Audio & Video Recording (16:15 minutes)
Polly: Hi, I’m Polly and I am doing a blog on adolescent resilience for my English 537 class, Social Media for Professional Communicators. My blog is mostly about my daughter Molly, who is 13, and how she has handled being a kid during the pandemic. Today I am interviewing my sons, Molly’s brother’s Teddy and Sam. Teddy is 27 and he’s a PhD student who lives in Philly with his fiancé Kaitlyn and their Chiweenie Lucy. Sam is 24 and he’s a cook who is heading back to Germany next Sunday after spending four months at home unemployed because Germany shut down their economy and Sam was sent home. As you can see Teddy and Sam are quite a bit older than Molly and I want to hear from them how they think Molly is doing social distancing, distance learning for 7th grade, and just generally during the pandemic.
Teddy, you’ve spent about four months during the summer and over Christmas with Molly at home in Minnesota. What do you think her greatest strength is in how she has handled life during the pandemic? Can you give me some examples?
Teddy: Sure. I think her greatest strength is flexibility. I think, obviously, not only do you have to be flexible to adapt to the new circumstances and everything, but I think it’s flexibility mixed with some optimism too. Because I think that as much as the pandemic means giving up a lot of things, and you cannot do things, it also means that you do have some new opportunities like spending lots of time with your family. Well, obviously, sometimes that can be a bad thing, but I think she has made the best of it. Then it means also doing school from home. It means you have a more flexible routine and I think she appreciates that for the most part. You have more freedom when you’re doing school from home. So, I would say her flexibility mixed with seeing her being optimistic enough to see this not just as these are the things I can’t do, but these are the things that, actually, because things have changed, I can enjoy and I think that it’s very mature of her and kind of almost adult-like because, well, not all adults behave this way, unfortunately. But I think I feel this way having worked from home the entire pandemic, and having Kaitlyn work from home as well, that you have to give up things but it can come with some advantages to balance those out. Having a positive outlook, I think, is important and that’s what I think is Molly’s biggest strength.
Polly: Thank you. Sam, you have lived most of Molly’s life with her except for a summer when you lived in Philly with Teddy and then you were gone from December 2019 for about a year returning home at the end of November 2020. What was the first difference you noticed about Molly from what you remembered about her before you left? Do you think she changed a lot? In what ways?
Sam: Yes. Definitely she’s changed a lot. That was a big surprise my first time seeing her. Like how much she had grown, I’d say, I swear she’s at least six or seven inches taller than when I left for Germany. It’s crazy because when I left, she was still like a little kid to me. She was playing with dolls and I came home and she’s into doing makeup now and she’s really into computer games, and it’s great seeing her do all her online classes. It’s kind of crazy how fast she grew up. I think having the pandemic helped her with some of that. It’s forced her to get more into it and it’s good seeing her—even though she can’t see her friends directly—play video games with them. It’s cool to see how much more grown-up she is. She is a human being and she’s got more of an attitude than she used to.
Polly: You can say that again.
Sam: Yeah. And it’s been great seeing how much she’s grown up and changed. She’s becoming like an adult.
Polly: A person. She was our baby for so long.
Sam: Yeah. She’s like a young woman.
Polly: Teddy, you are on some of the same social media platforms that Molly is on. How do you think she uses social media, FaceTime, etc. to keep in touch with friends and family? Do you think it is an effective way of connecting?
Teddy: To answer briefly, for instance Snapchat, it’s not like I spend tons of time in contact with Molly on Snapchat or any one platform but it’s across lots of things. That is the amazing thing about social media. People go on about social media and blah, blah, blah, and how it’s bad and everything but having so many options is great because not only do they offer different ways of connecting, but I think that it offers almost a more holistic experience. It’s not just talking on the phone, it’s not just Facetiming, it’s also sharing. I think probably what we do the most is Snapchat, which allows you to send a literal snapshots of your life. It’d be of things that are almost too insignificant to even send a picture of because a picture is permanent. But it’s little things like a cute picture of Lucy or stuff that I bake or something. I think that allows you to share, because obviously you can’t just pick up the phone every time you have something to tell someone. Unlike you do sometimes, Mom. Yeah. So, I would say, Molly’s very creative about that and I think I see her doing stuff on Instagram with her friends. I think she’s somebody that—I’m not involved in, but I’ve experienced from afar—is involved in TikTok. She gets really into that and Kaitlyn has recently gotten into that too. That offers a lot of… and I’m surprised by this, social media sometimes get her involved with information. I think for the younger generation that’s much savvier about it, I think it offers huge learning opportunities. It seems like she learns so much from it.
Polly: Social justice? And the election?
Teddy: Yeah. Coronavirus, that kind of thing.
Sam: So, a lot of the videos that I watch that’s how I’ve learned a lot of stuff and that’s just like from YouTube. So, it’s like a type of social media, but yeah.
