I used a combination of the above solutions and some trial and error to come to this solution. Took me an annoying amount of time so I hope this can help someone else in the future. I also noticed that the date picker input is not at all supported by Safari...
I am using styled-components to render a transparent date picker input as shown in the image below:
const StyledInput = styled.input`
appearance: none;
box-sizing: border-box;
border: 1px solid black;
background: transparent;
font-size: 1.5rem;
padding: 8px;
::-webkit-datetime-edit-text { padding: 0 2rem; }
::-webkit-datetime-edit-month-field { text-transform: uppercase; }
::-webkit-datetime-edit-day-field { text-transform: uppercase; }
::-webkit-datetime-edit-year-field { text-transform: uppercase; }
::-webkit-inner-spin-button { display: none; }
::-webkit-calendar-picker-indicator { background: transparent;}
`