Masks are the New Security Blanket

We have reached a time in society where you can figure out someone’s political beliefs by simple visual cues. One of these visual cues is wearing a face mask in public places. We are on day seven hundred and something of our “14 days to flatten the curve.” While there are many viewpoints and facts on both sides of the mask debate, I want to step away from the politics of it momentarily. 

I overheard a conversation in the grocery store the other day that troubled me. A mother was talking to her daughter about wearing a mask. The daughter was wearing a mask and the mother was not. Normally, if it is a political position, you will see the whole family wearing a mask. The girl looked to be about 14 (already in an awkward, peer pressure type age). The mother asked her why she was wearing a mask when she did not need to, and the daughter responded that she “just felt safer” wearing a mask. The mom pointed out that the mask really did not have any effect on stopping her from getting the coronavirus – because the molecules were too small, and we all know the story from there. The daughter sighed, rolled her eyes, and then told her mother she just didn’t understand.

I started to mull this interaction for a minute and wondered what on earth the daughter was talking about. She clearly was not talking about safety from a sickness, but she clearly said it made her “feel safer.” I stopped thinking about it from an adult’s perspective and tried to think about it from when I was a kid that age. What a horrible age that was, everything in your life is changing, girls were no longer icky, your voice made weird noises, that perfect spiral you spent all summer working on suddenly went to crap because your body was disproportionate. You still liked toys that were below your age group but wouldn’t admit that to your friends for fear of ridicule, only to find out later in life that they still liked to play with those same toys but kept quiet for the same reasons.

So, if she isn’t using the mask for physical protection, then it must be for psychological protection. Is she trying to hide her face because she doesn’t want to be seen with her mom? Parents are “not cool” at this age. That is a possibility, but then she probably would have just stayed 3-6 feet away from her mother like my kids did at that age. You know the “I am here by myself portrayal.”

If anyone knows the importance of anonymity, the Dissident Right fully understands it. We are grown adults with battle hardened feelings, granted it’s not our feelings we are protecting but our livelihoods and our families. However, imagine being a young teenager and in a world where every possible slip of the tongue or awkward action could be a matter of public record for infinity. It’s not like when I was kid, when the world would move on in a week or so. Now, that world no longer exists – everything lives forever on the internet.

It starts to make a lot of sense why the mask would make her feel safe. It is a security blanket that is socially acceptable to take everywhere with you. Start thinking about the comments that adult introverts have made about the pandemic, and how they did not need to make excuses to skip public events because we had to stay at home. All public events were cancelled, the world slowed down for a little while and we were able to enjoy some of it, instead of rushing to the next thing that needed our attention. 

I can only imagine what it would be like for young teenagers that started out their most awkward years with virtual schooling and being able to hide their faces behind a mask. There are some very serious emotional rites of passage that were skipped and remain undealt with. Bridle that with the insecurity and inconsistency of that particular age group, one has to wonder what the long-term effects will be. The one consistent thing that we gave them was the mask, and whether we agreed with the concept or not, many followed the rule anyways, and some public schools are still requiring students to wear masks. So, the students that have been able to hide many of their emotions or unhappiness behind that piece of cloth, now hold onto that safety net. At that age, any misstep seems like a worldwide tragedy.

As parents, we need to be cognizant of the long-term effects that are emotional issues for our children. But, we still have to teach our children. That does include that we stop thinking only for ourselves (as parents) and do our own research to make a decision. And, as responsible parents, we must ensure that our children understand that they are not required to blindly follow idiotic rules or those designed for sheep. Most importantly, we must teach our children that a mask is not a social coping device. Unfortunately, a mask will be a coping device for the majority of the population.

The next question is: what will replace the mask?