Building Resilience, One Challenge At A Time

A Boy Turns 16 in the Age of CoronaVirus

The boy himself, age 2.5

These are strange days. Much of the US population is under stay-home-please rules imposed by their state’s Governor, while the President is sure we can all return to normal by Easter, the oddest-ever government-imposed deadline on record. What’s next? Please file your taxes by Palm Sunday? Renew your car’s registration by All Soul’s Day, or face a stiff fine?

All of this is uncharted waters, at least for me in my 47 years of life. And as much as I worry about the difficulties we now face, as a nation and as a world, and the worse hardships I suspect are to come, one thing I don’t worry about? Whether my son Arlo will have the tenacity needed to face and overcome whatever awaits.

Over the years I’ve often joked, raising Arlo and his two older brothers and older sister, that I want to give my kids enough unconditional love and support to grow up well-adjusted with a sense of well-being, and enough challenges so that, you know, they’re interesting. It was a joke and it always got a laugh from whatever friend or acquaintance or beleaguered teacher I told it to, but it also ended up being true, especially in Arlo’s case. Third born son, fourth child, he was tenacious in the face of challenge from day one. His due date came and went during a period we later understood to be the…