Honestly, some of the responses to this are bonkers. Have you read your post back, whilst imagining standing in front of that poor mother?
Severe allergies aren’t a fad, a preference or the result of overprotective parenting. Anaphylaxis is a potentially life-threatening medical emergency. EpiPens are emergency treatment, they are not some magical forcefield that makes exposure irrelevant.
There’s an enormous difference between acknowledging that you cannot guarantee a completely nut-free environment and deliberately growing nuts inside it.
So because it’s one child, their parents should be told to “fuck off”?
Seriously? Who are you?
The measure of a decent community is surely how willing we are to make reasonable accommodations for people who are more vulnerable, even when they are a small minority. Looked in the mirror lately?
We wouldn’t ensure a school playground or access to the lovely orchard is wheelchair accessible because 51% of pupils use wheelchairs. We would do that because the child who DOES use a wheelchair has just as much right to access learning and be a part of school life and the school community as everyone else. How could you think differently? What happened to you?
Life isn’t fair. so why make it any more shitty than it needs to be? What motivates you to feel otherwise?
Yes, a nut-allergic child can stand next to a nut tree without spontaneously going into anaphylaxis. But these trees are planted inside the school grounds. Nuts don’t remain neatly attached to trees. They fall. Squirrels and other animals carry them around, bury them, crack them open and leave bits behind. Children pick things up. They dig in soil. They collect conkers, acorns, seeds, sticks and interesting things they find on the ground. Things get crushed under shoes. Things get carried around on hands. But why should that bother you? It doesn’t affect you does it…
Parents cannot demand that the local park remove every nut tree. They cannot control what another passenger eats on a train. They cannot stop shops selling nuts. They cannot control what other people eat in restaurants, at parties or in public places.
There are hundreds of risks they simply have to manage. Which is precisely why I cannot understand the determination to create an entirely optional one INSIDE THEIR SCHOOL. A place they legally have go to five days a week, unless their parents quit their jobs to home school them for your convenience. Are you feeling comfortable enough yet?
The school controls what it plants on its own land.
There are countless species of tree that could be planted in an orchard or around a school boundary.
So why choose ones that produce a common serious food allergen? Spite? Privilege? Selfishness?
What is the compelling benefit?
Is there some overwhelming educational or ecological reason that these particular nut trees absolutely have to be there?
if not… plant a different fucking tree
And yes, I think it’s sad if established trees now have to be removed. I like trees. However I’d much rather somebody had thought about this when the orchard was originally planned so that healthy trees didn’t have to come down once established.
But that’s an argument for thinking about accessibility and allergy safety properly when designing schools in the first place. It isn’t an argument for telling the parents of a child with a serious medical condition to “fuck off”. Do you see it yet? How your entitlement and rudeness affects other people…
I really cannot get past that comment.
Imagine being the parent responsible for keeping a severely allergic child safe.
Every party. Every restaurant. Every school trip. Every friend’s house. Reading labels. Checking ingredients. Asking awkward questions. Carrying emergency medication. Teaching your child, from a ridiculously young age, that something completely harmless to their friends could make them seriously ill. And that there are sadly lots of happy taytos in the world who will tell their parents to fuck off if they advocate for them.
Imagine asking their school to address something you believe presents an avoidable risk to them and being told that you what you need… what you really need, is to “fuck off”.
Where is your empathy? What happened to you? You can’t be that happy, happy taytos. With that attitude towards vulnerable kids.
Nobody is asking for the entire world to revolve around one child.
They’re asking the adults responsible for that child for most of every weekday to consider whether an avoidable source of their allergen really needs to be growing INSIDE THE SCHOOL GROUNDS.
If assessment identifies a meaningful avoidable risk, I genuinely cannot understand why removing the source would be controversial.
And for everyone saying “you can’t make the whole world safe for them”… EXACTLY. You can’t.
They already have to navigate a world that isn’t designed around their allergy. They already have to compromise, avoid things, ask questions and be more vigilant than other children.
So why the fuck can’t their school be one of the places where adults make reasonable efforts to reduce the risks that CAN be reduced?
Why should the answer to “life isn’t completely safe” be… “therefore we shouldn’t make anything safer”?
Batshit.
And why is all the responsibility being dumped onto the parents? Allergy safety should be part of the school’s policies and risk assessments so individual parents don’t have to fight these battles single-handedly while being treated as hysterical or entitled for advocating for their child.
Allergies are medical conditions. Severe reactions can kill people. That remains true however inconvenient or unlikely somebody else considers the risk.
That child matters just as much as everybody else. Even if you don’t care.