--- title: How to Mark the Occasion of Kids Getting COVID-19 Vaccines description: In an essay about rituals during the pandemic, Vanessa Hua writes that one of her 10-year-old sons has been waiting to cut his hair until he could get fully vaccinated. canonical: https://time.com/6112320/kids-vaccine-milestone/ author: Vanessa Hua article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-11-03T11:00:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:22.592Z article:section: Ideas og:title: My Son Knows Exactly What He'll Do After Getting His Vaccine og:description: "Getting out the tangles in my son’s hair has become our own new ritual, both practical and symbolic." og:url: https://time.com/6112320/kids-vaccine-milestone/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb752402f0b37a3bc/698a1e598fd2eeb23e363129/covid-vaccine-kids-haircut-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: covid-vaccine-kids-haircut-1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: My Son Knows Exactly What He'll Do After Getting His Vaccine twitter:description: "Getting out the tangles in my son’s hair has become our own new ritual, both practical and symbolic." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb752402f0b37a3bc/698a1e598fd2eeb23e363129/covid-vaccine-kids-haircut-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # My Son Knows Exactly How He'll Mark the Occasion of Getting His COVID-19 Vaccine > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: What Kids Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic [Watch (HLS stream): What Kids Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0rv0kxon.m3u8) (5:48)  _Published 2021-06-09. Too many young generations have been shaped by the global crises they faced—Depression-era poverty, Cold War nuclear fears. Add to them the COVID generation._ by [Vanessa Hua](https://time.com/author/vanessa-hua-2/) ## Vanessa Hua Nov 3, 2021 11:00 AM UTC  Courtesy Vanessa Hua by [Vanessa Hua](https://time.com/author/vanessa-hua-2/) ## Vanessa Hua Nov 3, 2021 11:00 AM UTC My son’s unruly mane is as old as the pandemic. Cascading to the middle of his back, each dark brown wave marks the seasons that have passed since [COVID-19 took hold of the world](https://time.com/5800901/coronavirus-map/). His tangles mirror the turmoil all around, and no longer matches the neat trim on his twin brother. He refused to get it cut—initially out of safety concerns about visiting a barber, and later, because he wanted to wait until he was [fully vaccinated](https://time.com/collection/coronavirus-vaccines-updates/). In a period in which time warped and so much remained uncertain, it gave him something to look forward to, a goal in which he could track his progress. Now 10 years old, he never bothers to tie back his locks or tame them with a headband like those Samson-haired soccer players. In solidarity, I grew out my hair too, witchy tresses streaked in silver, so voluminous that my swim cap recently burst open. **_Read More:_**[_To Get Kids Vaccinated Against COVID-19, Health Officials Will Need to Reach Hesitant Parents_](https://time.com/6110444/covid-19-vaccine-kids-parents-hesitant/) We’re ecstatic now that [Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine](https://time.com/5955247/inside-biontech-vaccine-facility/) has received [emergency use authorization](https://time.com/6110640/fda-panel-recommends-covid-19-vaccine-for-children-5-11-years-old/) for the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 in the United States. As soon as they are able, [my boys will roll up their sleeves](https://time.com/6111965/vaccinate-kids-against-covid-19/). Soon after that, we’ll bid farewell to almost a foot of hair.  The author's son in February 2020, left, and in October 2021, right. Courtesy Vanessa Hua I’ve been thinking about the importance of commemoration, and how scarce it’s been in the age of [doomscrolling](https://time.com/5919615/words-that-defined-2020/), the days stressful and monotonous without the rituals to mark birth and [death](https://time.com/5912884/grief-pandemic/) and so many milestones in between. We’ve yearned for traditions large and small, daily and yearly. In my closet, a pink bridesmaid dress hangs unworn. Last year, my brother and his wife postponed their spring wedding, among the multitude of [couples who had to alter their plans](https://time.com/5801095/coronavirus-weddings/) because the coronavirus made gathering and travel dangerous. They ended up exchanging vows outside, while most guests watched over Zoom. I wish I could have stood alongside them to celebrate their union. Eventually, they’ll throw a wedding, but for now, they’re busy with their baby. At the start of the summer lull in cases, we drove across the state to meet their newborn in a joyous reunion. During the height of a [Delta variant surge](https://time.com/6090218/fourth-wave-surpassed-third-in-some-states/), a beloved uncle passed away from non-COVID-related causes. Out of caution, we didn’t travel to the small funeral. If only we’d had a chance to see him at my brother’s wedding. If only we’d had a chance to grieve together in person with his family, to honor and acknowledge him. **_Read More:_**[_Why You Should Vaccinate Your Kids Against COVID-19_](https://time.com/6111965/vaccinate-kids-against-covid-19/) Rituals help us find meaning, connecting past, present and future, in times of both joy and loss. [Research ](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/norton%20gino%202014%5Fe44eb177-f8f4-4f0d-a458-625c1268b391.pdf)suggests that they mitigate grief by restoring a sense of control, bringing order to a chaotic world. For more than a year and a half, we’ve made do, adapting our traditions and adopting new ones. Usually, our family gets haircuts just before the [Lunar New Year](https://time.com/5934907/lunar-new-year-covid-19/), but the pandemic halted the practice, as it has so many other customs. Getting out the tangles in my son’s hair has become our own new ritual, both practical and symbolic. Because my own hair is thick and straight, I had to research