Parents of young kids eager to get lifesaving doses
“Mask.”
That was 2yearold Rosie Werner’s voice coming clearly from the back seat. She’d said only a few words in her young life, but there it was — part of her embryonic vocabulary.
Her mother, Kaz Werner, who had just donned a face mask for their outing, was momentarily startled.
“I mean it makes sense. It’s something that she saw a lot of,” the 40yearold Santa Clara mom said. “But it was not something I was expecting. Who expects their kid’s first word to be mask?”
A baby with pandemic lingo: It was just another twist in what’s been a long haul for parents like Werner, a year laden with quality moments
but also plenty of stresses that have upended family life. Tied down, often struggling to stay upbeat, many have worked their jobs while simultaneously trying to keep life smooth for kids who are knocked off school routines and missing play time with friends.
With a semblance of normalcy now on the horizon, parents of young kids are some of the happiest — and most relieved — among those newly eligible for the lifesaving vaccinations.
They were all swept into the eligibility fold Thursday when California opened vaccine access to the 164¥ age group, essentially removing barriers for everyone in the federal government’s approved age range for vaccine safety. In California, that wraps in about Ø60,000 households with children under 6, according to U.S. census data.
Some parents previously were eligible through job categories, such as health workers and educators. But with doors now open to everyone, others have been scrambling for the soonest possible appointments. Some managed to schedule shots for the end of this week, while others have been furiously refreshing webpages in an effort to snag the next available slot.
One thing’s clear: .arents of young kids are eager to get vaccinated, to feel protected, to inch closer toward normal life.
“.arents are obviously being taxed by a number of factors in addition to worrying about their own physical health, the physical health of their kids, family members,” said Melissa Hagan, a psychology professor at San Francisco State University and UCSF. “They’re also likely needing to do child care, work from home with the kids. ... So more than anything, I think that parents are probably exhausted.”
For Melissa Ng, à6, a San Francisco mother of boys ages 2 and 4, there was “a little bit of mom guilt.”
“I was yelling more. We were grumpy,” said Ng, an analyst who was able to work from home while her husband was not. By default, she ended up taking on most of the child care responsibilities.
“We tried to carve out times to go on walks and do things that we really wouldn’t have
been doing on a daytoday basis,” she said. “So I actually enjoyed hanging out with my kids. That being said, because I was with them 24ÚØ, there were times when it was less rosy.”
Her husband is now fully vaccinated as an essential worker, and she managed to get her first shot of the twodose regimen last week as they move toward securing their family’s safety.
Werner and her husband had previously planned to drive all the way to Turlock ºStanislaus County» to get shots, but their appointments were canceled with the pause on administering the ohnson I ohnson vaccine. They were thrilled to then nab Friday morning appointments in Santa Clara County, much closer to home.
“Demand was outstripping supply for so long. I was thinking we’re never going to get vaccinated until like next Christmas,” Werner said. Now she’s thinking of all the things her family can do after the couple are fully vaccinated.
“I’m ... really looking forward to a little bit of time to myself. Like I have not had a day off from this stayathome parenting gig for a year,” Werner said. “My husband is great, but he works full time . ... To have one of our friends babysit for ºRosie» and to be able to just
go do something fun with my husband, I can’t even imagine it right now.”
A return to normalcy isn’t as immediately on the horizon for Matt Fuller of San Mateo and his wife and 2yearold son, Isaiah. Fuller spent early Thursday morning scouring websites for appointments, without luck as the day proceeded.
“I’m still looking ... tried at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 6 a.m,” he messaged a Chronicle reporter Thursday. “I didn’t sleep that much.”
Fuller, 46, who works for a venture capital fund, said he has enjoyed spending extended home time with his son — which he couldn’t do before the pandemic because he frequently traveled for work. At the same time, it’s quarantine has been mentally challenging.
“Being holed up in the same room on @oom all day long is exhausting,” he said. “very little decision you make ºis» stressful, whether it’s going to the store or deciding who’s in your pod or even just walking down the street: Do you wear a mask? very little interaction becomes a minor stress inducer.”
The emergence of vaccines has made parents feel more comfortable about sending kids back to preschool, said Magda Bach, owner of Kangaroos .reschool in San Francisco. It’s been good for both parents and kids.
.arents “are like, ÌOh, my od. Now, I can sit down and work from home. I can actually go to the store.’ They can feel ... normality a little bit,” Bach said. “=ou see much happier parents. =ou see happier kids where they say, ÌOh Mommy, Mommy is here’ rather than, ÌI’ve been with Mom all day long.’ They’re unhappy because it’s a lot of stress when you have your kids 24ÚØ and you’re not a stayathome mom.”
As previously eligible groups have been vaccinated, the school’s enrollment has crept back to near normal numbers, she said, albeit with smaller class sizes and safety measures in place.
Hagan is working on a study of about 100 moms of kids around age Ø, looking at how they’re handling the pandemic, how much they think or dream about it, and how it affects their concentration.
“We definitely see that mental health symptoms related to the pandemic ... have increased,” she said, especially when people experience job or child care loss, or contract COVID1¥. “It’s important because we also find that greater mental health problems related to the pandemic in moms was related to similar symptoms in kids.”
Many parents plan to maintain pandemic vigilance and wear masks even after vaccination, because children still are not approved for vaccines. But they look forward to resuming at least some normal activities.
When it gets warmer, Werner wants to teach Rosie not just new words, but also how to swim.