The Young and the Restless Children, teens, and their parents from all across the D.C. area comment on the state of their strange new worlds and how they're spending time at home. By Kayla Randall Photographs by Darrow Montgomery
Rose Shafer on Zoom
For many Washingtonians, Friday, March 13, was the last day—the last day of physically going to work or school and the last day anything felt remotely close to normal before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus that has ravaged the United States and the world changed the way we do almost everything. For many young people used to daily routines, stability is gone. It’s been replaced by jumbled schedules, missed milestones, poor sleep and eating patterns, glitchy technology, and a lack of typical social interaction with teachers and friends. City Paper spoke to children and teens, and their parents, from all across the D.C. area to see how they’ve been handling the COVID-19 crisis at home in their new realities since that day. March 13 was Rose Shafer’s last day of physically going to Yorktown High School, where she
is a senior. Since then, she, like most other children and teens, has been doing school work online and staying home. Shafer, who interned at City Paper in the summer of 2018, has found that her final high school semester has come to an abrupt, unceremonious, and chaotic end. In May, she’ll turn 18 and head to college at William & Mary in the fall. “I’m torn between wanting to make the world a better place and wanting to do a job that won’t kill me, so I don’t know what to major in,” she says. “I’m probably going to double major.” She could see herself working in a garden or greenhouse, or perhaps at a nature center where she can spray mist on little frogs. At this point, she just hopes that there will be a fall and that college will still be a thing then. “I’m not usually an anxious person but the
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anxiety is kind of inescapable,” she says. “I’m in a constant back and forth between trying to stay informed and having to turn off the news because it makes me feel actually sick. I’m just doing what I can by donating to my local food bank and stuff; otherwise, I’ve been trying to avoid the internet and read all the unread books that haunt my shelf.” There will be no prom or graduation ceremony for her senior class, nor will there be senior experience, a program that would have her do real-world work for school credit. She says she’s just fine with missing the large formal social events, but she is sad about losing out on senior experience. However, she “can’t find room to complain or feel seriously upset about it” while people are dying, she says. Her school has informed her that she’s basically already graduated. Her online school
work can be done at her leisure she says, because “due dates are social constructs at this point.” Teachers aren’t giving tests, but rather assignments that receive a complete or incomplete. She’s also working at her local cemetery for a few hours on most weekdays, where she pulls weeds, mows the lawns, and tends to the rose garden. She says she barely has to interact with people (and stays at least six feet away when she does) and regularly cleans equipment. The property contains more than 75 species of trees, she says, and they’re “all iconic and blossoming right now.” For fun, she reads, works on puzzles with her family, and takes walks around the neighborhood “photographing the exotic flora and fauna of North Arlington.” She also has weekly oboe lessons via Zoom. Sometimes the stream crashes or glitches while she’s playing.