WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO OUR CHILDREN IS A CRIME [WITH COMMENT BY PAUL]

WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO OUR CHILDREN IS A CRIME [WITH COMMENT BY PAUL]

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN CORONAVIRUS

I have said this many times, but it bears repeating: the shutdown policies that have devastated the lives of our children and young people were not just a blunder, but a crime. Jan Crawford of CBS put it well this morning on Face the Nation:

Heck, the point is so obvious that even the New York Times might be catching on:

In my opinion, the various governments’ responses to the covid epidemic represented the worst failure of public policy in the U.S. since (at least) the Vietnam War. And a number of other countries did even worse.

PAUL ADDS: There’s no doubt that the pandemic and aspects of the response to it have been harmful to children. However, some of the commentary about this subject underestimates the resilience of the vast majority of young Americans.

Take one of the concerns cited in that New York Times tweet. Ten years from now, how much of a setback will it be that someone failed a class in 2020? Not much of one in most cases, I dare say. And in cases where failing a class turns out to be a major long-term setback, the student was probably destined to be derailed further down the line.

Drug addiction and depression are obviously more serious matters. But I wonder whether most kids who turn to drugs or become seriously depressed because they are cooped up during a pandemic are likely to turn to drugs or become depressed due to some other source of frustration as they face the inevitable stresses of being teenagers and becoming adults.

We won’t be able to quantify even roughly the medium and long-term effects of the pandemic and the pandemic response on kids who lived through it until a good deal more time has passed.

I agree, however, that there will be some level of negative medium and long-term effects. And who can disagree that there have been short-term negative impacts? I’m certainly glad my kids weren’t in school in 2020 and 2021.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/what-we-have-done-to-our-children-is-a-crime.php