Parenting is already hard enough. Wondering if your kid is hitting all of the developmental milestones. Wondering if you’re making the right decisions for what they eat, childcare, what you expose them to, all of it. Now, throw in a pandemic, and it is just downright tragic.
Aiden was born in November of 2019, which means he was only 4 months when the shutdowns started happening in our area. He’s now 15 months so almost 75% of his life has been spent in quarantine, and that doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon.
When I went to Memphis last summer, my family was talking about how clingy Aiden seemed and how he didn’t like strangers (especially compared to Donovan at that age). I joked that they need to give him grace – I could count on one hand the number of people Aiden had interacted with in real life. And by joked, I mean that in a laugh-to-keep-from-crying-but-just-trying-to-reassure-myself kinda way.
What makes this even harder is the fact that I have a kid to compare it to. I know you’re not supposed to, but hi, I’m human. I often find myself looking through my phone for old videos of Donovan to see what he was doing at Aiden’s age. What words was he saying? What other developmental milestones was he hitting or surpassing? I should stop this, I know, but I mean I do have a lot of idle time at home on the weekends. Sigh.
By the time Donovan was 15 months, he had been on at least 10 flights. At least. He was in daycare. He went with us EVERYWHERE. And I do mean everywhere. To a 200-person family reunion in San Antonio. A family trip to celebrate my uncle’s birthday in Mexico. Memphis I don’t know how many times. Road trip. to Virginia Beach. A vaca to Hawaii with long layovers in the Bay. Brunch. Restaurants. The mall. The grocery store. “Mega” church. Library circle time. Damn near weekly birthday parties.
And you know what all of those things have in common? People. People without masks. People laughing and smiling trying to get Donovan to interact with them. People having regular conversations that Donovan could overhear which expanded his vocabulary. People going about their regular life for Donovan to observe which sparked his curiosity.
On the flip side, Aiden has probably been to Target once since last March. Poor kid.
So, when Aiden is extra clingy around other people, I wonder if this is normal age-appropriate clinginess or is this pandemic-I-didn’t-know-there-were-other-humans-besides-you-three clinginess.
I wonder if his inability to see people’s facial expressions when we are out and masked are impacting his social and emotional development.
I wonder how much him not being in daycare is impacting him.
I wonder if the fact that I’m working from home instead of being attentive to him all day is messing him up.
I wonder if any of this will even matter in 30 years.
In other words I’m pretty freaking stressed but also trying to play it cool and give myself some grace because we are in a pandemic after all.
I know some people may ask, why don’t you put him in daycare? I would LOVE to. Donovan’s daycare only takes kids 2 and up. And the daycare we had him at as an infant closed due to COVID. And unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, you can’t even tour childcare facilities during work hours. So, you expect me to entrust you with my nonverbal kid without even meeting the person who would be caring for him? Not. And one place that we were considering did bend the rules and let me observe briefly, and I’m glad they did. Because they actually had licensing violations taking place while I was there. Imagine what they were doing when I wasn’t there. So nope, Aiden’s home with us and a sitter twice a week until further notice.
So please give some grace to us pandemic parents. And the clingy stranger-danger pandemic babies. And also please don’t ignore our calls for playdates when quarantines are lifted. Our babies need it.
**To be completely fair, Aiden meets all of the CDC’s milestones for 18-month olds. That only slightly ease my anxiety – very very slightly.**
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