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Help me determine if I'm a douche.
kcisthebombdotcom
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On Monday I woke up sick with a pretty nasty head/chest cold. I ended up staying home that day but for the rest of the week I kept up with the kids schedules of playgroups/activities/therapy. I chugged a lot of dayquil, used hand sanitizer, and went along with our regular routine. Today both the kids woke up sick. On one hand, I feel bad for all the small humans they likely infested with their germs yesterday but on the other hand I think it's kind of silly to keep them home because they *might* get sick in the future.
So parenting, wdyd in these situations? I realize this is of the greatest importance.
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Re: Help me determine if I'm a douche.
I would have done the same thing.
Yes.
But not for that.
Agree.
I think it's overkill to stay home just because your kid might get sick. Once the kid is sick, though, it's time to stay home.
As you can tell by my tickers my humans are small, so activities/playgroups have mom in tow.
I also wasn't running a fever, if that makes any difference. Just standard cold symptoms.
Yeah, it was a slightly self-deprecating attempt at humor. It seems like everyone got a chuckle but actually answered the question, so it worked.
Oh, KC.
As a general rule, yes. Yes, you are. But not for this.
I can't keep my kid home from daycare when she has a regular old cold or else I would have to take 6 months off from work every year. So on the theory that she might potentially have a cold coming on, I would have just continued about our business.
If I were feeling like ass myself I might not have gone to the playdates but I wouldn't have avoided taking my kid to therapy or the park just because I have a cold.
BFP #2 4/13/10. Bridget born 12/28/10
BFP #3 Finn born 8/11/15
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Honestly, I'm a first time mom, but I've been a professional nanny (and a babysitter) for 11 years now and it is one of my biggest peeves when parents bubble up their children. All the "rules" these days for keeping children safe isn't doing them very much good. Sickness rates as adults are higher, diseases are up, etc. 50 years ago parents were raising their children to play with mercury, go to school sick or plagued and eat dirt and the larger majority of them lived.
While some caution should be taken, the more germs your kids (and others, honestly) are exposed to, the better their immune systems will be to fight it off in the future. When we get sick, our bodies develop distinct antibodies to fight off that specific infection. If you never get it, you'll never fight it off and the older you get without having it, the more likely it is to seriously hurt you. (From a medical standpoint.)
SO NO, you're not a douche. You're a regular human being who hasn't been sucked into the pharmaceutical bs about over-protecting your family from germs. Congrats.