To hunt down these bastards who exposed my son to chicken pox

"Pox parties" are bloody stupid as well.
"I know, let's take my kids to a party to make them deliberately poorly!"
🙄

This!
I was going to vote YABU as everyone gets chicken pox at some point, and he's done well if he's got to 11 without catching it.
However if you're deliberately exposing people to it by letting your kid play out on holiday, you're an arsehole.
Could be immune compromised or someone who is pregnant about.
So YANBU

Yes I'm sure it potentially wearing off after something like 15-20 years was also a risk factor as it's more dangerous to get it later in life.

It is better to have it now. However the parents should have let you make the decision of whether to expose him to it or not.

Someone I know took her baby with chicken pox on a holiday with 4hrs Easy Jet flight involved. Her reasoning "who cares, I am not going to ruin my holiday, it's the 2nd day and not very visible anyway". Mind you, she is also married to a very religious man who likes bringing God/what's right to do acc to God in every second convo.
People do all sorts of things they should not.

Didn't quote the post i was replying to - was in reply to the Chicken pox parties in the 80's.

Yip! I got my chicken pox at one of these, all the cousins together 😀

Our friends wee boy had Chicken pox so we sent ours round but unfortuantely he didn't catch it.

OP - poor timing but i'm sure it will be ok.

I am often more inclined to get upset when I am ill; from what I dimly remember of having chickenpox aged about 6 I expect it's the kind of disease that plays on your emotions. Hopefully your son will feel more positive when he recovers!

Secondary school was so big and overwhelming for me I don't think I made friends for months, and I don't think that was that unusual, so a week probably won't make that much difference. If you're lucky missing the first week might make him stand out (in a good way) amongst his peers, rather than just fading into the crowd. Y7 at my school was all seating plans and things so you often weren't next to the kind of people you got on well with naturally and it took a while to gravitate towards them.

@twodowntwotogo you sound like an insufferable prig. With absolutely no idea that anyone else has a different life to you.

Helpful!

I had it twice. Once from a chickenpox party as a young child, once as an adult.

They did him a favour. I had chickenpox as an adult and it was horrific.

As I say I really don't think the "first" time was CP. But that's what the GP said.

2nd and 3rd time were the "same" outbreak to me. She had a few spots / showed symptoms but then appeared better after a few days. Her sibling then got quite a typical dose of CP.... And then as he recovered DC2 came up with a load more spots and had what I'd consider consider 'normal CP'. That was a fun summer!!

Oh dear, OP - that's bad luck.

I used to want to hunt down people like dogs if they 'gave' me or my family their nasty bugs! Very silly and I'm not being serious, but I understand the impulse. Grrr!

But it's one thing to catch something which the other person doesn't know they've got - and quite another to knowingly be around someone when you've got an illness...particularly tummy things. I can put up with a cold.

@Crunchymum
Can you get chickenpox more than once?12345

• It is possible, but very unusual.
• Susceptibility to getting chickenpox twice depends on factors such as age at first infection, severity of the initial case, and immune system strength.
• Vaccination can help prevent chickenpox.

Sorry OP, chickenpox is so unpleasant (although I think it's better to have as a child than an adult).

Easier said than done, but DC should avoid scratching (I have a scar from when I had it thirty years ago). It might be worth getting hydrocolloid patches for any spots on the face.

I didn't know there was one either.

It's a bit selfish of the other family, but it's chickenpox not bubonic plague. Every kid gets it, it's usually relatively mild in kids. It's bad timing but not the end of the world.

Good grief Mumsnet really can be a pit of vipers!

I'm so sorry for your poor son, OP. Hope he isn't suffering too badly. I'm sure missing his first week feels like the end of the world right now, but he'll slot in just fine. At my old school he would probably even have been assigned someone in his form group to help him find his way around when he starts, although who knows if they'll think to do that. Either way, he'll be ok, it's such early days, the other kids won't all have settled by the time he joins them.

Totally understand your frustration at the other boys parents, some people are just incredibly selfish and or stupid.

Maybe worldwide but not in the UK. Many people aren't even aware there is a vaccine and some won't pay £150 for the two doses. Many more argue it's unnecessary because it's usually mild, which I don't understand because even if your child isn't one of the unlucky few who are hospitalised or die, it's still uncomfortable and involves missing school and work for parents.

You can all say “you can get the vaccine at Boots” but I live in a major city and couldn’t get it, the appointments kept getting cancelled and I eventually gave up

This is the only response you should read OP.

I had no idea there was a CP vaccine, it's never been mentioned to me by any healthcare professional, ever. I could easily afford one but that's immaterial.

The chicken pox vaccine costs £150 in boots which is a lot of money to many of us.

I am very, very pro-vaccination. I'm not irresponsible when it comes to these things, and opted to pay for the Meningitis B vaccine for which DC was born (just) too early to qualify.

But in the case of chickenpox, we took the long-considered and informed decision not to vaccinate our DC. This is because this inoculation does not offer lifelong protection. It could, therefore, simply be a postponement rather than a prevention of the disease and generally the later people catch it, the nastier it can be.

Of course all diseases can be dangerous to a small number of people. That was part of the risk vs. benefits decision we had to weigh up.

Like most children, DC had a mild case of it early on and was fine. Theoretically it can be caught twice but the second instance is generally much less severe.

IMO, you made the right choice not to vaccinate on this occasion, and the smug posters informing you this is what you 'should' have done are hardly helpful considering that ship has already sailed.

Hope your DC is soon recovered and makes a smooth transition into secondary school.

There are around 4 to 5 deaths a year in the under 9s from chickenpox (compared to say Covid at 1 to 2). Chickenpox amongst under. 9s also leads to higher rates of hospitalisation, my DS when aged 3 was hospitalised.

Fortunately we have moved on since the 1980s and the barbaric practices of deliberately trying to infect young children. Today most parents choose to have their children vaccinated against chickenpox in line with most other developed countries.

'It kills a lot more than you first think'

Just to put this into context, it's about 10 people a year in England and Wales. 10 very tragic events, but I don't think it meets the criteria of 'a lot more than you first think'. There's no need for anyone to be panicked about chicken pox.

The only reason that it's not a standard vaccination in the UK is because the NHS has decided it's cheaper to just let everyone catch it as children as it's rarely severe in children. You must have known he would eventually catch it as it's a very common illness and almost everyone who isn't vaccinated gets it. If you weren't planning on vaccinating him (which I assume not because you would have done it 10 years ago) they've done you and him a huge favour. It's often serious in adults.