Let me tell you a really dumb story about lockdown.

I've got a 5 year old who was 4 when this all started. He loves Paw Patrol, but he's the youngest. His older sisters hate it when he picks it for screen time b/c they think it's for little kids. /1

I went to visit family for Thanksgiving. I flew across the country w/ 3 kids against all recommendations, guidance, and the panicked caution that we're all used to seeing on Twitter.

We spent a lot of time w/ my siblings and mom. /2

My sister has 3 little boys, ages 3, 5, and 7. They did a sleepover with my little guy and watched Paw Patrol for hours together.

It absolutely filled his soul. Not just watching the dumb show, but doing it with boys his age. /3

He hadn't watched a movie with any of his friends in 8 months (since all socialization has been outdoors) and it's hard to be 5 and enjoy something all by yourself. There's a lot of healthy reinforcement of joy from watching things with others. /4

And then he got to talk about it with his cousins and they played Paw Patrol together & made up new stories, riffing off each other and going back and forth with who the pups should rescue and from what and how.

That kind of play is almost impossible alone /5

So much changes so fast for kids this age. We've got kids out there who are basically missing an entire chunk of growing up.

And kids are resilient, sure, blah blah blah.

That's a bit of a cop out for the fact that we really have taken something irreplaceable from these kids /6

There is going to be a wide experiential gap between the kids who lived in places that went back to school in the fall and places that didn't

It will be studied for decades, there will be Oscar winning coming-of-age movies about this

They will not be kind to the lockdowners