“I have [three] young kids. My wife and I are not going to do the mask with the kids. We never have; we won’t. I want to see my kids smiling. I want them having fun,” he said.
Oh, please! Give me a break! The kids are doing just fine with masks, from what I’ve seen. I would argue that kids wearing masks are smiling and having fun.
The quote above is from Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who is seeking reelection next year and has been positioning himself nationally for a possible 2024 presidential bid.
The governor recently barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks. This means that schools can’t tell students to wear masks, even if they think if safer and even as it has been shown that, other than vaccination, masks are very effective at preventing the spread of COVID. This is critical, as kids under 12 aren’t eligible to be vaccinated and many older than 12 have been slow to get the vaccine and as the Delta variant is super contagious.
As I’ve written here before, I have seen many kids, including young children, out and about wearing masks. They aren’t whining or pulling at the masks, unlike with many adults. They are just going along, walking, running, skipping, talking excitedly, skipping, doing whatever they do – with masks on. It could be that some are making a game of it, as in cosplay. Whatever the case, they are modeling not making a big deal out of having to wear masks and how to take care of one another.
Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis and others like him continue to insist that freedom and library, that personal responsibility and not being told what to do are more important than keeping people healthy and not getting terribly sick and dying. Never mind that one in five U.S COVID cases are now in Florida, that cases there have doubled there in the last week, with hospitals again being swamped with COVID patients.
Maybe Governor DeSantis should listen to his kids.
If we all could learn to play like children, rather than the adult mentality, and more importantly, as a politician, learn to be honest like children. My take is that the world could use a child mentality. One which see the world in a true light, and throws no punches at the power trip most adults seem to tread. The empathy and compassion would come back to continuing to play with integrity and not work with hypocrisy.
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