When Do-Overs Get Confusing 

I am a huge fan of the do-over. Parenting do-overs in particular. Do-overs provide us a little extra latitude in our limit setting. Not sure if you should let your kid have a phone? Or a particular app? Questioning whether it’s okay to allow a hangout during the pandemic? Trying to set a bedtime? Or a curfew? If you know you can try it one way and change your mind, you may actually parent more effectively in the long run. And the opposite is also true: if you never screw up a parenting move, if you never go too far with a limit before you realize you should rein things in, then at least some of the time you probably haven’t gone far enough. I am not suggesting that every rule become liquid, but we really should lean-in hard to the notion of do-overs because they give us permission to parent the way it feels best to each of us, knowing that we can dial back or change a rule – and when we do, we often go easier on our own parenting selves and perhaps better yet, we back off of judging other’s parenting choices as well.

Now all that said, this philosophy does not extend as gracefully to institutions. The CDC took a pair of do-overs this past week regarding COVID testing. Here’s a summary of the CDC flip-flop, and here’s a deeper dive that gets into why the semantics might not matter anyhow. If you love hearing explanations right from Dr. Fauci (I do!), then watch Sanjay Gupta’s interview with Fauci from earlier this week (and go to minute 11:19 if you want to skip to the CDC aerosol language debate from Fauci’s POV). 

From a conversation between two doctors to a broader sweeping view of the doctor experience in general: being a doctor during COVID is, at times, indescribably difficult. This August survey of docs across the US tells a story of despondence. Just two of the alarming statistics: 50% of physicians have experienced inappropriate anger, tearfulness, or anxiety as a result of COVID, with 8% having had thoughts of self-harm; and 37% of physicians would like to retire in the next year. But on the heels of what looks like very damning – if not downright scary –pandemic-driven data, medical school applications just hit a new high on account of the same.

Here’s a fantastic – and brief – update on the 7 coronavirus vaccines furthest along in development. And here’s what’s happening on the pediatric vaccine front: essentially nothing. It’s a big deal that no vaccine studies of kids have begun, and this may predict an even slower return to full time in-person school.

There is a science to fashion… or in the case of this article, a science to the impact of the clothes you throw on for Zooms.

There is also a ton of science behind mental health advice. One of the very best communicators on this front is Lisa Damour, a psychologist like no other I know. She wrote the girl parenting bibles Untangled and Under Pressure. Now she’s got a podcast, Ask Lisa, that I can’t stop listening to!

And finally, I cannot publish this newsletter without a tribute to RBG. Last Friday afternoon, within 60 seconds of receiving my news alert of her passing, I went into my daughter’s room to break the news. I found her standing in the middle of the room, dripping wet having just gotten out of the shower, sobbing. We cried together for a while, and then we spent the weekend talking about how both of our generations can – and must – carry on her legacy. There are so many incredible RBG-related articles to read (starting with this one), shows and movies to watch, but this piece – May Every Woman Find her Marty Ginsburg – jumped out at me because it honored her legacy in a slightly different way: in order for women to become true equals, we must all lift each other up. Ruth and Marty did that, mutually, for one another. Now that’s evolved.

It’s a meme and an amazing story… A scientist being interviewed on CNN from two very different perspectives. Love her for posting this! Feels like we should all lift the veil.