My Day
Teenage daughter came home yesterday sick. Thought it was allergies - appears not to be as she had a low grade fever this morning. She was up at 6 a.m. complaining about a sore throat. Gave her tylenol and robittussin & sent her back to bed. Called the school to alert them that she wasn't going to be there. See, a lot has changed in the last several years. I used to tell them if the fever wasn't over 100 they were going to school come hell or high water. Then if they were sick enough the nurse would send them home. I have to work when I don't feel good - they can go to school. That brings me to a whole other subject . . . see later in this post.
Anyway - I don't pretend to be a nurturer. I grew up with the theory that unless you were bleeding from both ears, throwing up projectile vomit, had a fever that would send you to the emergency room, or bones sticking out - you were OK! And you better not complain about every little ache or pain you had. As a kid when I was sick - whether real sick, psychosomatic sick, or just feeling "ucky" Mom would keep me in bed all day. I couldn't watch television or heaven forbid go outside even to check the mail. I got my meals on TV trays. Had to stay in my pajamas and I couldn't even play in my room. If you said you were sick - then you were sick. I think when I got the chicken pox in first grade, both my mom and I were confused. I couldn't go anywhere because I was contagious. I couldn't go outside. I couldn't scratch. But I wasn't sleepy or feverish or even "ucky". I think I was allowed to watch television that week. But that was the rare exception.
To get back to my original thought - I think I've just gotten tired of fighting with my kids on whether or not they are really sick. Back in the fall this same daughter didn't feel well and I suggested she take it easy one day - we were starting flu season and I didn't want her to get it with her immune system down. She realized she had some major tests or stuff to do at school and went on in. By the afternoon she felt better. Guess that's what happens as you get older and most of your kids are off doing their own thing. I have less kids to deal with when it comes to being sick at home.
Now - for that whole other story - School Nurses. When I was a kid the teacher wouldn't even allow you to go to the school nurse unless you were bleeding, throwing up, etc. Nowadays all of my kids have gone to the school nurse because
1) they are "tired"
2) they have a headache
3) their stomach hurts (probably because they didn't eat breakfast & are hungry)
4) some other stupid ailment
Each time one of these stupid nurses called to tell my my kid had a headache, I'd tell the nurse I had a headache - could I leave work too? I finally had to give each nurse I dealt with my criteria for calling me. If nothing fit the criteria, I wasn't to be bothered. Do you know how difficult it is to leave work, drive 30 minutes home to get the kid from school, take the kid home, make sure they were going to live for the next 3-4 hours, then go back to work? Of course the kid had to be old enough to stay home by themselves. When that wasn't possible, I got black marks on my attendance at work, lost pay, and on top of that had a sick, complaining, whiny kid to deal with. That was way before I got a cool job working for my church - which allows me to be very flexible in my schedule. The corporate world was lousy - too political, too "social", etc. No matter how great of an employee someone was or no matter that they went above and beyond 99% of the time, when they had to take off due to dr. appts or sick kids, they felt persecuted. Ugh - I don't miss those days at all.
Does anyone else have sick kid stories to share?
Anyway - I don't pretend to be a nurturer. I grew up with the theory that unless you were bleeding from both ears, throwing up projectile vomit, had a fever that would send you to the emergency room, or bones sticking out - you were OK! And you better not complain about every little ache or pain you had. As a kid when I was sick - whether real sick, psychosomatic sick, or just feeling "ucky" Mom would keep me in bed all day. I couldn't watch television or heaven forbid go outside even to check the mail. I got my meals on TV trays. Had to stay in my pajamas and I couldn't even play in my room. If you said you were sick - then you were sick. I think when I got the chicken pox in first grade, both my mom and I were confused. I couldn't go anywhere because I was contagious. I couldn't go outside. I couldn't scratch. But I wasn't sleepy or feverish or even "ucky". I think I was allowed to watch television that week. But that was the rare exception.
To get back to my original thought - I think I've just gotten tired of fighting with my kids on whether or not they are really sick. Back in the fall this same daughter didn't feel well and I suggested she take it easy one day - we were starting flu season and I didn't want her to get it with her immune system down. She realized she had some major tests or stuff to do at school and went on in. By the afternoon she felt better. Guess that's what happens as you get older and most of your kids are off doing their own thing. I have less kids to deal with when it comes to being sick at home.
Now - for that whole other story - School Nurses. When I was a kid the teacher wouldn't even allow you to go to the school nurse unless you were bleeding, throwing up, etc. Nowadays all of my kids have gone to the school nurse because
1) they are "tired"
2) they have a headache
3) their stomach hurts (probably because they didn't eat breakfast & are hungry)
4) some other stupid ailment
Each time one of these stupid nurses called to tell my my kid had a headache, I'd tell the nurse I had a headache - could I leave work too? I finally had to give each nurse I dealt with my criteria for calling me. If nothing fit the criteria, I wasn't to be bothered. Do you know how difficult it is to leave work, drive 30 minutes home to get the kid from school, take the kid home, make sure they were going to live for the next 3-4 hours, then go back to work? Of course the kid had to be old enough to stay home by themselves. When that wasn't possible, I got black marks on my attendance at work, lost pay, and on top of that had a sick, complaining, whiny kid to deal with. That was way before I got a cool job working for my church - which allows me to be very flexible in my schedule. The corporate world was lousy - too political, too "social", etc. No matter how great of an employee someone was or no matter that they went above and beyond 99% of the time, when they had to take off due to dr. appts or sick kids, they felt persecuted. Ugh - I don't miss those days at all.
Does anyone else have sick kid stories to share?
posted by wendy @ Thursday, January 27, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home