Coronavirus pandemic may actually be bringing families together.
When Ramona and Mario Singer had a nasty divorce four years ago, no one thought they would even speak again.
Yet now they are sheltering in place at his Florida home with their daughter, looking for all the world like a cozy couple.
Friends whisper that, after two months of quarantine, the “Real Housewives of New York” star might be in love again.
“It’s going pretty well,” she told a reporter last month. “Much better than I anticipated. We’re really bonding.”
Jimmy Fallon also has declared that isolating at home has brought him closer to his wife of 12 years, Nancy Juvonen.
“It’s been very bonding . . . We were like: ‘We actually like each other! We chose well!’”
Such is family life in a global pandemic. The reality is a remarkable repudiation of the gloom and doom pumped out by relationship experts, child shrinks and divorce lawyers.
As if the nuclear family were a malignant threat to health and sanity, they predicted the worst from close confinement: domestic violence, child abuse, “irreversible” damage to intimate relationships, and a divorce epidemic.
But anecdotal evidence is that children are happier, and a lot of families are getting along better than ever. Enforced isolation has brought a newfound appreciation for family life that is the silver lining to this wretched pandemic.
You can see clues in the sales figures; board games like Monopoly selling like hotcakes and a surge in communal sports equipment such as basketball hoops and footballs.
The craze for home baking has sparked a flour shortage. Without easy access to fast food, families are making their own bread and eating meals together, as fresh produce flies off the grocery shelves.
At a time of national crisis, Americans have had to slow down and turn inward, and those lucky enough to live with family are counting their blessings.
A friend from grief group is a gardener and has asked me to help her find some Walla Walla sweet onion sets. NONE to be had, even in Walla Walla! Seems many up here have taken up gardening this year; I’ll dabble in it with my cherry tomato plant.
Excellent idea, but
“DON’T LOOK ETHEL!”
I don’t think gardening was the first thing on the mind of the author of the article
You can certainly see your enthusiasm within the work you write. I have hopes for even more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to say how they believe.