A World with No Smiles

When you are preparing to undertake the role of a parent, what are some of the things you consider?

Sleepless nights, feedings that never stop, poopy diapers, play dates, outings with family, etc. All normal things for new families to undergo.

Except, these are Covid times, where nothing is normal and parenting has become more challenging. A lot of us became unexpected stay-at-home parents; I myself work remotely now. With that comes all the normal feats a parent must conquer, but also some new ones.

Three weeks before the shut down began, I brought my firstborn daughter into the world. I looked forward to her meeting the new crop of theatre babies, lots of family and friends, and showing her everything the world had to offer. There would be playdates and all manner of interaction. "My kid was going to be awesome with people!" I thought to myself.

But as March turned to August, she hardly saw anyone outside of her own family, and even those visits were guarded. And anytime we did go out, to run errands and the like, everyone wore masks. The world looked different, disfigured even. It weirded me out, and the weirdness turned to anger as the months dragged on.

This was not the world I had envisioned for my child. Social distancing, masks, what kind of world was this? How would my child learn how to socialize if we're shouting at people from more than six feet away? You can barely see their faces from that distance.

Then it dawned on me. It wasn't just the lack of socialization (which was equally frustrating), but the fact that we all had pieces of cloth on our faces. Masks made talking to people hard, because it looked so abnormal. And this abnormal was about to become a so-called "new normal".

I found myself with the daunting task of normalizing my child to a world with no smiles. We still had eyes and voices, but the smiles were gone once out in public.

My daughter grew more anxious as her vision improved; she'd get fussy while in her stroller, or refused to look forward in her carrier. She would only be calm if I, or my husband, was carrying her facing towards us.

Children heavily rely on facial recognition as they grow in their first year and her growing confusion worried me. How could I help her understand what was happening? She's four months old, you can't just tell her how things are; there had to be another way.

So I did it the best way I could: by making it into a game.

I started with showing her how I put my own mask on. Before we'd leave the car, I would say "Mommy's got to play peek-a-boo now!" and put on my mask in her presence. Once we had been in the store for a little while, I'd find a quiet aisle, away from others, and pull my mask down to remind her I was still underneath it by saying "Peek-a-boo!" My husband would do the same thing and it made her smile and giggle.

It wasn't much, but it made a huge difference.

By the time she was seven months old, she wanted to see more of the world and insisted upon looking forward in the carrier. People who passed by would talk affectionately to her, and she learned how to read eyes and pick up on inflections in the voice.

A few, brave, souls would even take a few steps back and lower their mask to speak to and smile at my child. The look of joy on my daughter's face when she saw others playing the "game" I taught her was worth a thousand words. It warmed my heart on so many levels, almost to the point of tears.

My child is about to turn one year old this month, and we are still in this weird "new normal". However, I'm so proud with how she has adapted. She has figured out there is a time and place for masks, and not to be frightened of them. If anything, she wants to pull them off our faces to play "Peek-a-boo!". I'll take that over her being scared any day.

To the new parents out there, you've got this. This is a small victory, I know, but one that is important, given that masks may be here to stay. Make it fun, make them laugh, teach them not to be afraid. They'll understand in time that masks are not a part of us: they only cover up the true us, and the smiles that are always underneath.

Remind them that smiles exist in the world, even if the entire world is hiding them. Remind them that, one day, every smile will return and the world will truly be joyful.

But for now, stay strong and keep smiling on.

Picture credit courtesy of: <a href='https://www.freepik.com/vectors/people'>People vector created by pikisuperstar - www.freepik.com</a>