{"id":148684,"date":"2021-09-27T10:38:27","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T20:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=148684"},"modified":"2021-09-27T10:38:27","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T20:38:27","slug":"parenting-in-the-pandemic-uh-manoa-scholar-lipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/09\/27\/parenting-in-the-pandemic-uh-manoa-scholar-lipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Parenting in the Pandemic: <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa scholar Punihei Lipe"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_39019\"  width=\"620\" height=\"349\"  data-origwidth=\"620\" data-origheight=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A6k1_H15SXc?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"Tough Decisions: Parenting in the Pandemic\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n<p><em>This article by Native Hawaiian Affairs Program Officer at the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa <strong>Kaiwipunikauikaw\u0113kiu Punihei Lipe<\/strong> was first published in <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/kawaiola.news\/mauliola\/covid-19\/parenting-in-the-pandemic\/\">Ka Wai Ola<\/a><\/em> on September 23.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s tough being a parent during this pandemic! There\u2019s so much to consider to protect our keiki, ourselves and our k\u016bpuna. These are some of the strategies we\u2019ve been using to do our best to stay safe:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_102485\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-102485\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/manoa-hawaiian-first-fridays.jpg\" alt=\"Lipe headshot\" width=\"250\" height=\"350\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/manoa-hawaiian-first-fridays.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/manoa-hawaiian-first-fridays-93x130.jpg 93w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/manoa-hawaiian-first-fridays-214x300.jpg 214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-102485\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiwipunikauikaw\u0113kiu Lipe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>All those eligible have gotten vaccinated<\/h2>\n<p>I\u2019m not saying that this is for everyone; it\u2019s just what our &#699;ohana chose. And it wasn\u2019t an easy decision. My parents got vaccinated as soon as they could, but my husband and I were a little hesitant. In fact, I\u2019m a bit vaccination-weary most of the time. The hardest decision we had to make was whether or not to vaccinate our 14-year-old daughter. Ugh, talk about a stressful situation!<\/p>\n<p>We eventually decided to vaccinate her because it is a layer of protection and minimizes the possibility of her getting extremely sick and passing it on to others in our household, including our son who is too young to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n<h2>Masks, masks, and masks<\/h2>\n<p>We are a fairly hardcore mask-wearing &#699;ohana. We wear masks to visit family and friends\u2014even when they look at us like we are crazy. Our kids wear masks to play sports even if none of the other kids are wearing them.<\/p>\n<p>But I\u2019ll be honest, we got a little tired. The constant stares and the &ldquo;Stop being so nervous, you can take off your mask with us!&rdquo; comments wore us down. But with the unprecedented rise in numbers and the Delta variant, we realized we had to re-commit. We sat everyone down in our house and we said, &ldquo;We don\u2019t care who it is. If you are around someone outside of our household, you WILL WEAR A MASK. That includes when you go see T\u016bt\u016b or Grandpa.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, I had to reach out to our loved ones and tell them, &ldquo;Please don\u2019t take this personally, but we are going to wear masks every time we see you and we would appreciate it if you do the same. Please know this has nothing to do with us trusting you or you trusting us. We just don\u2019t want anyone to get sick.&rdquo; Those initial conversations were a little uncomfortable. But the more consistent we\u2019ve been, the easier it has gotten for everyone involved.<\/p>\n<h2>Keeping our distance<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s be clear: I\u2019m a hugger! But the distance thing became extra real for us a couple of months ago when someone who sat right next to our daughter without a mask for over 15 minutes tested positive a few days later. We are so happy that she had her mask on and that she eventually tested negative, but it was a real scare. Now we are not afraid to say, &ldquo;No mask? Please back it up.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Conversations<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve had serious and even uncomfortable conversations with family and friends. We\u2019ve also had to have a lot of conversations with our kids, including helping them practice what to say to others: &ldquo;Kids, if someone comes up to you without a mask on, what can you do or say?&rdquo; At work I\u2019ve had tons of conversations with my team. I want them to know my realities and I want to hear about theirs so we can together figure out the best strategies to keep everyone healthy.<\/p>\n<p>This is what life has been like for us. Maybe if we share more stories and strategies, the more we can work together to get these numbers down and keep our keiki and everyone else safe.<\/p>\n<p>Lipe leads <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/nhpol\/\">Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/nhpol\/language-option\/pathways\/auamo\/trht-truth-racial-healing-transformation\/\">Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kaiwipunikauikaw\u0113kiu Punihei Lipe pens an editorial about her experience with raising keiki during the pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1411,1416,33,1465,56],"class_list":["post-148684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-uh-helps","tag-hawaiian","tag-manoa-native-hawaiian-place-of-learning","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148699,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148684\/revisions\/148699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}