PPTC Parents In The Time Of Coronavirus: Kelly Greene

Kelly has been a member of PPTC since 2013. Prior to the pandemic, Kelly could be found running loops in Prospect Park in the pre-dawn hours. You might also recall Kelly’s daughter Lily from her annual visits to our monthly membership meeting, hawking always-in-demand Girl Scout cookies. 

Kelly’s children, Joseph and Lily

How many children do you have and what are their ages?

Many of you know my dynamic duo: Joseph and Lily. Joseph is a 15-year old skateboarding, bass-playing, singing Boy Scout at Brooklyn Tech. He’s that lanky giant who whines through the Turkey Trot and Harry’s Handicap before sprinting past me at the finish. Every. Time. Lily is the sparkly 9 year-old, blond piano-playing, song-writing, Girl Scout cookie pusher who walks all over the borough of Brooklyn, despite having muscular dystrophy.

If you are currently employed, what is your occupation and are you currently working from home? 

I’m a Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist turned content marketing strategist for the TIAA. I am working VERY full-time right now, as people in higher education and nonprofit healthcare need (and deserve) reassurance and easy-to-understand guidance about saving for retirement like never before.

What has it been like for you and your children since remote learning started?  Describe a typical day.  

For the most part, it’s wonderful. We eat breakfast together around 8am, and then all retreat into different corners of our home to commune with our laptops for a few hours while our confused cat ping-pongs from one to the other.

It has been an adjustment for the kids to figure out how to get counted present [in class], and to figure out when they are supposed to meet with what teacher, but the wrinkles are starting to get ironed out.

Lily gets PT and counseling at school, and also has a health paraprofessional. Now, she has teletherapy twice a week, a Zoom turned Google Meetup with her guidance group, and a daily check-in with her awesome para. Plus, she has piano lessons via FaceTime and practice with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (BYC) via Zoom. 

Scheduling the when/who/what of who would be reaching out to her with each type of technology meant I got pinged with many emails and texts during the first week, while also trying to run a SWAT team remote video project involving interviewing executives on their iPhones! 

There were a few hair-tearing-out moments when I had to say only in my own head and not out loud, “No, PS 321 PT, I can’t respond to your text now because the EVP of TIAA Bank just gave me 15 minutes before he has to dive back into mortgage securities negotiations with the OCC.” That day, I escaped for a run in the middle of the afternoon. We got through it.

The big kid has all his normal stuff by Zoom, too. It’s all followed him home. I try to get him to manage it, but we finally had to put together a family Covid-19 calendar so he could forget to look at that, too. It’s exasperating, except it will turn out that the reason why he forgot is because it’s almost time for BYC/composing/1:1 with a teacher, or that he’s writing a new piece of music. Or working on his AP computer science project. Nerd.

What has pleasantly surprised you about remote learning and being quarantined with your children? 

Somehow, despite our conflicting video conferences and deadlines, we have more of an understanding of — and appreciation for — one another’s work. We celebrate the highs and lows together. They know which work people are awesome, which ones drive me crazy, and how working on a big team really works when you’re a grown-up. I see all of 4-324 at their morning meeting while I’m putting Lily’s hair in a ponytail. My children are delighted — and I’m AMAZED by this — when I want to read along with their English or history assignments.

We’re using stuff in the kitchen to study the water cycle. We’re watching shows together as a family that their teachers are assigning to supplement their work. Did you ever see “Fed Up,” for example? That was a 10th-grade health assignment. So gross! We got to see “Hidden Figures” again for Chemistry. And the National Theatre’s live version of “Jane Eyre” on YouTube yesterday (for English, of course) was mind-blowing.

Don’t get me wrong: We are sociable extroverts, and we desperately miss our people! Plus, my poor son was supposed to go on a first date the weekend after school got shut down. And he just started a BK Tech skateboarding club. It met twice. But my daughter spent this week writing a 22 page journal in the voice of Myles Standish for Social Studies, chock full of vivid, well-researched detail—all done by her. She would never have had time to do that in “regular life.”

And the kids are hopeful. Joseph’s skateboarding club has continued to meet online, despite not being able to actually skate together, and they have big plans for next year. Fingers crossed that he still gets to be a counselor at Boy Scout camp all summer, but I’m guessing that’s a long shot at this point.

What is your biggest complaint about remote learning?

It’s probably the same complaint the teachers have: So much gear-shifting. First all Zoom, then no Zoom. First Spring break, then partial spring break, then no Spring break, then sort-of Spring break, etc. It’s confusing. And then, of course, the stress for the kids of teachers and support staff scheduling, canceling, rescheduling, not showing up, everyone’s Internet connection crashing, etc. Just the real-life mechanics that get in the way.

My other complaint is that I am READY to get a breath of fresh air for a few minutes — either after lunch or late afternoon — and I’m trying to only let my high-risk girl go out with me so I can make sure we keep her far enough away from other people. But a lot of times, it’s a struggle to get her to take a break before she’s done with her work for the day! We are having hilarious conversations that go something like, “Fractions will still be there in an hour. Please come outside and play with me!” “But Mom, I am getting so much done. I don’t want to stop now!”

What is your approach to helping your children with their remote learning? 

