Should unvaccinated children continue to wear masks?

Fully vaccinated adults are celebrating their new freedom and removing their masks. But for parents with children under the age of 12, the joy may not last long.

Children of that age do not yet have access to the vaccine, so the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it’s best to keep the mask on in public and around people who don’t live with it.

So what? Do “good parents” wear child face shields on playgrounds, barbecues, and play dates and teach them health and safety above all? Or do they mask their children “let them be children”? Is it okay to remove it? What if the children’s circle contains unvamped people at high risk of serious illness? As summer approaches, children’s Parents must face these issues head-on.

As a moral philosopher and bioethicist, I am analyzing the ethical dilemma, and recently I am pondering the ethical dilemma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I have also written about lesser-known areas: ethics and family. In this area, the question is what parents owe their children to, what their children owe to their parents, and what their spouses owe each other. There are several tools in my ethics toolkit that can help with mask issues.

Keep your safety at all costs

There is an ethical view that not only is one driven to do more for the family, but there is a special moral obligation to do more. This special duty arises from the love-loving relationship in which the family stands ideally.

Depending on the explanation, you may even need to do “as much as possible” to keep your loved ones safe as a special duty. Inferring along these lines, one might think that parents are obliged to enact legislation when it comes to masking.

However, a potential obstacle to this idea is that it is incompatible with other decisions people make for their children, such as climbing trees or skiing down slopes. In addition, keeping children safe is complicated. Perhaps it involves protecting the child’s mental health and social development. Masked summer can frustrate such efforts.

Let’s make a child a child

Another idea is that removing the mask to make a child a child is justified. Swiss Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have supported this view. He thought that childhood was valuable in itself and that the best way to raise a child was to grow it naturally.

Too often, parents bring their own “life stage bias” into parenting. This happens when ethical concerns, such as safety, that are prominent at one life stage are generalized and are assumed to be central to all life stages. Of course, children should be kept safe to prepare for adulthood, but preparing for adulthood can crush all other values ​​and keep children away from childhood joy. Must not be.

The point here is that childhood is an irreplaceable experience. For example, childhood friendships are different from those of adults, and childhood play requires the ability of children to become absorbed in a false world and enjoy a radically different world.

The more children miss a healthy childhood experience, the easier they cannot make up for it. For example, having more adult friends cannot make up for the shortage of childhood friends. The window closes.

Whether masking significantly or mildly interferes with childhood enjoyment depends on the child’s age (2-year-olds may have more difficulty than 10-year-olds), activities (when playing mask-wearing dolls). , May be easier than when playing basketball), Aversion to masking (may vary depending on your child’s personality and whether your friends are wearing masks).

Citizen’s responsibility

Of course, another reason children wear masks is to prevent the coronavirus from infecting others. This consideration is invalid, especially if the children’s circle includes people at high risk of serious illness or death from the virus.

For example, if your child’s neighbor is a 5-year-old with Down Syndrome, your best friend has asthma, or you have a family member who is vaccinated but whose immune system is suppressed by drugs or illness, you should wear a mask. .. on. In these situations, it is important for parents to recognize that masking is not what the child wants to do, and that sometimes it is most important to put the health and safety of others first.

Parents who choose to keep their unvaccinated children masked may ask if it helps their children to wear masks as well. Masking with children conveys gratitude and recognition that keeping the mask on is a major requirement for some children. Such a move throws a wrench to celebrate the parents’ own unmasking. However, parents can celebrate later after the child has been vaccinated and at a time when the child can celebrate.

These decisions are difficult for both parents and children, but the good news is that children aged 2 to 11 will probably have access to the vaccine in September.

Parents and caregivers have made many sacrifices to keep their children safe during the pandemic. Summer is usually a free time to play and promises the long-awaited release.

For some families with young children, the masks are removed and they head outdoors to Disney World, where they no longer need masks. For other families, their efforts may seem wasteful if they don’t take the last step and wait a little longer.

Whatever parents decide, they should convey their message in a way that shows their love and support for their children.

This article has been republished by Conversation, an independent non-profit source of news, analysis, and commentary by academic experts under a Creative Commons license.