Advice to the coronababies

See you in nine months.

No career is “safe”, so do whatever the bloody hell you want.

If you become a doctor, you could get respect for being on the “frontlines”, but be putting your and your family’s lives in danger by just going to work.

If you become a journalist, you could fair well working from home, but still get fired — you know, budget cuts.

If you become a teacher, you could soon have no children to interact with in the classroom, and end up talking to a screen.*

Come to think of it, there is actually one “safe” career — lawyer. Become a lawyer (if you can afford it). Anger never dies.

*Always have training as programmer/UX designer/graphic designer as backup, as the jobs don’t necessarily require you work with people. Coding and design should also become even more lucrative industries by the time you’re of working age, as all current logos and slogans of our dear capitalism are going to need revamping (see “2020 Slogan Revamping” article).

You could also make yourself a YouTube influencer; people love feeling like they’re interacting with people, especially when they’re not.

Don’t worry, you’re not the “weird kid” for being home-schooled. You’re just more prepared.

In the year 2020, suddenly all children became the weird home-schooled kid. Many countries tried to provide their young brains with remote lessons, but were less than prepared. It was hard. The learning platforms suffered. Teachers made desperate efforts to keep their kids learning. A friend of mine even posted on Instagram, “About to give remote yoga lessons to ten-year-olds from Skype. Send prayers.”

Parents didn’t know what to do with kids in the house the whole day. Kids didn’t know what to do with parents in the house all day, now that it wasn’t a “treat” when their work-a-holic spawners came home. And that father you never saw? Yeah well, he came home. You saw him. There were reasons you didn’t see him before.

You know who were the most prepared in all this? The home-schooled. The mothers and kids and families on the potato farms in Ireland, who rarely ventured five square kilometers from their home. They were the most prepared.

Prepare yourself to be that weird kid on the farm with socialization issues. It’s OK — more and more are going to become just like you.

Remember that nothing is promised to go as planned — not even the Olympics.

The COVID-19 health crisis has reminded humans to take life more slowly. Don’t become the vice president of high school (that’s a bullshit position anyway. Don’t land a bullshit position so early in your life.).

Don’t join 20 extracurricular activities. Don’t triple-major at the university. And don’t worry others about your nonexistent cocaine addiction by being hyped-up all the time.

No, this time, take everything slow. You don’t have to “be someone”; you already are.

Don’t get an eating disorder, like me.

Thankfully, you didn’t grow up in the nineties and early 2000s, so the Olsen twins aren’t your role models. No; you’re growing up in a much more diverse, body-positive social media world. Instead of envying skinny rich white girls, you’ll start to envy people of all shapes and sizes, who seem to share one thing in common: they’re learning not to give a fuck, making acceptance tailor to them instead of tailoring themselves to acceptance. We call these people, as mentioned before, influencers. They are (or at least seem to be) proud of themselves, just for being.

And, if you do one day find yourself disliking your body, remember that diet and exercise can only do so much. Starvation and over exercise will only hurt you and those around you, no matter how many compliments you get. At the end of the day, your body will always be changing around a genetic equilibrium that you can’t control, just like the 2020 Olympics.

Plus, if you develop a history of disordered eating, you’re hell to live with in quarantine, if another were to come. Trust me, you’re hell. I know.

Still, exercise is important.

Your parents know that, and want you to have a healthy, active life. But you must convince them not to take you to the park.

Seriously, they should never take you to the park. If they do, you’ll always be chasing the drag.

Instead, you must accumulate the bulk of your FitBit hours walking on the treadmill, as well as spend the majority of your strength training inside. And dear god, no; I’m not talking about a gym membership. I’m talking about your own gym in your own apartment/house/shack. You must convince your parents to invest in a stay-at-home gym, no matter how expensive. If they resist, tell them you’re worried about their health and that, if they don’t take care of themselves, they could fall vulnerable to the next coronavirus 2020. Remind them that you’re a coronababy.

Prepare for “immunity training days”.

Your parents and grandparents are traumatized by the COVID-19 pandemic, so they will have become minions of Adrian Monk. Don’t get the reference? That’s alright, you can just roll your eyes and tell me, “OK, millennial snowflake”.

What I mean by Adrian Monk is, they’ll tip more to the extreme on the germaphobe spectrum. They might start to follow you with Lysol wipes, train you to sing “Happy Birthday!” when washing your hands, and again, not ever take you to the park, because, dirt.

Their trauma is real, and you must accept it. However, they will probably also provide you with “immunity training days”, recommended by healthcare professionals. You might already know what one of these days looks like, depending on when you’re reading this.

These days should work to simulate a controlled uncleanliness, just so your immune system has time to build itself up. We learned of the necessity of immunity training thanks to a subgroup of humans called “helicopter parents”. For a variation on this type of human, check out the rich mom in Parasite, the award-winning Korean film that just came out last year (well, I mean, in my time. That just came out in 2019).

Allergies.

Despite all the immunity training, you’re still likely to develop allergies. We can suppose this based on evidence that helicopter parents who don’t let their children “eat a peck of dirt” once in a while may be causing them to develop deadly allergies to everyday items, such as peanuts, cow milk, soy, wheat — even human touch (some helicopter parents never land to make physical contact with their children).

Get your Epipens ready. Hope that their price doesn’t skyrocket again.

Make sure you’re not only speaking English (much less only British English; United States English sounds much less hoity-toity to foreign ears. You’ll make more friends that way.).

You’re living in a flat world (metaphorically speaking; don’t attack me) where everyone is now more diversely connected than we’ve ever been. Therefore, it’s advisable you learn another language — preferably Spanish or Mandarin, just in case you need to flee your country (like I did, to Uruguay. If you’re interested in this elusive country, which challenges the average northerner’s geography ego, call me up. My future floating couch of yours to float-surf.).

If they named you Corona, change it.

Your millennial artists-turned-teachers are literally going to treat you like the plague.

Finally, read up on the 2020 pandemic.

Get to understand how the world as you experience it came to be.

Wait but no, this one is actually the final point: floss.

Regardless of whether flossing actually helps, it’s the dentist’s duo catchphrase and scapegoat: “Do you floss?” The more teeth dentists see, the more biting their sense of humor. You don’t need their astringent lectures on your conscience to go along with your mouthwash. Floss.