Coronavirus: lockdown birthdays go the (social) distance towards new traditions

My sons’ birthday party had all the awkwardness and weirdness of the times we inhabit.

James and Sam Penberthy receive their drive-through birthday presents from cousins Charlotte and Will Joyner.

The party started at 10.45am, noon, 3pm and 4pm. Like some 1930s Chicago speakeasy, the few guests lucky to have been hand-picked for this exclusive event were directed to a laneway with instructions to ring on approach.

The doorman buzzed them through an electronic roller door, with a leaf rake on standby for sec­urity, lest an overwrought grandparent breach social-­distancing rules with an impassioned lunge to hug a grandchild.

In a statistical quirk, two of my three sons were born nine years apart on the same date, April 8. And so it was that on Wednesday, amid all the thrills and spills of the coronavirus, we staged a staggered backyard birthday for Jim, 14, and Sam, five.

Edith Kowaliw celebrates her 9th birthday with her siblings at her Adelaide home this week.

In South Australia, where ­people have been generally well behaved, the local constabulary is allowing crowds of 10 or less to gather provided they observe ­social-distancing rules.

So in a minor military operation, we knocked up a rolling schedule to ensure that my wife, our four kids and the guests stayed below the magic 10 number, with my parents coming at 10.45am then clearing off an hour later; my sister, her husband and two kids arriving at noon; my mother-in-law at 3pm; and a close friend and her two daughters at 4pm.

It was fun in a way, but also kind of melancholy.

Like most Australian families, we are a convivial and tactile lot. Our get-togethers start with hugs and kisses and involve great local food and wine enjoyed at a loud and crowded table.

Wednesday’s get-together had all the awkwardness and weirdness of the age we inhabit — no shared food, everyone standing at a distance ruing how cold and impersonal things have become.

My hunch is the kids coped much better than the adults, particularly the grandparents. I have just turned 50, and can count my remaining years in decades, but when you’re at the experience end of existence, time matters more.

On the weird birthdays currently being held across Australia, child and adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says they’re important events to celebrate, albeit under these new strictures, as they can help families establish “new rituals and traditions”.

“We build families through rituals and this is a chance to create new ones,” he told The Weekend Australian. “It might also be a chance to get back to some of the rituals we have lost touch with.

“Right now, families need to set an emotional tone. We are alert, not alarmed, we are not panicked but we are prepared. We need regular family meetings. For our kids, and for all of us, we need a combination of ‘me’ time and ‘we’ time.”

Dr Carr-Gregg said it was natural for parents to be preoccupied about the impact of coronavirus on children’s mental wellbeing.

However, he said this entire generation of under-18s had always lived with the internet and social media, meaning they were probably better equipped than many adults to remain socially connected for milestones such as birthdays and in day-to-day life.

His comments about creating new rituals are reassuring. We created one last Friday, billed as The Non-Formal Formal, where my daughter Sophie had her boyfriend over on what was originally meant to be the night of their now-postponed Year 12 formal.

We all dressed up in suits and ties and had a formal sit-down dinner, with me jumping at the chance to DJ and subject the kids to a string of 1980s dance hits.

Adelaide health educator Tessa Kowaliw had a party last week for her daughter Edith, who turned nine, which combined driveway present drop-offs with the use of social media so her daughter could see all her friends on a special day.

“She had video calls over Messenger all day and a ‘sleepover’ via Zoom which ended at bedtime, making it the best sleepover ever from my point of view,” she told The Weekend Australian. “I’d been a bit flat about it, but at the end of the day when I asked Edith if she’d had a good time, she said: ‘Mum, I thought this was going to be a horrible birthday, but it has ended up being the best ever’.”