It’s a bizarre, unsettling phenomenon that many parents are talking about, often referred to as the “Pandemic Skip.” It feels less like gradual growth and more like a massive, four-year fast-forward button was pressed on my son’s life. Just yesterday, it seems, he was a small, enthusiastic child, whose world revolved around our little family bubble. The pandemic hit, and we locked down, spending months trying to fill the quiet house with homeschooling, LEGO building and board games.

He was small enough to still sit on my lap or even let me carry him. He wanted me by his side when he went to sleep, and he was happy to sing and dance by himself in the living room, and never minded posing for my social media content or unboxing the toys that were sent to him. He was still obsessed with cartoon characters I now can’t even mention without an eye-roll.

Then I blinked.

Suddenly, I’m looking up at him. He’s standing almost as tall as I am, his shoulders broader, his voice breaking on the last syllable of whatever mumbled response he just gave me—which is usually just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ He also made it clear: he doesn’t want to be called by his nickname “Coco” anymore; he insists on his real name. He’s not just going to school now; he is a in high school.

The shift wasn’t just physical. It was a complete overhaul of his universe.

The innocent requests to perform a silly song are gone, replaced by a defensive glare and the reality that he is now often holed up in his room. The brightly colored artworks he used to hang are long gone, replaced by things I don’t understand. His likes are entirely new, his passion for what he considered the height of coolness pre-2020 completely alien to the teen he is now.

And with this new independence came the leap into the digital world: he “owns” his own social media accounts already. This is not the space I used to share his childhood milestones; this is an entirely new, private territory that belongs only to him. No cringey things, yes?

He has friends now—a real circle, not just the kids we arranged playdates with. Friends who use their own language, have their own inside jokes, and who are far more interesting to him than the people who raised him. Plus, he is now on the school’s football team, which has made our weekends busier than usual with games and practices. There’s a quiet mystery about his life now, a guarded quality. Is there a crush? I don’t know. I’m no longer privy to that information, and asking feels like an intrusion.

The biggest sting is the loss of the default companionship. Asking him to run errands with me now requires negotiation, if not outright bribery. He doesn’t want to come to the mall or events I go to. He doesn’t need to hold my hand and he certainly doesn’t want me near his bedroom when he’s falling asleep. . The only magic word that still works is travel. Apparently, separating himself from the local parental orbit is acceptable, but only if it involves a plane ticket.

What makes the “Pandemic Skip” so poignant is the crushing irony of the time he missed. We told ourselves that these years were slow, that our kids were safe, but that the pause button meant they missed out. Like how my son missed his chance to do McDonald’s Kiddie Crew —a dream for his 7-year-old self. Instead, it was an online, sanitized version of an experience that was meant to be live, messy, and momentous. Those years are supposed to be critical for outside-the-home experiences: starting big school but ending up in the big web of online classes instead. He missed the excitement of Halloween trick-or-treating at a time when he is big enough to go around the village, need not to be carried when tired. He missed starting sports as a little boy, learning basic coordination in a fun, pressure-free way; instead, he stepped onto the football field as an almost-teen, expected to already have years of physical development under his belt.

And now, it’s all forgotten.

It’s as if his pre-pandemic life, the one filled with the people who were crucial to his development then, has been wiped clean. I’ll mention a fun memory from 2019, or a friend who was his best buddy in kindergarten, and I’m met with a vacant stare. The kid I knew before the masks and the lockdowns feels like an entirely different person—a child who belongs to a “past life” that this nonchalant  teenager barely remembers.

The truth is, he didn’t just grow up; he teleported. We all walked into the pandemic with a child, and we’ve come out of it with a high schooler. We didn’t get to ease into this new chapter. We blinked, and the years that were supposed to be slow, formative, and full of little milestone celebrations became one long, blurry tunnel leading straight to a fully formed, independent, and sometimes distant teenager.

And all I can do is stand here, slightly dazed, staring at the wonderful, overwhelming stranger who is suddenly as tall as me, and wonder where my little boy went. And yes, sometimes I still cry because I am not yet ready.

I miss you, my Marcus.. you will always be my Cocobear!