The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Families expand isolation bubble to share, socialize
When the COVID-19 pandemic kicked into high gear in mid-March — closing businesses, moving schooling from the classroom to the computer and keeping a lot of families home — Lyndsay Cafagno and Nicole Blechner made a pact.
The two have a total of seven children, ranging in age from 22 months to 16 years, and live in the same Byram neighborhood of Greenwich.
Their husbands work full-time out of the home, but don’t typically come in
close contact with others. Most of their children are close in age, and get along well.
They wondered: What if they expanded their self-isolation to include both of their families, increasing their resources and reducing their respective workloads? They decided to give it a try. And so far, it’s worked for them.
“Nicole comes over in the morning and stays all day for school and activities,” Cafagno, 34, explained. “From the beginning, we decided to do this together, and share homeschooling of the kids, because it’s such a daunting task.”
Not only does this mean less work for the adults, it’s better for the children, too. “It’s given them an opportunity to have other kids to play with,” Cafagno said. “They’re happy to have each other.”
Blechner, 36, agreed, and said this sort of double isolation benefits everybody.
“Honestly, I don’t know how people are stuck at home by themselves with kids,” she said. “It’s nice to have a partner to tap out to and say, ‘I can’t do this right now.’ ”
The two aren’t the only ones with this sort of arrangement. Other families are joining together to share housework, schoolwork and other responsibilities.
These configurations have been dubbed “quaranteams,” which have become known during the coronavirus crisis for small groups of people who create their own tight-knit social circle that limits interactions with anyone outside of their bubble. As the pandemic has kept people isolated, interest has grown nationwide in quaranteams, which has its own Twitter hashtag.
However, some Connecticut health experts have cautioned against the idea.
“It sounds risky to me,” said Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease at Bridgeport Hospital. “The more people you put into the mix, the more people are at risk of being infected.”
However, he wasn’t unsympathetic to the idea behind quaranteams. “I get it,” Saul said. “We’ve all been locked up for over two months with the same people. But you don’t know what people can possibly bring home.”
Dr. Jurate Ivanaviciene, an infectious disease physician at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, was similarly understanding but concerned.
“Personally, I would not team up with another family,” she said. “The more people you have in the home, the more likely you will get it in the home. You have those four or five days where you don’t know that you have it and can transmit it.”
Like Saul, Ivanaviciene said she understands that people feel overwhelmed and that they’d want to share resources — and social time — with others. But she still advised against it right now.
“I would try to stay away from clustering people in enclosed spaces right now,” she said.
The clusters also seem to take various forms.
For instance, Ariel Czerwiowski, 41 of Middlebury, has enlisted the teenager who lives next door to help watch her three children — aged 5, 3, and 17 months — while she works and does things around the house. Czerwiowski said she entered into the arrangement cautiously, asking about the health of her neighbor’s family, and making sure everyone involved agreed.
But she said enlisting help was crucial for her family to survive this unusual time. “I was working from 5 a.m. to noon, and my husband was working from noon to 5 p.m. and nothing was getting done,” Czerwiowski said.
Since she got her neighbor to help, things have been better for everyone. “It gives (the teenager) something to do, and gives my kids another face to see and play with,” Czerwiowski said.
In fact, this has worked so well that she plans to expand the bubble a bit. Her two younger children will soon be returning to day care and Czerwiowski is looking to collaborate with another family whose children are about the same age as hers and who use the same day care.
The other family has a 6-yearold, who would stay at Czerwiowski’s house with her oldest child and the teen babysitter while the other children are in day care.
“The thought is that the families are exposed to the same things, because we use the same day care,” Czerwiowski explained.
Blechner and Cafagno said they realize their arrangement could be controversial and not everyone has been supportive of the idea.
“We’ve gotten a lot of judgment from some people and a lot of dirty looks and whispers,” Blechner said.
The Greenwich women said they try to be as safe as possible, limiting trips to the grocery store and other places, and keeping contact outside their bubble to a minimum. “Our kids are only around each other,” Cafagno said. “They’re not exposed to anyone.”
They feel their pact is also making them better mothers in quarantine, and teaching everyone how to get along. “(The children are) not only getting help with their schoolwork, but they’re also learning what it’s like to live in a community,” Blechner said.
Blechner and Cafagno have grown closer, having regular girls nights and planned to spend Memorial Day weekend in Vermont together.
Their quaranteam has resulted in a business relationship as well, as the women have formed the online platform www.momality.com, where they say parents can bond over the craziness of family life.
Ultimately, both women said they are glad they — and their children — don’t have to go through this alone. “It’s a very a hard time for a lot of people — moms, dads and kids,” Blechner said. “We’re trying to make the best of the situation.”