I'm sure by now everyone has heard about the 15 year-old girl with a peanut allergy who died when her boyfriend ate peanut butter then kissed her. The reports I've read and heard varied from "he ate the peanut butter on toast 9 hours before" (BBC news) to just before (Edmonton news) he came to her house and peck kissed her hello.
The local talk radio show in the late morning/afternoon here wanted to know about food allergies and how parents deal with them, etc. It made me utter a phrase (in my brain, not out load, because I was in the car by myself and well, out loud would mean I was talking to myself :) ) I never thought I'd say. "YEAH Parents!"
"Yeah Parents!" I'm not too big on parents. No offense to those parents I know personally. It's not a sepcific thing, just a rash generalization based on the hordes of unattended children running through shopping centers, bookstores and restaurants as their parents continue their conversations, lunches, shopping without so much as a sidewards glance to their children. It's as much the area I live in as the people who are having children, maybe more so. I have also witnessed parents refuse to admit the misdeeds of their own children and actually criticize others for reprimanding them, when, if it was my child, I'd punish them myself because they probably deserved it. However, I digress.
When I first heard the topic, I almost changed the channel. I figured it would be loads of mothers championing peanut-free schools, dairy-free kindergartens and other make your school absolutely safe for my child and their "issues" (for not wanting to list health concerns, allergies, et al). Instead, what I heard made me smile. Most mothers called in to say when faced with a nut-free lunch table or peanut-free school, they and their children said no way. I heard parents speaking of not giving their child false-security in thinking the whole world is "safe" for them. One mother asked her son if he'd like to sit at the nut-free table, to which her son replied, "Mom, they probably wipe down one table, then wipe down another one. So, what does it matter if I sit at a "special" table or not." Go kids! Go Mom! She must have done something right. One mother said a peanut-free school would lull her son into thinking he would never have to look out for peanut in the real world. Her son, who has known how to read "peanut" since he was 3 years old, would let his guard down. Yeah Mom! Yeah Dad! Yeah Parents!
Yeah Parents! Well....at least until the next one stands shreiking next to my table, while waiters and waitresses try stealthfully to avoid stepping on it (that's what my sister and I call the miserably annoying ones), while it's mother and her friend sit peacefully at a table enjoying their lunch. (Just for the record, every person I know personally who has children would never let their kids behave this way, because they too have experienced this.)
1 comment:
As a classroom teacher for 4 years I never had a child allergic to peanuts...so its silly to me that there are places becoming "peanut free" because its not as common as one is led to believe. In the 4 years I was teaching, I know there was only 2 students in the school that were allergic.
Now, for those parents that don't watch their children in public...they should be shot. I ride my Katie so hard on behaving well in public that she is miserable at home...but hey, better there than out--right?
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