how to care for fine, wavy hair. I didn’t realize brushing it can make it frizz. Each night, after he conditions his hair and gets into his pajamas, either my husband or I work out the snarls with a wide-toothed comb. Careful as we are, sometimes he winces when it snags. For special occasions, we blow-dry it. By comparison, his brother can just wash and go. Yet my long-haired son has never wavered from his goal, the sort of determination he demonstrated since he was a baby, army-crawling to reach the remote control. As parents of twins, we’ve grappled with giving them one-on-one time, a challenge made even more difficult in the months in which the world has been curtailed and shifting restrictions have kept us close to home. Combing is his solo time, while his brother gets his during a bedtime read-aloud. **_Read More:_**[_I Miss My Black Barbershop. But It’s Not Just a Good Haircut I’m Longing For_](https://time.com/5884543/black-barbershop-coronavirus-protests/) After my shaggy son lops off his waves, I hope he’ll feel light and new. He plans to save his ponytail as a memento, a record of what we lived through. I’ll undergo a ceremonial snip at the ends but keep the length. I’ve adopted a new signature look: two long braids that happen to match the young woman on the cover of my forthcoming novel_._ The synchronicity pleases me. In time, though, I’ll donate mine to an organization that makes wigs for people who’ve lost their hair. Unlike Samson, the unshorn hair on me and my son is a reminder of our strength, but not the source of it. ## Transcript I never imagined that, at the age of 12, I would be a witness to something so unusual, something that would become history. I was pretty sure that it was just like any other virus outbreak we’ve experienced. I thought that it would soon be over. COVID-19 didn’t seem that real back then. So when the first major wave of COVID cases hit in the United States, our way of life as we knew it was being upended. This was a type of uncertainty that I’d never felt before. I mean, I didn’t have any school, sports or friends to play with. School was cancelled. Then it went virtual. No yearbook signings, no end of year celebrations, nothing. Loneliness, boredom and isolation made me feel pretty gloomy. For over a year, children around the world have adapted to life in a pandemic, navigating new ways of socializing and going to school. I’m wondering when we’re going to start having school without masks because I’m starting to not get used to it. While children as a whole were generally spared from COVID-19’s viral impact, many still suffered from feelings of fear, isolation and loss. It makes me think about what if I make a mistake of taking my mask off accidentally. And it was scary for me because I have reactive airway disease. Due to my condition, my exposure to people outside my family was limited. Before the pandemic, my family visited my aunt in a memory care facility every week. Then she caught COVID-19. Watching her decline was horrible. She passed away on New Year’s Eve, and our family had to hold her funeral virtually. And in rare instances, some children struggled through severe symptoms and hospitalization. It was really bad for me because I was really weak. I could barely get out of bed for around two weeks. I was really sensitive to the light. I had stomach aches and headaches. The headaches have actually persisted up until now. I was also hospitalized and intubated in a ventilator because of a new, rare disease called PMIS, which developed after contracting COVID-19. TIME spoke with child trauma experts about the pandemic’s potential lasting impact on children’s mental and emotional well being. I think that we have reason to suspect that there’s going to be a very big emotional, psychological impact on kids, and there’s still a lot I think that we’re learning about just how extensive that is. We have some experience with how communities and young people cope with disasters. There are two things that are different about this. One is the enormously protracted nature of this chronic stressor. The second is that we were forced to socially distance, and restrain our social interaction, which is not our typical tendency when we're under stress. We know for example those children who have experienced deaths of loved ones will be more vulnerable. They're dealing with many more issues, particularly around grief and loss. We know that children that are in BIPOC communities, have always had disparities, and we're seeing that more and mental health is no different. There’s definitely evidence that mental health service use among kids and adolescents has dropped significantly. School based mental health services are one of the main areas where kids and adolescents receive mental health services from and with so many schools having gone remote for, you know, a very big chunk of the past, over a year now, there's no question that a lot of those services have been disrupted and it's made it a lot harder for kids and adolescents to get mental health services. I think there are curriculums and activities being developed for kids really helping them think flexibly and proactively taking initiative, and understanding how do you cope with these things. You can't control so many aspects of this, but what can you control? We need to really think about how do we infuse strong positive relationships both at home and at school. Because we know from the science that one caring adult, just one, can make a complete difference in the trajectory of a child's life. Experts will need more time to develop a fuller understanding of the pandemic’s lasting psychological impact. But children are resilient, and they are already drawing their own lessons from their experiences. I think one of the best things to come out of this pandemic was realizing how much enjoyment there really is in the little things. I learned how much we rely on human interaction, especially in person human interaction, looking someone in the eye, being able to give someone a hug. 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