"My first child was born during what I like to call the height of COVID. The pre-vaccine era, when we were still wiping down our groceries and referring to the times as being “unprecedented” in every email exchange, when drive-by baby showers and solo doctor’s appointments were the closest thing you had to socializing. In addition to the standard anxiety-inducing pregnancy moments (“Alexa, how soft is too soft a cheese for pregnant women?”), I found myself having to research things I never thought about before. I recall interviewing pediatricians and asking questions like, “Should I let my senior parents hold my baby?” something I can’t imagine parents having to fathom before the year 2020. Now after five years, my COVID baby will be starting kindergarten. I’m looking back at all the obstacles we’ve faced and celebrating this monumental milestone.
The COVID years with a baby
When my son was born that July, our entire world shifted as the world outside remained shuttered. There were no mom groups, no visitors beyond a couple of close family members we trusted as part of our bubble, and no baby story hour at the library. Just the three of us, curled up at home for what felt like an eternity.
Always the optimist, I tried to find the silver lining in those early newborn days. After all, isn’t finding the balance between your childfree existence and your new role one of the most challenging parts of new motherhood? In some ways, it felt like a sort of blessing in disguise. There was no risk of feeling sorry for myself that my non-mom friends were going on fabulous tropical vacations or enjoying a night out at a hot new restaurant without me. Being trapped at home in a pair of three-day-old leggings was now the norm for everyone, not just new moms. It’s a lot easier to come to terms with not being able to do anything yourself when no one else can do anything either (plus a squishy little newborn sure does sweeten the deal).
Surprising benefits of pandemic parenting
While the transition of easing my son into the ‘real world’ (i.e., starting preschool) took some logistics, there were other benefits to pandemic parenting I hadn’t considered. Like the fact that our son spent the first year of his life without a single cold (turns out, fewer visitors = fewer germs, which, of course, would come back to bite us later when he started preschool). Because we had family members who found themselves pseudo-retired as a result of COVID, we were fortunate to be able to call on them for childcare. This felt like an ideal solution at the time to avoid insanely expensive and often shut-down daycare centers.
‘COVID babies’ are starting kindergarten
According to the CDC, more than 3.5 million babies were born between March 2020 and 2021. Many of those children will be stepping into brand-new elementary schools this fall for kindergarten, beginning an educational expedition that will last over a decade. That is, if they haven’t already made some sort of alternate decision like homeschooling or redshirting, or another academic hybrid that has skyrocketed post-COVID.
“COVID babies will be stepping into brand-new elementary schools this fall for kindergarten, beginning an educational expedition that will last over a decade.”
For us, there were many back-and-forth discussions about whether or not our July baby would be ready for kindergarten this September or if we should voluntarily hold him back another year. Since beginning preschool, he has always been one of the youngest in his class, especially among the boys (which, in our experience, have had much smaller attendance numbers than the girls). Ultimately, we decided to move forward with sending him to kindergarten in the fall after consulting with those whose guidance we have trusted the most in our child-rearing: his teachers, his pediatrician, and, of course, our gut instincts (with a healthy dose of crowdsourcing from every teacher within my extended circle).
He’s eager, he’s excited, and he seems ready, although I still feel *this much* apprehension about sending him out into the world just a few months after his fifth birthday. Despite my reservations, I am so looking forward to seeing the kid he’s going to become as he takes this next step.
Being ready for kindergarten
As a first-time parent, there has nary been a moment over the last five years that I haven’t questioned, “Is he ready?!” Whether it’s starting solid foods or going down the curly slide at the playground (you know the one, where you question if just a little more speed and lack of outstretched adult hands will result in him defying the laws of physics and going completely airborne), I can’t think back to a time where I ever felt completely 100 percent confident in my decision-making as a parent.
While some of it could be a result of too much information in the digital age of parenthood, where we can seek out “expert” advice, message boards, and influencer recs at the drop of a hat in a way that previous generations of parents could never even dream of, I also can’t help but feel that becoming parents in the age of COVID did a number on our ability to trust our instincts in the way we once did pre-2020.
Looking back is bittersweet
I found out I was pregnant in December 2019. I was 34 years old and had been married for almost a decade to a loving and supportive partner, had a fulfilling career I had been working toward after entering the job market post-college during the height of the recession, and had recently purchased a home that felt prime for starting a family. After the yo-yo of early adulthood, I felt like things had finally fallen into place. I had suffered a loss early on in pregnancy a year before, and finally, it was like the stars had aligned, and our future as a family was looking bright.
The upending of everything I thought my pregnancy and birth experience would be as a result of the pandemic was a shock to the system that we had no way to prepare for. In an instant, it seemed, everything we knew about the world and our place in it had changed. But while it’s easy to look back and feel bitter about all the things we didn’t get to give our little COVID kids, in our home, there was an abundance of love, quality time, and family bonding that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
“The upending of everything I thought my pregnancy and birth experience would be as a result of the pandemic was a shock to the system…[but] in our home, there was an abundance of love, quality time, and family bonding that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
As a result of spending so much time alone or with adults, our son learned to play independently, a skill that sticks with him to this day (and makes it so much easier now to find moments to load the dishwasher or throw in a load of laundry). With fewer opportunities for outside experiences, our child taught us almost as much as we taught him, learning from each other as we entered into this new world together.
Celebrating the other parents of kindergarteners this year
So here’s to the parents that hunkered down, who weathered the storm and poured every ounce of themselves into molding this first (and hopefully last!) generation of quarantine kids. If you have trouble spotting one, look for the mom doing the world’s longest exhale post-kindergarten drop-off this school year. Maybe let her know that despite the circumstances, she did OK.
Lindsay Scouras, Contributing Writer
Lindsay is a marketing and communications pro and freelance writer based in Rhode Island. As a full-time working mom of two sweet ginger kids, she spends her days answering questions about where her children’s red hair came from (spoiler alert: she has no idea). She is constantly trying to find balance between her day job, parenthood, creative aspirations, decorating her 100-year old colonial, and passion for all things Hollywood and celeb gossip. A New England native, she loves exploring all the charming destinations that the Northeast has to offer with her history-loving husband.