Where did the last year go? We’re all a year older, spending most of it in our bubbles during the pandemic and quarantine. While we may have become amateur bakers, picked up new skills, and learned to adapt to remote work and social distancing, we also lost an entire year with friends, family, and notably experiences. When we finally begin emerging from the pandemic, we may realize that we lost over an entire year’s worth of experiences. For all of us, but especially our kids, this lost year will be a major event that shapes the rest of our lives.

We’ve adapted to the pandemic, social distancing, and pretty much just staying around our home. So much so in fact, that it’s become easy to forget how long we’ve spent living this way. But whenever I need a reminder of just how long it’s been, I can look over at my 13-month-old, who was born about one month into the pandemic. This kid has spent the entirety of his life, over a year, living only in a world where we don’t go anywhere, stay distant from others, and mostly see friends and family on screens. He thinks masks are the norm and doesn’t seem to notice them at all. But the part that really gets me is how different his first year experience has been compared to our twins.

In their first year, the twins went to Amsterdam, Norway, and Seattle by plane, as well as road trips to Chicago, Connecticut, and South Carolina. They had been above the arctic circle, been on a cruise ship, and multiple planes. Our one-year-old though has only been on a single road trip up to Vermont in the middle of winter where he didn’t leave the rental house the whole time. It’s a good thing he’s been able to spend time in daycare socializing, otherwise he would have barely met anyone other than his immediate family bubble this whole year. I’m glad we’ve been able to find some opportunities to get out of the house, but trips to the zoo aren’t exactly the same as an international trip.

And it’s not just the baby who has had a year of experiences and exposure stolen from him. We’ve lost out on a year to go new places, experience culture, see new things, and broaden our horizons. So have the boys. It’s one less year we get to spend sharing family experiences traveling together. Effectively we have removed whatever the #18 or so place to go would have been on our priority list since we have one less chance now. The boys have been to Portugal, Spain, and London and the baby hasn’t left the East Coast. We have one less opportunity to expand that now.

It’s also not just travel that has been stolen this year. It’s the hockey and soccer games we would have taken the boys to. It’s the sports practices in town that were canceled or that we just didn’t feel comfortable doing. It’s more regular zoo visits, the aquarium, air show, and restaurant visits we did with the twins but haven’t been able to do with the baby. It’s town picnics, STEM events at the library, train rides into the city, visits to the museum of natural history for the dinosaurs that we couldn’t keep up. And for us, it’s the music festivals, day trips, brewery visits, and restaurants out that we haven’t been able to do together in the year of our ten year anniversary.

We’ve also gained some things as a family this year. Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve spent way more time together as a family than we would have had otherwise. I have at least an additional hour with them each night thanks to the lack of a commute. Neither my wife or I have traveled anywhere for work, or even gone anywhere ourselves without the kids, so we have had all that extra time with them. We’ve had way more time with our dog since we’re home all day, though it’s hard to tell if that’s been more or less stressful for him.

But that extra time together has a downside as well. The lack of any time away has definitely made it harder for us as parents. We’ve had no real break from the kids in a year and it’s been a lesson in constant, intense parenting. Every day is another adventure in parenting with far less time to break and reset between them than we would have in a normal year. The lack of new experiences and places has also meant that they have had less opportunity to learn and grow. It’s also less time they spend being occupied and more time bored which results in worse behavior. We’ve noticed we have very different children when they are out and in public seeing new things than they are stuck inside the house. Kids get cabin fever too.

It’s also robbed all of us of a year of socialization. We’ve greatly reduced how often we see family and friends during the pandemic as we worked to maintain our social distancing bubble. That meant less time for the boys to spend with family members like their grandparents and their great-grandparents due to both distance and health risks. That’s less time for them to bond with those family members, learn from them, and learn about their own family history. We’ve all spent way less time with friends too. We had to turn down several play dates, meetups, and nights out, each time taking away one more chance for the boys to make friends and for us to get to expand our social circle. I would worry about the social and emotional impact for them, but they have done so well with their friends at school.

Now that vaccination rates are steadily increasing and we’re all slowly emerging from our lockdown life, we’re realizing just how much we lost in our own ability to socialize too. Our calendars are slowly starting to fill back up with weekends with friends, play dates at the playground, and visits to our patio again. We had our first major playdate since the spring of 2020 with a couple of kids from the boys’ class at the local playground and realized this momentous event is actually the kind of thing that would have been regular, normal, and mundane before the pandemic. If nothing else, at least the pandemic has made us more appreciative of these little moments. Throughout the while play date though, it was obvious all of us had lost a year’s worth of socializing. The kids did the best. Us parents struggled to remember how to talk to other adults that we don’t work with and aren’t related to. After exhausting the topics of which vaccines we received, our side effect comparisons, and what return to the office plans each of our companies were communicating, we didn’t know what else to talk about. Even when we see our friends it can be similar.

I’m not sure what will happen when we return to the office. Will I remember how to talk to coworkers when they aren’t on a video call? This missing year took away our ability to interact with other people. I also can’t stand being around strangers now. There’s a specific kind of social distancing stress disorder that fills me with intense anxiety around others in public spaces. Returning back is likely going to take a while to regain productivity as we all struggle with overcoming this anxiety in group settings.

And we don’t know if it will only be the one lost year at this point. Despite rising vaccines, there are still variants, a percentage of the population who is resisting vaccines and putting others at risk, and a pretty sizable group in kids under 12 who can’t get the vaccine yet. It may extend longer than we think at this point, at least for our kids.

Let’s hope that it doesn’t extend longer. We’ve already lost so much this year. A year that almost feels like it didn’t exist. A year of lost experiences and opportunities. A year that was taken from all of us, especially our kids. Let’s all work now to make sure we don’t lose any more.