Polly: Yeah. Oh, she’s funny with the TikToks. Sam, for the past few months you have spent your days at home with Molly and me as she learns and I work from home and do my graduate studies. What do you think about Molly’s learning environment? What are some pros and cons about learning at home? Do you think she is thriving? And once again, you touched on this a little bit, but if you can talk about her bedroom and do you think it’s a good learning environment?
Sam: Yeah. I think it’s really cool they allow the kids to learn at home with the pandemic going on. It’s great that is an option for kids. I think Molly is doing pretty well, it seems. I know sometimes she struggles to pay attention, but I have to say I think she does a much better job than I would’ve done doing distance learning. I know I would have completely slacked off. She does her stuff and it’s interesting seeing when there’s no direct motivation from peers and the teacher being in the room with you. She’s still gets the stuff done.
Polly: Yeah. I agree. She does her homework on the weekends.
Sam: Yeah, I remember on a Saturday I asked her do you want to do something and she said I am doing homework right now. I think her room and the fact that she’s been able to customize it so much… she has all her chairs and a computer and stuff. I think that makes it a great learning environment. It’s nice that Poppy, the cat, hangs out in there a lot. With having the absence of an actual school, it’s kind of like it’s the next best thing, I guess. She gets to learn all these things still, and she still talks to her friends, and it’s as close as you can be without actually being there. I think she’s been doing a good job of handling it.
Polly: Thank you. Teddy, you recently told me that one of the things you miss most about your pre-COVID life was traveling with Molly and me. Where do you think we will travel first when we can? And do you have any idea when that will be? Thinking about our travels, do you think that helps sustain Molly with all the traveling she did in her in her first 12 years of life so that she could stay home, and make the sacrifices for just one year? And if so, how do you think that helped?
Teddy: Yeah. I think well, obviously I have no idea when we’ll be able to travel soon. I am hopefully optimistically maybe late summer, early fall, who knows. But I think COVID will come back during the winter, so it’s going to be tough. But hopefully where I would like to go is to visit Sam in Germany. Now that’s high on my to-do list. It would be great to do together. I think it would also be fun for us to go to Italy again together. That would be lots of fun. I think to answer your final question about how traveling sustains you both in its absence and memories, I think it’s hard. Obviously, you are giving something up but it is something completely outside of your control. It’s not like you could go try. It’s not like I’ll just take some risks and go travel to Europe. It’s like you can’t get in. So, part of that makes it easier, but I think that thinking about all that stuff and everything, it gives you a lot of… when you have those memories, I think it makes you think more about what you could be doing and everything. It’s not just like I want to get back to my immediate routine of going to restaurants, getting my hair cut. I think it’s much more like I would like to have really cool opportunities again and everything. No amount of eating out or the little things in life really substitute for that. So, I think that it’s good to have some memories to kind of think about that stuff. I know it’s sustained me as much as it is kind of bitter-sweet thinking about it. It’s cool to have such memories. And I think that she’s at kind of a unique stage to where I think that it would be easy for a kid her age to take it for granted, especially because she’s been doing it since she was literally a baby. But I think that not being able to do it, I think that throws more light on it. I know she’s talked about it’d be great to go to an art museum again, you know, I never thought I’d missed that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think that the memories are important and I think it helps to have a bigger scope of what’s going on in the world and everything, and also what we are giving up, and what we can do.
Polly: Thank you. Sam, when you are back in Germany, what will you miss most about living with Molly during the pandemic isolation? Do you think she will change much while you’re gone? If so, how?
Sam: Yeah. I think she’ll change quite a bit. I think the thing I will miss the most is her sense of independence. I’ll come upstairs and she’s just doing some experiment or doing something on the counter and I’ll ask her, did you ask mom, and she says, no. I just think that’s funny that she’s just so independent, just full of life, and it’s great to see that. It’s been a treat to watch her grow up and see her become who she is. I think she’ll just become more adult-like as time goes on. I know it’s kind of sad for me sometimes. Well, it’s like she is getting older but I mean, I still see her as a little kid because she’s my little sister.
Polly: Thank you, both. Even though there is an age difference and most of the time you do not live together, you’ve managed to remain close to one another. What do you think the one thing is that keeps you tied to each other?
Sam: I think one thing is that we all enjoy being adventurous to some extent. I think we like being able to go out and do stuff together. I think that’s been it especially now later on, Teddy and I like being able to travel together and stuff. It has been a great thing and it helps getting to experience all that stuff together. It’s a good binding thing.
Teddy: Yeah, I was going to basically say the same thing. Having common interests is really nice. Obviously, not everyone has the same interests. But I think that especially when you have three siblings and they’re like very different ages and everything, I think we all play off each other in terms of, you know, Sam and I are really into biking and camping and that kind of stuff. And Molly has displayed some interest in that. Molly and I were into skiing and Sam got into that too. I think we can come together over common interests and also kind of develop interests with each other, which is great.
Polly: Yeah, I’m proud of all three of you and I want to thank you both for taking the time. I appreciate it. As you know, this is recording and I will put the recording and the transcript on my blog about Molly. So, thank you and have a great day.
Teddy: You too.
Sam: Love you.
Polly: Love you too. Bye-bye.