I get to get a shot!

There are many times when the words and actions of children leave me humbled and convicted.  In the most important ways, I find that kids are generally better than adults, living with more kindness, more affection, more abandon, and more genuine truth than those making the rules around them.  Sadly, it’s usually those making the rules that design a system that reduces or inhibits all those amazingly beautiful qualities.  Yesterday, when I shared with our boys that a vaccine for them was finally ready, my youngest yelled out “I get to get a shot!”  Our oldest grabbed a stuffie and just hugged it with a grin.  I was speechless.  There are adults still angry with our school board for requiring masks and my kids are excited to get poked in the arm to keep other people safe.  When I told them today that I had vaccination appointments for them this weekend, they were exuberant.  After my oldest asked if I had managed to secure an appointment for the second vaccine, I myself felt exuberant.  Not only did they want to try and help once, they wanted to help twice.  In the beginning of the vaccination trials, our oldest was very nervous.  I shared with him about the history of vaccines, how they have saved people, and the sacrifices made in generations prior so that children like him could live.  Getting vaccinated now is doing for future families what our ancestors did for us.  If we’re able to help less people become ill, then it is good and worthy to try.  We talked about how sometimes, many times, doing the right thing is not easy or comfortable.  Though this pandemic, in my opinion, has traumatized a generation of children globally, it has provided an unexpected opportunity.  My young kids feel like they’re part of something mighty.  When you’re little, you don’t often get to do great things.  Getting vaccinated is a great thing that results in great things.  They feel like they’re part of their scientist superhero’s work and other amazing pioneers.  In this rare moment in time, two kids can do something that might literally keep someone else alive.  Not only do they want to do this important work, it no longer occurs to them to ask whether this is the right choice.