‘Pandemials’: the generation that learned to adapt

Maria, her mother, says that although in those weeks Ana could play and enjoy that her parents were teleworking at home, she also developed some fears. At the beginning of the pandemic he feared “that Italy was left without Italians” and, above all, “that their grandparents got bad of Coronavirus.” Five years later, they still remember how in the first 15 days of alarmAna took the account – mentally and silently – from the time missing to leave home. On the 12th he surprised his parents when he exclaimed: “There are only two and a half days left!” But the extension of confinement frustrated their expectations. He also made Paula’s plans staggered, today University, to which the pandemic took the fourth of ESO. In full adolescence. «I was very close to my friends and told us that we had to isolate ourselves was very hard. We lived to see each other every day», Recalls this young Madrid.

The social ‘trauma’ is the first thing that comes to mind when it moves to those weeks. However, he also recognizes that they began to assault him deeper fears that “kept him in candle.” «I didn’t quite understand to what extent we could arrive, what were going to be the real consequences of pandemic», Confesses. According to a study published yesterday by the Carlos III Health Institute, it was precisely young people as Paula – along with women and people with less economic resources – those who lived with greater discomfort those moments of health crisis.

Another cerebral storm

“For teenagers it was a very delicate stage in which there is already a cerebral storm,” says Mercedes Bermejo, which is a member of the Official College of Psychology of Madrid. The confinement at home, he says, interrupted for them a stage that is key to the construction of identity, in which their great referents are no longer the parents, but their peers. “I missed human contact, although I also remember uncertainty with studies, because it was the last year before high school,” says Paula. There are several investigations that have addressed the academic consequences that pandemic had in adolescents and how they developed learning difficulties product of anxiety and the rupture of routines.

However, the young woman who has spoken ABC is convinced that the coronavirus changed to his generation “for good”: «You should never give anything for granted and your whole world can change in just a few days. I think we learned to adapt to what could come and we will always take it with us, ”this university is optimistic. Will the so -called ‘pandemials’ make history?

A lot has been written about the Sputnik generation, Americans who reached the age of majority when Russia had taken the lead to Americans in the space race. “Those young people grew as a proud, ambitious generation, and with a self -confidence that managed to reverse the advantage and ended up taking man to the moon,” explains Iñaki Ortega, a doctor in economics and specialist in the generational study. Sometimes, Ortega says, adverse circumstances become an superb opportunity as happened with the generation of 98 or with the Spanish postwar children: «Grew in misery and the need made them hostile, sacrificed and workers ». In this sense, he says that pandemic «forced children and adolescents to transform, to adapt to a new context. Experience will help them to fit vital revolutions, future earthquakes, great crises ». However, in his opinion, the Coronavirus also left in the minors a scar that perhaps does not erase so fast.

Of the exception, norm

As Ortega has investigated, many young people have disabled the importance of personal relationships in the private sphere and in work. “They have granted the exception the category of standard.” However, he says, obvious that the majority of the companies have reversed in teleworking because it injures business performance. In the field of social relations, a large percentage of adolescents remain anchored to a way of socializing closely to video games and social networks “of unpredictable consequences if they are not balanced with other traditional forms of leisure.”

Were adolescents, then, the worst unemployed? And the children, like Ana, who were installed the fear of infected? Have the babies who came to the world be marked in the weeks of confinement?

According to the psychologist Mercedes Bermejo, the children of Infant and Primary lived a confinement «Without much clarity, although with the feeling of danger». However, he assures that in the consultation they witnessed how the children of these ages had greater irritability and regression of some behaviors, such as those who suck their finger or needed to need a diaper. “Fear could arise from changes in habits, such as moving from a stage in which everyone asked for kisses, that it could be dangerous to hug grandparents and avoid physical contact,” Bermejo exemplifies.

As for babies born at that time, this professional indicates that we cannot forget that they are still “emotional sponges” and that in those first years of life is when affective ties are built, which is called safe attachment. The newborns, he says, are extremely sensitive to the emotional state of their caregivers. Therefore, in an environment of constant stress, anxiety or depression, as parents could suffer then, it could be normal for babies to experience sleep difficulties or food problems, even if they had a great ability to adapt. In addition, this psychologist remembers – from the point of view of the parents – that pregnancy and childbirth are moments of a great emotional burden.

That lived in the first person Lara, who left accounts just the day Sánchez declared the state of alarm. «I gave birth to Gabriel on March 17 and the truth is that it was a very intense moment, which I lived with a lot of anguish. To the uncertainty that the pandemic brought was linked to the hormonal bomb of a pregnancy, ”recalls this mother of two children, who was going to be first. He then opened a blog on the Internet to help other girls who were going through the same as her. «I remember that I was impressed to see the military surrounding the hospital, but it is true that I was lucky to give birth without a mask. There were many women who had to put it during childbirth and go through that moment alone, without the company of their partners. It was tremendous, ”says this Asturian, who struggled to solve doubts about other pregnant women and created a great community in full health crisis.

Without direct help

Two days after Gabriel was born, they were sent home, as this Asturian defines, “Superprimerizos.” They could not count on the direct help of their relatives and even had the first pediatric revision telematically. «I had problems with breastfeeding, that in a normal situation I would not have worried us so much. My husband and I realized that the child did not stain the diaper, but everything was complicated because at first, they could not attend us in person ». The good thing, says this mother, is that the extreme hygienic measures that still existed when they led him to the nursery caused “not to take a cold.”

Gabriel met many of the most important people in his life through the mobile phone or even from the window of his house. His fifth birthday, in which they will all be, will be very different.