DesignerPrize2

Why would you even put that out into the air? No one is losing a relationship over here. If we disagree forever on this, we can always FaceTime and call. Very unfortunate, yes, if she insists on being so stubborn and willing to put these small inconveniences over seeing her family, but it does not mean we will become estranged.

You have been making the most wisecracks, Wiseman, but I don't believe you cannot see how my daughter is acting selfishly here. She has just moved out. What parent does not want to visit her child, especially after such a big life change? And she won't do this one little thing (just masking outside! Just putting on a mask when she is going up and down her apartment's steps in case someone passes by!) and is ready to throw away seeing us for these small little freedoms. THAT is selfish.

I remember comments from last time saying that washing groceries is useless. Yes, this virus is airborne, but I am all about risk management. If there is still a chance remaining that my family can contract this virus by surface touch, I am willing to take this small burden (washing groceries) to protect myself. Similarly to walking outside, I am willing to pop a mask on to protect myself. We have always washed produce, obviously. But we wash the outside of food containers, and if we are in the car, we bring along baby wipes to wipe down food containers in case we want to snack inside the car. In fact, this is how this whole conversation with our daughter began. We bought some chips inside the store and she just popped hers open and started eating without wiping her hands. And she said she is "not doing that anymore."

We want her to be SAFE. I don't want to see her struggling to breathe on a hospital bed either. I do not want to see her body permanently damaged from Long Covid. Yes, when she is putting herself in risk of these things, I will encourage her to do otherwise.

I was trusting my daughter was still following reasonable precautions so we could safely visit her without a mask. Knowing that now, things are different. So no, we will not loosen up on what has protected us thus far to accommodate her need for freedom or who knows what.

It is not "authoritarian" to ask my daughter to follow reasonable precautions that will continue to keep her safe and us safe when we visit. I am also concerned for my daughter's health. YOUNG PEOPLE STILL DIE AND GET SEVERELY ILL FROM COVID TOO.

Hello all, Not too long ago I posted about my wife and I's conundrum about our children's feelings around our pandemic cautions we are taking. A lot has happened since then. Our daughter has decided to move out sooner than we expected and has been in her place for a week now. As with any child that moves out and as we move closer to the empty nester stage, it is very bittersweet to see her go. However, she has just sprouted something upon us that is leaving us in a very tough place. She moved in at the beginning of this week, and visited us back home this afternoon to say hello, and we all went back to her place this evening to help her shop a bit more and help her install a few more furniture pieces. Once we returned back to her home from shopping, when walking up to her building, my wife, son and I all had masks on, yet she walked back to her place without one. I asked her, "What if someone comes by down the stairs?" She answered, "I'm fine." When we returned inside, I asked her, "When you go in and out your apartment, have you not been wearing masks?" She answered she has not, because it is outside and "transmission is low outside." (Though it is still a POSSIBILITY, and if you are passing someone very close by on the stairs, that airborne virus can still infect you even outside.) She also informed us that when she has been at parks and other places outside, she does not mask, and has also stopped washing her groceries and wearing gloves. She said she will still mask indoors in crowded places, but will stop these other precautions, and already has for a week now. We discussed this last time, and you know how my wife and I feel about this. Not only am I, frankly, very upset that she did at least not give us the grace to inform us of her decisions BEFORE we spent time together UNMASKED with each other, but she is very stubborn about loosening these precautions and refuses to budge. To add salt onto the wound, she flippantly offered that when she visits, if we are uncomfortable, we can all wear masks around each other and she will take a COVID test before she comes over. She even suggested if she visits, we can visit masked-up in a park if "we are so uncomfortable." This is not the way it should be. We should be able to enjoy our daughter's presence in our home without masks. But she has flippantly cast this off, and selfishly is changing the way we can interact with her now. Just because she is grown doesn't mean she knows everything, but it really hurts to see she has decided she can throw caution to the wind and severely limit our interactions with her because she feels she can.