Flu season turns parents in to suspicious and paranoid people and quite frankly, it's getting to me. As soon as a child has the slightest sign of a runny nose, parent's move far away and if you dare have the audacity to deliberately put your snotty child in a situation where there is other children - well you should be taken to the gallows.
I can't keep count of how many times I have been told that: your son has a slight runny nose, you should probably keep him at home, by a playgroup teacher or another mother. Well, guess what? Kids have runny noses. Their noses are perpetually runny from about mid October to the end of April every year for the first four or five years of their lives. That's normal! Annoying - yes. Unattractive - yes. But perfectly normal.
What bugs me is that other parents seem to think that I don't know my own child, and can't read the signs that will tell me weather he's sick or not (I am mostly referring to situations around Leo, when you reach 8, Kate's age, you have other, more pressing matters to worry about than a runny nose). I am a mother of two. I have been a child myself. I have probably had every childhood illness known to mankind, and if I didn't get it fast enough my mother made damned sure that I would play with a kid who did so that I could get infected and get it out of my system. (This was in the 70's, in Europe, long before immunization hysteria, when chicken pox was something you actually had to chase down the street rather than run away from).
Bottom line is, if my child was ill, I wouldn't expose him to environments that would in any way increase his ill-being. I actually love my child, there is no way I would do that. So common sense, if he's out and about, he's probably not ill. Or maybe he is, and I don't know yet, but then: though luck. I can't stay at home every time my child is showing the slightest sign of running a cold because I wouldn't actually leave the house for months.
So to those parents out there who have a snot-phobia, please trust me to take care of my own child, and if you are so worried that your child will catch something, then maybe you should stay at home.
(Alternatively: immunize your child against serious childhood deceases.)
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Your story makes me think of this:
ReplyDeleteI chose not to immunize my boys against chicken pox, thinking, "What's the big deal? I had it when I was a kid."
I tried to expose them to it when they were little, but no luck. They never got it. And as they sailed into their adolescence, I forgot all about chicken pox.
Then my 16 year old son came down with it. All over his entire body, swollen, festering, painful and itchy bumps. Bumps on top of bumps. I bought Aveeno oatmeal bath and he practically lived in the tub, the only relief he could get for several days. I can't remember how long, it's a blur.
Then of course his 14 year old brother got it. Equally miserable except he got the bumps on the bottom of his feet, where the thick tough skin made it impossible for them to burst so his feet just swelled up. He could hardly walk to the bathroom for days and he cried all the way there and back.
I felt so bad about that, when there was an immunization available. I had always heard chicken pox is harder on older kids. It really is. If I had it to do over again, I would just immunize them.
Hi Indie, chicken pox is such an annoying illnes, my god, it is such a curse, but, if you catch it when you're young it is not dangerous. Not many countries in Europe vaccinates for chicken pox, unless you do it privately, although I think it's getting more and more common these days.
ReplyDeleteMy logic is to leave it for a few years, see if Leo can catch it, but if he hasn't by the age of 8 or 9 or so, I will get him immunized.
I am so sorry your boys were in so much pain when they had it, I would have felt bad too.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Love angry mother