Now Granny is Safe, Are We Killing Our Children?
by Emma Hine As a mother, one of the first thoughts that entered my exhausted, post-labour brain, as I gazed down at my beautiful newborn baby, was, “I would die for you!” For a father, I believe that moment is often when the infant reaches out and grabs his nose or finger for the first time and fills him with that same primal, instinctive urge to protect his child, no matter what. As the baby grows to childhood and then to stroppy teen, no matter what other daily emotions might sometimes cloud our judgement, that primitive, protective instinct never goes away. We would die for our children. Yet here we are, one year into a pandemic, which data shows is disproportionately biased away from children (in the UK, 11 mortalities below age 15, a figure comparable to an average flu year), and we are asking our children to protect us, at huge cost to their emotional and mental well-being. “Children are resilient!” I hear, time and time again. Yes, they are. But why should they have to be? Daily new cases in the UK are now at a comparable level to the initial wave of the pandemic – 6385 daily recorded cases on March 3rd 2021 vs. 6201 (highest daily recorded case number between March-May 2020) but with considerably lower...
