Years ago, in a university sociology class, I remember learning about unsocialized children. Children who spent months hiding from invading armies in barns and basements. Children chained to cribs by cruel parents. Children, quite literally, raised by wolves.
And while most modern families will never encounter such extreme situations?not even in the midst of a global pandemic, during which many of us were safely nestled in our own homes?my professor explained that those instances illuminate a universal, and now very relevant, principle: lack of socialization goes hand-in-hand with trauma. Happy children, he said, were made that way by exposure to caregivers, friends, and playmates. Without these outside influences, he claimed, children suffered. Fifteen years later, I wish I could introduce that professor to a test case who defies his simple binary: my very happy, yet very unsocialized, two-and-a-half-year-old son. Finnegan is a wonderful whirling dervish of a child. He peels bananas from the bottom up. He exclaims ?What the shark"? when something surprises him. And, due to a combination of circumstances both unique and universal?a premature birth, a long recovery in the hospital, and, then, COVID-19?he?s spent very little time with anyone other than me, my husband, and my mother, who joined our quarantine bubble this winter. Which is why I also wish I could ask my professor the question that?s been on my mind all these two-and-a-half years: Will my boy be alright&qu...