I keep thinking about the first-grader who has to run the gauntlet of parent-picketers to get to her school.
Is this a scene from Arkansas during the early years of desegregation? No, this is Florida 2011 and these parents want this child to be removed from the school because they find measures to accommodate her peanut allergy too onerous.
Among the reported requirements, children in her class are to keep their lunches outside the classroom and to wash their hands when they enter the classroom and after they eat. This incenses a number of parents who’ve resorted to picketing because they think her family should home school her.
My heart goes out to this girl and her family. My gratitude also goes out to other parents who support this girl’s right to go to school and accept these precautions.
It would be easy to pillory the picketers. I’m having a hard time restraining myself, believe me. But then I think about my own thoughts around food allergies before my own child was diagnosed with a very serious peanut allergy, as well as asthma:
No peanut butter sandwiches? That’s crazy! These people need hysteria control and not peanut-butter bans!
Cadbury is thinking of closing it’s peanut-free facility. Who cares?
Once, I heard a local radio DJ host a call-in about allergies and listened as they laughed uproariously when a caller suggested that allergies are Natural Selection at work.
Har dee har har. It’s funny until it’s your daughter, son, sibling or spouse.
Now I’m on the other side of the line and the view from here can get ugly.
I’ve sat across the table from some parents at my daughter’s school when we worked on a policy for protecting children with allergies and listened to one say that “allergy kids should all sit in one room and eat celery together.”
At the time, I was aware of emails sent among parent-council members suggesting that “allergy kids” should be home schooled. Every time I walked into that room for those meetings, I felt sick and sad.
I’m not callous about allergies now. I’m humbly grateful for these measures and for parents (who don’t have children with allergies), but accept these precautions because they think safeguarding the health of my child is important. These parents are able to put themselves in my shoes, something I was unable to do before I became the parent of a child with a life-threatening food allergy.
You know what I think when I see those picketing parents in Florida? That could have been me protesting, but thankfully by a twist of fate, it’s not.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if those parents who are bullying that girl and her family have grandchildren with food allergies in future? Maybe it would make them more compassionate people.
It worked for me.
Very honest post, Patti. It takes courage to admit what you have. I would like to think that perhaps I would be as compassionate as the parents you laud for being so.
I sometimes think that our freedoms have made us selfish and thoughtless.
As a longtime sufferer of a Coconut Allergy, I have to say not only are people complete jerks about it, but I’ve known more than one person that has tried to trick me into dying horribly by feeding me the horrible toenail flavored crap.
I can understand how it would seem distracting and unnecessary to the parents of the other kids. It would seem incredibly disruptive, but children are often superior to their parents. These kids probably don’t even have a problem with it. Most of them are probably young enough that it doesn’t seem that unusual for them.
The idea of stopping someone from getting an education triggers something primal inside of me. There are a lot of things worth violently fighting for, and the right to education is one of them.
Excellent post. Fortunately I’ve always been in the how would I feel if we caused somebody else’s kid to get sick or worse yet even die. Its nut free all the way for school lunches and they can have PB&J at home (besides its such a simple dinner
).
When my kids were in daycare, there were “peanut-free” zones, and there were always parents that were snarky about it. It was usually the parent that wanted to bake or bring something for the rest of the kids that had an issue with it. We were lucky, in that, our kids don’t have allergies. That doesn’t mean that I wanted to be responsible for someone else’s kid getting sick or having an allergic reaction. We just stuck with things that were approved for all. No biggie.
Unfortunately, food allergies seem to be “in fashion,” and there are many that blame other issues that they have on allergies…my mother-in-law is one that does that. She conveniently forgets that she’s told us that she’s allergic to something, and then eats it anyway…with no reaction.
I have other allergies, though, and I know how miserable they make me. Why subject a kid to something that makes them sick, when there’s an easy solution?
Great post, Patti. Definitely something to think about!
I have to say, Patti, I think in this case you’re being too kind. You might have thought that allergy precautions were a hassle but you never would have been one of those assholes picketing to get the poor kid homeschooled. These are the same kind of people who complain when terminally ill children get to go to the front of the line at Disneyworld. I have, in fact, written a letter to the school principal suggesting that requiring all the school lunches for Eve’s class be dairy free was a little extreme, since I knew for a fact that the milk allergy in question was not life-threatening if the milk product was not ingested (and if I couldn’t give her cheese she was never going to get any protein all day at school). I think sometimes schools are so law-suit frightened that they will try to go overboard if the other parents will stand for it. So I’m certainly not claiming to be a saint. But the picketing parents, and your celery-comment asshat? Whole other category of douchebag.
Amen! I think I was among the “Who cares?” crowd too, until it became part of our family’s everyday life.
BRAVO Patti! Those folks in Florida are F’in ignorant. As is the rest of the population who feels like its a burden to pack peanut free/allergen free food to school.
I always feel like telling them – burden?? burden?? Well it must have been a big burden for me when my youngest went into full blown anaphylactic shock and we almost lost her despite the incredible team of medical doctors working feverishly to save her life – all due to 1 tiny Reese’s Pieces.
Eff them.
I give you a lot of credit for being so honest.
It’s always so easy to point the finger. But pointing requires two fingers. The problem is when you point, one finger points away from you, the other finger points right back at ya.
I’ve compained about having to pack peanut-free lunches. It means that my fussy daughter has been eating crackers every day for lunch for 8 years. However, whenver I now see her putting something in her lunch that may have been exposed to peanuts, ie. a granola bar that wasn’t made in a peanut free facility, I panic at the thought of who just might accidentally be exposed to it. I don’t want to be that parent who doesn’t give a damn.
The USA has more than its fair share of selfish assholes. Have a peek at http:/artesian-well.blogspot.com/ for a comment on the probable genesis of the sort of misogynonistic crap Patti describes.
Those protesters kill me. There are entire school buildings that are peanut free, and they’re complaining about a little handwashing and keeping the lunches outside of the classroom? Big effing deal. They have it easy.
Patti, since you’d know–what do peanut-allergy kids do for Halloween? Surely you can’t make sure that no one in your neighborhood hands out any Reese’s cups. Does having one go in the plastic pumpkin ruin everything?
Check out this Duke study:
http://www.dukechildrens.org/services/duke_food_allergy_initiative
And this article:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/05/nut-allergies-oral-immunotherapy-desensitization