Nov 9, 2018 4 min read

The text came like a blast of cold water to my face.

Mom stop texting me.

It was from my daughter, who is away at college and whom I haven’t set eyes upon for weeks. While I’ve resisted the urge to call or text her every hour on the hour, apparently even that one time each night is intrusive.

Maybe it was the emoji.

Since getting my new smartphone, I’ve discovered the world of emoji, little digital icons – and a word that, like deer and moose – doesn’t end in s when it’s plural.

What a revelation it was to open the messaging screen and find an array of emoji just waiting there for me to use. Beyond the slate of smiley and crying faces, the options go on and on – there’s fruit, vegetables, thumbs up and down, workers, clothing, shoes, animals (including three kinds of cows), moons in all phases, drinks, sporting equipment and athletes, musical instruments, vehicles, houses, tools, hearts of all kinds and a flag from every country. Scrolling through the emoji options feels like playing with a dollhouse filled with miniature everything. A girl could get carried away.

Which I did.

It started the day I discovered the emoji of a person riding a bike which, until I find the emoji of a person napping, is the perfect symbol to represent me. I would text my daughter when I was headed out for a ride, type I’m going and then tap on the bike emoji. It was quick and satisfying.

Soon enough, I discovered I could have entire one-sided conversations with her using only the emoji. Wondering if she was eating right? Broccoli emoji and question mark. Is it raining there? Umbrella emoji and question mark. Make sure you study a bit every day. Pencil emoji, book emoji and exclamation point. How’s your roommate’s emotional support snake? There’s no snake emoji, so I used a caterpillar for that. She responded with a question mark.

At least she texted back that time. After being on the receiving end of a few weeks of my emoji binge, she stopped responding to any message that included emoji only. She, the 19-year-old, was silently scoffing at me, her mother, for overparenting. There’s a helicopter emoji. I’m surprised she didn’t use it against me.

It’s a sharp learning curve for parents of college freshmen. The worries are such that, if I were to text her every time I think of her, the messages would be flowing into her phone like a ticker tape. The craving to know is strong; I can best compare it to the feeling I have on those nights I know there’s one more Nutty Buddy in the freezer. I can’t stop thinking about it.

But after my daughter’s justifiable rebuke, I’ve backed off. That doesn’t lessen my fascination with the emoji. String enough of them together and you can have an entire emoji novel. I just googled that, and yes, there are emoji novels. Just like there are movies filmed using only car backup cameras. We’re becoming so reductive in expressing ourselves.

And I’m learning how to not be so expressive with my daughter. I try to limit myself to one alphabet text to her every other night. She always responds – usually with one word – but she always writes back. And then, I tap back with a heart emoji. I just can’t help myself.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.