Um, see above. I’m not much of a help. I get in the way. I try to keep the trains running on time, throw nutritious food in front of them three times a day (okay, except that there are unlimited cookies right now), provide what they need, and make them continue going to bed around 9 p.m. That, actually, might be the hardest part of all. We do have great discussions about what they’re reading. That’s about it. I am sure I’m a colossal failure in this regard, and they can blame me in therapy someday: I saw all those color-coded schedules on Facebook, and they gave me hives!

Do your children understand why we have to be in “lockdown”?  Do you do anything special to help them cope?  

Pretty sure using the term “lockdown” would make them freak out, even though we have totally embraced it. Look, I’m probably the last person in America (other than my 89 year old father) who subscribes to the print versions of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and sits down and reads them both at breakfast every day. My kids try to steal them from me, so they have read all the headlines and more. Lily and her dad even analyzed complaints to 311 about people failing to comply with social distancing by borough yesterday, just to see what the numbers showed. (Guess what? People in Manhattan and Brooklyn complain the most!)

“We have had to invest in gallons of lotion because our hands are dry and cracked from all the washing. Lily herself disinfects all the doorknobs and faucets every day.”

My daughter has such weak lungs and diaphragm due to muscular dystrophy that she already uses a prescribed medical device called a CoughAssist twice a day to help keep the fluid out. If she gets this thing, her neurologist tells me it will be the equivalent of what happens when a frail 75-year old — not a runner 75-year old — gets it. Lily is scared. I am scared. And so, we have no choice but to be super vigilant. We order groceries. No takeout. No pizza unless it’s homemade. No bagels. We play in the street to avoid people on the sidewalk. We have been wearing masks and gloves for ages.

Joseph at school, via the fire escape

And Joseph? He’s probably the only teenager in NYC who hasn’t cheated and secretly hung out with his friends. Love that kid. His solace is teaching himself new tricks on his skateboard. He is dutifully wearing his helmet, but I live in fear that he’s going to fall in a way that necessitates a trip to the ER. I always worry about that with his skateboarding, but now more than ever. I’m letting him hang out on IG and House Party and all that stuff with zero limits whatsoever, because I feel so sorry for him, and I’m so grateful that he’s doing everything he can to protect his little sister.

Have you learned anything about your children that will help you with them once they return to class?  

They both have the same Achilles heel: They get so involved in one project that they let other balls drop. In all other historical periods, those powers of concentration would have been a humongous advantage, but in the age of peripatetic attention spans, I’m not sure we can survive that way.

I haven’t figured out how recognizing that tendency leads to solutions yet, but at least I now have insight into how the teen can make 100’s in pre-engineering while making zeros in other classes simply because he forgets to file the homework. Even though he’s done it. (Mom. Beats. Head. On. Table. Again).

Have you been running? How has it changed since the pandemic started?   

Turns out being a pre-dawn runner works out well: The big change is that I used to worry about being alone. Now I feel so much safer that way! I go out strolling with Lily in the late afternoon, and sometimes jog along with her while she rides on a scooter. Joseph wants to skate, skate, skate. He’s only interested in running when he can embarrass me at a finish line.

Did you work out with your children before the pandemic was declared, or is it something new? Is it something you think you’ll maintain after our lives become more normal again?

Sometimes they let me do their PE homework with them. Joseph had to do squats, pushups and burpees last week, so that was fun! And I got him to do a 20 minute strength training video with me. He hurt for a couple of days. ☺

I’m trying to get Lily to let me do her PT exercises with her, but she’s really crabby about it. I’m determined to get her to do some more stretching: I’m starting a program with mobility workouts in a few weeks, and am hoping I can engage her in those.

Do you have something else you’d like to share about your experience with remote learning, or more generally about your lockdown experience?

Pre-pandemic, I had an adductor strain that took forever to heal, then shingles, then went to Italy. We came back from Venice on Feb. 22, the day before everything there shut down. Although I was signed up for the NYC Half, Boston and the Brooklyn Half, I was debating whether I should be racing at all because my muscles still get sore so easily.

I can’t afford to get injured right now, so I have slowed down, am taking advantage of Ben’s strength class, Emily’s yoga, and also am doing online programs with this group I love out of Austin, Texas. The structure all of that has provided — plus being crazy busy at my day job and helping to move Old First church online — is sort of making up for not having a training schedule.

Some nights I bail, because my kids and I just need to collapse in a heap on the couch together with books or a movie and no Zoom involved. But even though my attendance is a little spotty, I am SO GRATEFUL to the club for providing these online connections with all of you truly amazing, committed, kind and sunshiny people. Seeing Jana, and Crystal, and Pam, and Lisa, and so on, and so on, in teeny tiny squares the other night just made me so happy. And now we’re getting to know one another’s cats and dogs.

My new worry is actually about the “new normal.” If you are high risk, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not, consider this: When this horror subsides a bit, and the ambulance sirens aren’t such a constant, we’ll be asked to go back to work, to school, to restaurants — to public life. But there won’t be a vaccine yet. And the very, very real risk for my child will be just as dire. What are people at high risk supposed to do then?

I may not feel comfortable racing in crowds for the rest of the year, but I am sooooo ready for us to all gather on Saturday mornings again at GAP – I miss you all, and I can’t wait till we can high-five again!

Interview and text by: Linda S. Chan
Photos courtesy of: Kelly Greene
Edited and produced by: Alison Kotch