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One Door Down : Profiles from a New York City Apartment Building During the COVID-19 Pandemic Main Menu About Our Profiles George and Kathy Profile Sonia and Paul Profile Mary Profile Leeat and Uwvie Profile Jo Profile Tyler Profile Methodology and Background

Paul and Sonia Discuss The Difficulties Of Being Parents During The Pandemic Transcript

Tyler: When you had a kid in May 2018 I’m sure that the idea of the world that he was coming into looked much different than like what it is now.

Sonia: There were many times during the course of the pandemic where I thought to myself “If I had known what was coming, I would have opted out.” …. It was really hard for a long time.

Paul: Yeah… Well, I think one of the things was right now in New York it’s me and Sonia and our child. My family is only a state away, but I would say yanno, since the pandemic it’s truly been just us in New York. My family would visit once in a while beforehand, we would make trips down to Sonia’s mom’s. And all that, faded away with the beginning of the pandemic

Sonia: It was such a big shift for the little kids too, he was in daycare part time, he was going like two days a week, and, not only did, that just stop all of a sudden but we also got sick in the very beginning. So, there was, n-not only no going to daycare there was no leaving the apartment, there was no… playing with friends even, it was just the three of us.

Paul: Mhm.

Sonia: Um, I got very sick which, there was literally maybe like an hour where we realized that I had COVID and we were like ”should I try to isolate?” and it just became immediately clear it wasn’t going to happen ‘cuz seeing me that way… scared him. And to have the door between us, he couldn’t handle it, he-he couldn’t be away from me. And I think the combination of seeing me sick with everything being weird and him not understanding why things were the way they were… talked to a lot of other parents who-who’ve said the same thing, “it was like going through the newborn stage again.” where he had to physically be on me all the time. It was… really, intense. I had literally no personal space for weeks. And I remember just feeling so touched out… It was really hard and of course being sick while all that was happening too, didn’t make things easier. And then finally we all got better, the weather started getting nicer, people started leaving the house a little bit, we get to go on walks and stuff, but the, the playground was closed, yanno? We bring our kid to the playground practically every day. And would take him outside, yanno get him some fresh air, get him to move around… and even at two he was just like “why are we doing this?” Why are we just taking these meaningless walks around, yanno we-we couldn’t see friends, um we couldn’t go to the playground we were just taking these totally meaningless walks around the block just for the sake of, being outside. And, the day that the playground opened back up again, I think it was June, we were literally the first people there. I could not wait to go there. (Paul laughs) It was 8 AM that the park opened; we are not out of the house at 8AM on most days. (Tyler and Sonia laugh) Like we were there at like 8:05, we ran in!

Tyler: You were getting’ there.

Sonia: And he was so happy but like I was so happy too because it was the first like return to normalcy…

Paul: Mhm.

Tyler: Yeah.

Sonia: at that point for-for both of us… um…. Shockingly meaningful moment… (laughs)

Tyler: Yeah.

Sonia: The opening of the playground! (laughs) Yeah, uh, and then he, went back to daycare when I went back to work, which was August. I think for him, things were probably mostly back to normal. The thing that wasn’t happening for a while and-and still is very rare is the play date we don’t you know no one like goes to each other’s houses anymore.

Tyler: Yeah.

Sonia: You know, it’s-uh, I could proba-I’m pretty sure I could count on one hand the number of like friends he’s had over to our apartment in the last two years… Yeah.

Tyler: How does that make you feel?

Sonia: Sad. I miss it, yanno? Um, it’s like this totally normal thing that you took for granted before. You go to someone’s house… (Paul: Mhm) Let’s go over our- we’ll go do play date at my place… Let’s go to your place… Now you have to really think about it before you, like is this a person that I trust, or did they go on vacation recently or something like that, yanno?

Paul: So he is at daycare and the daycare, is with fewer people but that still exists and, he still goes to the playground but there’s like a fraction of whatever events that he would be going to, or could be going to. So that’s a huge thing of it, there’s no “hey let’s go to the street fair.” We don’t go out to like restaurants, or at least not right now. We-we did once in a while, during the summer, because you can sit outside. He loves going to like, diners, and we don’t do that, anymore.

Sonia: He’s-he’s going to be going to some birthday parties, in the next couple months. And, I don’t know if you knew that. (Laughs)

Paul: I did not. (Sonia laughs.)

Tyler: Now, now ya do. (Laughs)

Sonia: Because, um all the like, mom friends I made in the neighborhood we all had babies at the same time so it’s like everyone’s going to be turning four between the end of March and the end of June. So…

Tyler: Yeah.

Sonia: So um, yanno starting to get like the birthday party invites and just being like “Okay we’re, we’re gonna go to the indoor play-space, were gonna, were gonna do this.”

Paul: Indoor play-space?

Sonia: Yeah!

