Badges of Honor: Why Kids (and Maybe Adults) Need Band-Aids for Life

A Sunday Afternoon Scene

Characters: Mom, Dad, Lydia (4.5), Sydney (2.5)
Setting: The living room of a family apartment on the Upper West Side, NYC. It’s a too-cold-for-playgrounds kind of weekend in late January.

Scene 1

(The living room. Late Sunday afternoon. Mom is standing by the wall, rehanging photos left displaced after a big New Year’s Party. Dad is stretched out on the couch, phone in hand. Lydia weaves in and out of a self-made obstacle course of plush cushions and nylon pop-up tubes. Sydney is unseen, but her voice echoes faintly from the bathroom.)

Mom: (calling out, distracted) Sydney, what are you up to, hon?

Lydia: (racing through the obstacle course, mid-loop) Mom! Sydney’s in the bathroom—she’s standing on the toilet!

Mom: (turning sharply) Sydney, don’t stand on the toilet, that’s not–

(CRASH. A sickening thud, heavy and unmistakable. The kind that silences the room before panic sets in.)

Dad: (launching off the couch) Sydney!

(Mom and Lydia rush to the bathroom door, freezing just inside the frame. Dad kneels on the floor. Sydney is crying loudly, crumpled in a heap. Mom’s face is white as a sheet. Lydia watches wide-eyed, clutching a cushion from the course like a security blanket.)

Mom: (urgently) Lydia, did you see where she fell?

Lydia: (nodding solemnly) She hit the wall.

Mom: (eyes darting) With her head?

Lydia: (pauses) No... It was the floor, actually. But on the carpet.

(Dad scoops Sydney up and carries her to the couch. Tears stream down her face, her cries heartbreakingly loud but reassuring in their vigor. Mom and Lydia trail behind. Dad crouches next to her, gently taking one of her hands in his.)

Dad: Sweetie, can you point to where it hurts?

(Sydney hiccups through sobs. Slowly, she lifts a trembling hand and points... to her baby toe. Mom and Dad exchange bewildered glances.)

Mom: (softly, almost laughing) Honey... didn’t you hit your head?

Dad: (gently) Can you show us where your head hurts?

(Sydney sniffs, puts a tiny hand on top of her head, then—without missing a beat—points right back to her baby toe. She wails dramatically.)

Sydney: I NEED BAND-AID! I NEED BAND-AID!

(Mom presses a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Dad shakes his head, smirking.)

Mom: (to Dad) You get ice.

Dad: (with exaggerated resignation) And I’ll get a band-aid, I guess.

(Mom and Dad exchange a glance—a mix of exhaustion, relief, and amusement. Lydia resumes her obstacle course loop.)

End Scene.

We go through band-aids like popsicles in an ice cream truck on a hot summer’s day. 

They are the catch-all solution for any problem. Bump your head? Pop a band-aid on your toe. Sister scraped her hand at dinner? Obviously you need a band-aid in solidarity. Band-aid peeling off in the bath? No matter if the original boo-boo is long gone, we’ll get that finger covered up quick. (Sometimes things get so serious that even their baby dolls and stuffed animals require band-aids.)

Band-aids are such a hot commodity in our house that the kids now fight over their favorite brands and patterns. They’ve even headlined as Christmas gifts—two years in a row. 

Which is probably how we, like today’s modern cohort of parent, get conned into spending $7-$10 a pop for “kids’ couture band-aids” like these:

Any parent knows it’s rarely about the injury as much as it’s about the external signal of what wearing a band-aid shows. It signals safety, protection, and also, it looks really cool. 

What I love about band-aids for kids is that despite being an outward signal to the word that, “Uh oh! Something happened!” this isn’t something that kids shy away from. Instead, it’s something they proudly display. Like a badge of honor. (Of course it helps to have a little confidence boost with Anna and Elsa from Frozen II looking back at you from your index finger all day.)

You don’t see a lot of adults walking around proudly showing off band-aids as badges of honor these days. But I have noticed this trend toward proudly public displays of imperfections is getting more accepted.

For instance, back when I was younger, if you had a zit on your face, the “move” (to avoid locker room shame and humiliation) was to cover it up with as much makeup as possible and pretend like everything was totally chill. But teenagers today put “zit stars” on their faces, their bright neon colors are almost impossible to miss.

Look at the marketing of this page of “Starface” zit fixers. This is what it looks like when the Welly band-aid kids grow up.

It’d be fun to see band-aids make a comeback in the world of adults. What would we proudly wear (with bright flashy colors) to announce our imperfections and injuries to our social networks?

Based on what I'm seeing, there's a growing market for band-aids for grown-ups. Ones that encourage us to lean into our own mistakes and imperfections, wearing these neon labels with as much pride as our kids.

Just imagine...

What band-aid would you want to proudly wear and display this week? What's your band-aid badge of honor?

PSA: Stick & Giggle and the "Oopsie Club" are manifestations of my imagination. These are not real products. (At least, not now...)