSS found that it is in fact empathy for people in high-risk groups that motivates us to wear face masks and physically distance. They also discovered that when empathy was induced narratively, by showcasing the stories of people most impacted by COVID-19, prosocial willingness to distance and wear face masks increased.
Would we be in this mess if empathy were more highly valued in American society? A recent analysis of global COVID-19 responses suggests that individualism complicates disaster response and recovery where collective action is an urgent necessity, and goes on to lament that the U.S. repeatedly ranks as the most individualistic country in the world (Bian et al., 2020). The fight against COVID-19 requires us to sacrifice individual preference to achieve a collective goal, and it’s not hard to see how much our failure to muster the empathy required to do so has inhibited our national pandemic response. If we can’t turn back the clock and prevent the thousands of unnecessary deaths that have been driven by a lack of national empathy, we can at least make sure our families aren’t part of the problem. I plan to remind my kids of why we’re doing all this—giving up in-person school, playdates, and family holidays—because our desires must not eclipse another’s right to live.*
*N.B. Please note that if you have to go out and work during this pandemic, or send your kids to in-person childcare to continue working, I am in no way suggesting you have a lack of empathy. That burden falls on the government that has not found a way to make staying home feasible for so many.
Book Recommendation:
I love The Thank You Book, by Mo Willems, and so do my kids. This book helps them see how fabulous a simple thank you can feel, and it stars all of their Mo Willems favorites. I have also really been loving We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, by Traci Sorell and Frane Lessac, which introduces some Cherokee vocabulary and shares cultural traditions surrounding gratitude and challenges. You can watch a read aloud here.
