Worried for our children

I remember one time when I was really little maybe 4 or 5 getting briefly separated from my mom in a grocery store. I remember being terrified but seeing her and running up to throw my arms around her leg only to realize it wasn’t my mother at all but a complete stranger. I remember the feeling that sunk through me so vividly and how afraid I was in that brief moment searching for her. Fortunately she was not far away and I had just gotten turned around. But today it made me think.

Today my son who is 10 months old and in the middle of some serious stranger danger (won’t even go to my brothers who he sees most every day) went to our neighbor, who to my son, is a complete stranger. I was baffled and could not figure it out until I realized that with his mask on, and to the untrained eye, he resembled Grandpa. It got me thinking about what scary situations our kids could find themselves in with our recent mask mandates. As scary as it was for me to realize the woman in the grocery store was not my mom, how much more scary would it have been had everyone around been wearing masks??

What things are you doing to keep your children safe while out and about? Do you have rules for behavior while out in public that are different now than before?

**this is not a mask debate - we socially distance as much as possible and always wear our masks where required**