Paul: Oh man.

Sonia: It’s March, dude! (Sonia and Tyler laugh)

Tyler: It’s cold outside!

Paul: Get some heat lamps!

Sonia: Part of me is like “uhhh,” and then part of me is like “no. We have to do this, it’s-it’s time to go to birthday parties again.”

Paul: I guess.

Sonia: I guess. (laughs)

Paul: Just as long as there’s no ball-pits involved I think it’s okay.

Sonia: No ball pit? Why no ball-pit?

Paul: Like the Chuck E. Cheese ball pits.

Sonia: Why?

Paul: What do you mean “why”? It’s like full of germs!

Tyler: A petri dish.

Paul: Yeah!

Sonia: I took him to the one at Peekaboo like multiple times.

Paul: Oh man, you’ll have to give him a bath in sanitizer after. (Sonia laughs)

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Sonia and Paul Sonia and Paul moved into the building in March 2019, Sonia having lived in the same apartment for 14 years prior to that. The move, in part because of the birth of their son ten months prior, was made amidst a flurry of other achievements they had been making; the month before, Paul opened a board game store a few blocks from home, while Sonia had decided to go back to school at LaGuardia Community College in Fall 2018. Having been a self-employed massage therapist since 2004, her years-long plan to switch careers came to fruition in part because of the enticing nature of benefits, and so she began studying nursing.

The difference between the first few months of 2019, and those of 2020, could not be starker. Early on in the pandemic, the entire family came down with COVID-19, Sonia becoming particularly sick. When Paul was able to return to the store, he immediately noticed that at times, there would be nobody on the sidewalks, nor were there cars driving down the street. None. When Sonia resumed her practice, her clients that worked in Manhattan would tell her about how eerily quiet and empty the city was.

With less people out and about, at least without specific reason, many small businesses faced hard times throughout the pandemic, and continue to. For Paul's store, though, the impact has not been as severe. Board games became a medium through which people within the same household could gather together to be social together. In a time where there was minimal ability to do anything outside the house, gaming, for some, was a key element in making it through the pandemic.

In this clip, Paul discusses his view on how the pandemic impacted the gaming community in particular, and how his store served as a meeting ground for people who didn’t have another outlet for their hobby during the pandemic. Sonia talks about her part-time work as a cashier in the store, the people she encountered, and the conversations she had with them about how gaming has helped them get through it.


Transcript

The continued success of the store throughout the pandemic did nothing to lessen the unpredictable nature of changing guidelines and requirements, which posed to Paul the question of how stringently he should abide by them. To take a lax approach was to allow people in your store who should not otherwise be there by virtue of their inability to abide by masking or vaccination status guidelines, potentially putting your employees and other customers at risk, or draw the ire of that faction of the community by being firm in his resolve to maintain protocols.

In this clip, Paul and Sonia recall how he came to own the store, and then delve into what it was like making the decision to maintain a stricter environment for his patrons relative to COVID protocols, the lasting impact that the pandemic will have on the store, and the continuing need to be flexible in adapting to guidelines.


Transcript

Sonia and Paul realize that their son does not remember the world before COVID; everything we’ve adopted during the pandemic, masking, social distancing, less social occasions, is second nature to not only him but all of those who were born around the same time.

In the clip below, Paul and Sonia discuss the difficulties that the pandemic posed to them as parents. They also talk about the gradual return to normalcy that they experienced after COVID’s height, the particular meaningfulness behind the reopening to the playground a block away from their home, and the isolated nature of childhood in a time without play dates and minimal social occasions.


Transcript

Omicron tore through their son's daycare, which led to him staying home for a few weeks. During this time, it became clear that COVID was something that had become personal to him. Sonia and Paul had a discussion with him explaining how the virus had been making people sick for about two years, and that it had now made the people in his daycare sick, and that that was why he would not be able to see them for a while; he understood.

One thing that they noticed, venturing back out, is that he is absolutely obsessed with public transportation. Sonia had intentionally wanted to ease her son into everyday experiences, and so when comfortable enough to start using the buses and subways again, they did. They know that if the monotony of taking the subway into the city, or the bus across Queens, had been there the entire time, he would be bored of it by now. Even though they never really used public transportation, as they worked close to home, they have made the effort to do so for him.

The prospect of seeing family again is not just an exciting one for Paul and Sonia, but one that they feel is needed. They look forward to resuming their trips to Sonia’s mother’s house, and having Paul's parents come to visit them in New York. They had sometimes gone to the beach in Delaware, and did so again during the pandemic, having arrived just before the Delta variant was announced. “Oh, shit.” Was the natural response.

Paul, out of an abundance of caution, will not be boarding a plane anytime soon, so the beach will likely be their next destination. While Sonia loves the beach itself, Paul prefers playing games on the boardwalk; he claims to gives away a lot stuffed animals.

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