The COVID-19 situation has required my family, which is large (8 people), to live in relatively tight quarters for a while.  As such, we have reverted to what I would like to call a more primitive state.  And, I have noticed some things that appear to be both good and bad.  These are things, that as we eventually return to normal life, we should strongly consider as a society.

Change School Time

All my kids are getting more and better sleep.  This is important and has made the whole family far less irritable.  For example, last night, my youngest went to bed earlier than she did during normal times, around 8:30, and she will sleep until about 9 in the morning.  This is probably more normal than not.  She is going to bed earlier because she is not being forced to squeeze in time with my wife or me because we are more available.  For example, Cheryl spent a half-hour reading with her at around 7:30 yesterday.  Cheryl was available because she was 1) home from work and 2) we had already eaten and 3) we were not driving our kids to any practices.

In addition, Evelyn (3rd grade) studied intermittently throughout the day, played outside with her siblings, and went for a rollerblade/walk with her mom.  This meant that she accomplished everything on her school list while also not being exhausted by six hours straight of school. 

This got me wondering about school times.  Our kids start school at 8am.  This means that they wake up around 6:30-7 depending on the child.  This seems too early to me, and I wonder what would happen if we stretched the school day from 9 to 5 – instead of compressing it from 8 to 3.  What if we required lunch at home or longer recesses for all of the kids?  I understand that there are good reasons not to do this – including requiring teachers to spend more time at school.  However, I wonder if we set a day that included shorter bursts of “education” with more time for play and exploration if the whole day might go smoother.  In addition, I wonder if we could push back start times so that it fits better into kid’s sleep schedules and if that might make kids happier and healthier in the long-term.

Change After School Time

In normal times, I have evenings that include me driving children from 4:45 until 9:45.  This truly is a second job as a chauffeur for my kids.  Part of this is our desire as parents to make sure that our kids have activities in sports – including select soccer, select basketball, gymnastics, swimming, etc. As those things have been shut down, my kids have been able to spend more time with each other.  They have still play soccer in the backyard, at nearby parks, etc.

But, it has left me considering why we need to practice so much at everything.  Three things stick out to me.  First, my kids are self-disciplined – particularly my older four kids.  They have trained individually and with each other nearly every day.  This to me is good and bad.  I am not sure that 13-year-olds should be considering their soccer futures when they have free time.  We have discouraged this way of thinking but encouraged activity and improvement.  I am not sure that we have balanced this well.

Instead, I am wondering if we could go to more individual and virtual practices for kids.  Can we create less time at “practice” and “driving to practice”, and more time playing?  This is an issue that Scott Bragg has written on extensively for us – but it really is true.  Our kids are driving to practice or games more than they are actually playing.  Part of this is facilities and coaching – i.e. getting access to a place to play during a Nebraska winter is a challenge, but it is also a mentality.  I am going to challenge myself to send my kids outside to play more and be part of organizations less.

Public Spaces and Local Government

In order to do this, we need better public parks and access ways.  Omaha’s parks are woeful.  This represents a clear example of how our government has slowly atrophied focusing on business over happiness for its citizens.  We have a robust city budget and in general, Omaha is “well-run”, but we have not thought through the role of humans in our community.  Humans live at ground level – not in automobiles.  Automobiles are transported.  For example, one of our colleagues is in Morocco and she posted this picture from the Medina.  It is human level, to be walked – not to be driven through.  Moreover, most of Omaha is unreachable without a car.  So, while I live ten miles from downtown, I cannot walk or bike there because of the interstates and large arterial streets.  Simply put, they make it impassable for someone without a car.   

Three examples, I have walked to work every day for about two weeks (as I am social distancing and not going to in-person meetings).  My office is about one mile from my house.  But, importantly, it is in the same neighborhood. If it was, for example, one mile to the south, I would have to cross railroad tracks, walk along busy roads, and walkthrough or by multiple parking lots.  This is a problem.  Our city is not built on a human scale.  It has been built for cars and because of this, we spend a lot of money on roads and automobile access.

Second, I walk by or through a park every day – called Prairie Lane Park.  This park is essentially a green space with no real spaces for people, but also not very “green”.  It’s a place that exists for people to walk through – not linger.  The “water feature’ is an open sewer.  There is nowhere to sit– other than bleachers that look on the disgusting former baseball/softball field or the new pickleball courts.  I say former because it has not been kept up for years, and then it was done by the neighborhood league or individuals.  The bleachers also look onto a pickleball court that is well used.  However, this court does not have lights – so use shuts down in the late evenings.  In short, the whole park needs a facelift. 

Money is not the real problem – it is ownership.  I don’t even mean ownership of the park.  I mean the community has no say over how the park or its budget should be used.  For example, I believe that a community garden would work really well in one section of the park that is isolated.  There is no real way to communicate with the city about this idea.  I have called and the response was basically you can do it but we aren’t going to help or protect your stuff in any way.  That’s not exactly a commitment by a government that is seeking to make life more livable.

Third, one of the borders to my neighborhood is I-680 to the east.  There is no way for me and my family to go to the east except by car.  Functionally, a sidewalk exists – but it requires us to walk in front of the interstate’s on and off-ramps.  I don’t want to do this alone, much less with a 9-year-old.  This means that our daily walks cannot lead us to the Keystone or West Papio Trail.  Instead, we are isolated to our neighborhood.  Building east to west trails and access is critical to make our city more walkable and bikeable.  We should not have to bike or walk along West Center. We should have some protection from the roads and congestion.

These problems have long lingered in my mind, but with COVID-19 forcing me to spend more time in my neighborhood, the human scale of the challenges resonates with me.  We can do a better job of building our city around humans – not businesses and automobiles.  As I spend more time with my family, I think there are three basic lessons – build our schedules to be lighter, build our days to be freer and happier, and build our spaces to be more accessible.