The audio text message from my 3-year-old grandson mentioned a word I never would have imagined was in his vocabulary — sanitizer.

I listened to the message three times to make sure I heard it correctly. Sanitizer? Yep.

I thought to myself, what 3-year-old child says that word? Or even knows what it means?

And then it hit me: Most 3-year-olds have lived half their life in a pandemic. They’ve also lived most of their life seeing people in facial masks with concerns of social distancing, fear of germs in public places and hand sanitizer stations at every turn.

“Mo, mo, mo, Pops!” my grandson, Landon, told me a few months ago as I squirted sanitizer into his tiny hands. (“Mo” means “more.”) I pretended to squirt more on his hands. He rubbed them together with the seriousness of a doctor heading into surgery, complete with a tiny mask on his concerned face.

Life during a pandemic is all he knows. It’s all that millions of kids his age know: masking up, washing hands, dangerous germs, warnings about public spaces.

This has been their normalcy, their reality. Yes, it’s all dependent on their parents’ concerns, fears or paranoia, but it’s a fact of life that most of us didn’t have to deal with as kids.

Someday soon they will realize that not all children were raised in these cautious circumstances, with concerns of public health infecting their personal childhoods. Will they be dramatically affected by it as they get older or will they shrug it off as children typically do?

COVID-19 and the pandemic response have had considerable effects on an entire generation of children, and recovery could take years, according to the Children’s Hospital Association.

The organization lists seven areas where the pandemic has left its mark on children, including developmental issues, a widening education gap, adverse experiences, fewer wellness visits, lingering physical challenges and dealing with their parents’ stress. Also, the potential effects on children who aren’t even born yet.

“A Journal of Pediatrics report cites long-term follow-up studies of individuals conceived and in utero during pandemics, natural disasters and famines, including the 1918-1919 flu pandemic and the North American ice storm of 1998. The studies show the potential for lifelong negative consequences of such shocks, including lower educational attainment, increased likelihood of obesity and mental health problems,” the organization states.

I’m not often thankful for my age, but I’m thankful for not having to raise young children amid these circumstances.

Parenting is difficult enough. I can’t imagine how nerve-wracking it must be with added stressors from a world of COVID-19-related challenges.

Still, as a new grandparent this is the only life I’ve known, with fewer interactions with my family that’s costing me precious time with Landon. Not only on holidays but for routine get-togethers, similar to most grandparents and their extended families.

In my case, this had nothing to do with concerns for my health and everything to do with concerns for his health. His mother (my daughter) is an emergency room pharmacist who has repeatedly seen the public health dangers of COVID-19 in every population of people, including children, though it may be uncommon.

All it takes is the sight of one child in a hospital bed on a ventilator to scare the hell out of any parent. It has to play a factor as a mother when my daughter returns home from work after a 12-hour shift.

I also have concerns how the pandemic’s lingering aftershock will affect young kids’ socialization skills as they enter school and reenter society. Fewer playdates with other kids and public interactions with strangers.

I’ve watched my grandson stop and stare at people in public, looking at me to say, “People!” He also has pointed out those people who don’t wear masks. It’s all he knows.

Will it play a pivotal role as he grows up? Will it affect young kids of his generation? It’s a possibility, experts say.

“When children are exposed to repeated, ongoing stressors during the first few years of life, a pivotal time of brain development, those experiences can have a lasting impact, even leading to changes in the brain’s structure and the body’s ability to regulate stress,” states a story on The Hechinger Report, which covers education issues.

It may be years before the full effects of the pandemic on young kids are known. “Their recovery could take even longer, if they recover at all,” the CHA states.

Someday I plan to tell my grandson about the world before this public health emergency: life without masks, distancing, public health concerns and, yes, sanitizer. I plan to see Landon this week, and I will ask him about using that word in his audio text message to me. I have no idea if he was telling me that he used it or suggesting that I use it.

Fortunately, his message also mentioned something more traditional, without a hint of a pandemic.

“Pops, do you like pancakes?”

jdavich@post-trib.comhttps://www.facebook.com/JerDavich/