At War, Civil War; and, The Future of our Children

A new study, out in Lancet, is at last drawing attention to coronavirus and children. Until now, children who have been ill were counted simply as a minimal part of the pandemic. However, now that there’s been a study that measures the metrics, the children of the world are front and center.

It made me think that perhaps in the crisis mode that we’ve all been living for two months, we have given little thought to what this pandemic means for the children, the youth, and the young adults of our world.

And still, the virus keeps coming.

“As concerns mount over children afflicted with a potentially deadly inflammatory condition, a new study shed light on the condition’s distinctive characteristics and provided the strongest evidence yet that the syndrome is linked to coronavirus. The condition, called pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, has been reported in about 100 children in New York State, including in three who died. Cases have been reported in other states, including California, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as in Europe.”

The virus keeps on coming for us. I maintain, cheerful or not, that it will until we all learn to play well with others. Even better, work well with others. While our public circus remains what the Coronavirus Outbreak news aggregator called this morning “dysfunctional political discourse,” it’s up to each of us, right where we are, to change it.

That doesn’t mean reopening our tattoo parlors, against governors’ order, with five ‘security’ guards who “established an armed perimeter in the parking lot outside Crash-N-Burn Tattoo, secured by five men with military-style rifles, tactical shotguns, camouflage vests and walkie-talkies. One of them already had a large tattoo of his own. ‘We the People,’ it said.”

It also doesn’t mean taking a governor’s stay-at-home order to the State Supreme Court to overturn it. Welcome to Wisconsin.

It also doesn’t mean listening to or heeding anything said by The White House. Here’s a stunner from a New York Times headline and subtitle that say it all. “Trump Pointedly Criticizes Fauci for His Testimony to Congress: ‘He wants to play all sides of the equation,’ the president said of the nation’s top infectious disease expert.” Are you sure that’s Fauci? It left me stammering.

Oxymoronic notwithstanding, these are the behaviors of civil war.

Perhaps better said, a war, a real war, on civility. Civility has come to mean politeness, or good manners — something we teach our children — but its original meaning meant relating to citizens.

Civility used to be a banner we waved proudly in the United States. No longer. There is no longer pride in civil discourse. Civility is viewed as weakness.

It isn’t. Rage, useless, futile rage is weakness. It’s just a flimsy cloak for vulnerability anyway.

Let’s go back to the children for a moment. There are children who are getting plain old Covid-19 with the attendant respiratory issues that are part of the symptomology that adults exhibit.

These are the children who are caught, spiritually, in grief. Because most of them are too young to have the emotional vocabulary necessary to name it, they are expressing their sorrow somatically, through their bodies. We all do this, but we rarely do it as singly and clearly as this.

The children who are evincing the multi-system inflammatory syndrome show symptoms like this: heart complications, toxic shock, lower counts of platelets and a type of white blood cell, typical of Covid-19 patients defending against the infection. More of the children needed treatment with steroids in addition to immunoglobulin treatment.

Pam Belluck writes, “The coronavirus has largely spared children. Most confirmed to be infected have had only mild symptoms. But doctors in Europe and the United States have recently reported a troubling new phenomenon: Some children are becoming seriously ill with symptoms that can involve inflammation in the skin, eyes, blood vessels and heart.”

The virus keeps coming. Once again, we are not paying attention. Or, we’re paying some attention, but most often to the wrong things. Just like we have with the environment, worldwide.

Inflammation, from the viewpoint of medical intuition, is most often caused by anger. A specific kind of anger though. Not the cleansing anger that an instantly-transgressed boundary engenders as a sharp, “No!” Instead, this is chronic, low-grade, simmering anger usually stored at the way back of conscious awareness. Inflammation results when chronic anger spikes and boils over.

Think of the helpless anger, the demonstrations, the acting out that we are seeing all over the country. Do you really think that children can’t feel or sense that? Of course they can. And their hearts, or, some of their hearts, and blood vessels, are burning up with it.

They can’t process the rage, not emotionally, so once again they’re doing it somatically. ALL of US do this. We just call it different things.

Partners who are more adept emotionally call it “doing all the emotional work.” Co-workers tell each other that a Monday-morning unhappy boss is to be expected — she’s in the middle of an ugly divorce. Even pets act out the emotions of those to whom they are most connected. Believe it or not, plants, too.

Like it, don’t like it. So sorry. WE ARE ALL CONNECTED, and until we acknowledge that Truth and own it and behave like everyone matters, the virus will keep coming.

The Trump-Pences quite literally dissed what Dr. Anthony S. Fauci had to say in his Senate committee testimony. Here are some of his wise words about reopening school in the fall. The Denier-in-Chief complained that he didn’t like the answer. [Boo effing hoo.]

