Corona Kids

  

I began my new op-ed column, 'Camino a Ítaca' today with a piece about the plight of kids under the COVID-19 lockdown here in Spain. Click over to the original here. A real-life Jiminy Cricket tale that began its life in the English version below.

The other day my eldest daughter trapped a cricket outside in the patio. My youngest wasn’t as pleased with our new guest and once the necessary scientific observations were made and recorded, we decided to release it in the adarve in front of our house. Just as we were about to set it free in the grass that grows in our street every spring, my youngest paused at the threshold and was hesitant to take that next step and it wasn’t necessarily Jiminy Cricket that made her hesitate.

Like children across the country, it had been more than four weeks since she had actually stepped out of the house. Like her, millions of children have been watching springtime go by through windows and screens. In a country in which more than sixty percent of the population lives in flats, the highest in Europe, it means that many have only seen the sun, the sky and people beyond their immediate family through those same windows and screens.

Spain’s relationship with children has always puzzled me. There are few places in the world that treasure children as they do here. You only have to walk in the streets, when you could of course, to see this. Pedestrian traffic literally stops as people greet their neighbours and in doing so, directly address the children. Children are invited into the public sphere in Spain. In bars and restaurants, people accept them as part of life and the Nordic saying that children should be ‘seen and not heard’ is as inconceivable as wearing socks with sandals.

But the paradox that confuses me as a guiri (read: gringo, farang…) is that while children can be so present in public life that they, or more concretely, their interests, can be so absent from public discourse and policy. Since the constitution, many laws have been passed to protect children, but how many can it be said have been passed that foster their growth?

Think of the soon-to-be eight education laws. Were they designed with the student’s interests in mind or were they designed according to the ideology of the party in power while placating the superstitions of parents? Why has a national pact on education been impossible?

What about when the same children go to University? Are the study plans designed to give them the tools that they need to face the challenges of the future or with the outdated notion that the teachers are givers of all knowledge?

Think of the way labour laws that have evolved over the years. Were they designed to promote easy access to employment for young people or to make life more comfortable for people in their fifties? Parents often lament that their kids have to emigrate in order to find opportunities but how often were they thinking of their own comfort rather than their kids’ future when developing policy?

But perhaps the most glaring example of this failure to consider the needs of children is the government’s reaction to the coronavirus. Once again, the instinct was to shelter and protect but where was the equally important allowance for growth? Neighboring countries realized the fundamental need for this and developed provisions so that children could interact with the world beyond their doorsteps during this crisis. Until Spain realizes that protection is only part of a comprehensive youth policy, like caged crickets, children here can only dream of the green grass outside.