“I think we better be careful, if we are not cavalier, in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects,” Dr. Fauci said. “Children in general do much, much better than adults and the elderly and particularly those with underlying conditions. But I am very careful and hopefully humble in knowing that I don’t know everything about this disease. And that’s why I’m very reserved in making broad predictions.”

Of course we all want children to go back to school. When children are in school, their parents can focus on their work, not their children. It’s a necessity. Except … the virus keeps on coming.

“Dr. Katie Schafer, a general pediatrician who has a private practice in Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, said that because there were still many unknowns about the condition, parents of children who have symptoms should take them to pediatricians rather than assuming that a rash or fever or abdominal pain is only a sign of a typical childhood illness. ‘This is presenting very much like a common childhood illness, which it is not,’ she said. ‘This is a novel diagnosis that doesn’t exactly have a name, doesn’t exactly have a timeline, doesn’t exactly have a protocol. We didn’t learn about this in medical school.’”

No matter how much we might want to protect them from the unknown, our children are in the same place we all are. A place where the future is unknown because there’s a relatively unknown variable — a coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician and a professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and she says, “I’m Sick of Asking Children to Be Resilient: It’s time for reparations and resources and to not expect kids to ‘rise above.’” She wrote a heart-breaking essay which I read two days ago that is still haunting me.

“A baby born in Flint, Mich., where I am a pediatrician, is likely to live almost 20 fewer years than a child born elsewhere in the same county. She’s a baby like any other, with wide eyes, a growing brain and a vast, bottomless innocence — too innocent to understand the injustices that without her knowing or choosing have put her at risk.”

“Throughout the United States, geography defines and describes inequities in health, wealth, mobility and longevity.” There is no pattern to the children who are manifesting the multi-symptom inflammatory syndrome. They’re all over the U.S., and all over the world.

Our children are suffering.

Because of our civil wars. The wars of rage all over the world. The wars of helplessness all over the world. The wars of wealth all over the world. The wars of poverty all over the world. The wars of anything-else-you-want-to-put-in-this-slot all over the world. Essentially, because of our you versus me behavior.

The virus keeps coming, and our children are suffering.

Dr. Hanna-Attisha again, “These disparities between neighborhoods are rarely accidental; they are the product of purposeful policies and practices that have widened gaps in income, opportunity and equality.” … “But how long can we ask people born in the wrong ZIP code to ‘rise above’ and persevere in circumstances beyond their control, no matter how central the idea of overcoming is to our archetypal American identity?”

For as long as we refuse to acknowledge that we’re all in this together.

“When Hazim Hardeman, a 2019 Rhodes scholar, was asked about his journey from public housing in North Philadelphia, where many of his friends were shot or stabbed to death, he spoke a truth that we all need to hear: ‘Don’t be happy for me that I overcame these barriers. Be mad as hell that they exist in the first place.’”

Mr. Hardeman gives us a clue to the solution. Humans will rage. Rage is part of the spectrum of emotional well-being. In fact, if you’ll take it back to simply Mad, the purpose of rage becomes crystal clear. Mad is the human ability to say No.

Many of us are upset about the inequities in our country and our world. Are we focusing our Mad where it will do the most good? Where do we need to start to say No, say it loud, and say it proud, and say it repeatedly? It is always true that we must start right where we are.

Dr. Hanna-Attisha again, “Now we’re being ravaged by another preventable public health emergency.” … “As this pandemic makes painfully visible, medicine alone — ventilators, pharmaceuticals, defibrillators, I.C.U.s — will not save us. It’s always an ego-deflating moment for my medical residents when they learn that medical care contributes only 10 percent to 20 percent to positive health outcomes. Our medical interventions are largely reactive measures — and happen too late. Addressing the upstream root causes is the only answer.”

Her recommendations for change are breath-taking; well worth your reading time.

“And to ensure we are moving in the same direction together, the pathogens of divisiveness and bigotry need to be treated as the deadly, life-shortening contagions they truly are. This is how we begin to transform the concept of resilience from an individual trait to one that describes a community — and society — that cares for everyone. Rather than hoping a child is tough enough to endure the insurmountable, we must build resilient places — healthier, safer, more nurturing and just — where all children can thrive. This is where prevention and healing begin.”

So, Beloved, have a look in the mirror. Got rage? Great. Where are you focusing it? Look around at home in your own neighborhood. What’s got your dander up? Taking considered action to assuage anger is a wise, time-tested remedy.

I am in complete agreement with the belated and wondrous Whitney Houston, “I believe the children are our future.” Maybe if we honor our feelings, our children won’t have to do the emotional work for us — and we might all come through this pandemic via civil thoughts, civil words, and civil deeds, and wouldn’t that be a bona fide miracle?

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

© Dr. Susan Corso 2020 All rights reserved.