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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect "nut free" school to actually be

118 replies

Booper13 · 20/10/2011 20:21

DS1 (who has a nut allergy - Epi pens etc) has started in reception this year, in a lovely school which we were assured was a nut free zone.
PTA had a cake sale this week and the flyers to ask parents to bake did NOT request/remind people to avoid nuts/nut products.
I raised this with a member of the PTA, requesting that it could perhaps be included in future. She said that she would mention it at the next meeting and that they may consider asking people to clearly label anything containing nuts. I said that would be great, but technically as school is "nut free zone" maybe nuts could just be avoided. She didn't seem to like this and said cake sale is "technically not the school". IMO as it is the parents & kids making/buying the cakes and is on the school premises, it IS the school.
Obviously I am aware that people may say that I just shouldn't allow DS to get anything from the cake sale, but I feel that he shouldn't have to miss out when the school professes to be nut free.
What do you think? Is it really that big a sacrafice for people to make things without nuts? There is another child in the school who also has a nut allergy.
Am IBU to pursue this?

OP posts:
altinkum · 20/10/2011 20:25

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silverfrog · 20/10/2011 20:26

I think that teaching your ds to ask, and check the contents of food is a more realistic option.

ScaredBear · 20/10/2011 20:26

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BridgetBust · 20/10/2011 20:27

You can't have a nut free world.

altinkum · 20/10/2011 20:27

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onagar · 20/10/2011 20:28

YABU to expect it, but the school should never have promised to be nut-free as that isn't practical or reasonable.

DorisIsTheDarkDestroyer · 20/10/2011 20:28

On the fence on this.

If your ds is super allergic then yes i can see where you are coming from with respect to the risk.

BUT you seem more concerned that he will be unable to be involeved rather than the risk factor.

DD is Dairy free, I would not dream of expecting cakes provided to school to be dairy free so although we may donate (Mr Morrisons finest!) we do not buy. Similarly I have manned ice cream stalls for the PTA after the school concert, in the knowledge that she can not have one (we go home and she has some sorbet instead).

A nut free school on safety grounds is (debatably) a good idea. On grounds of missing out YABU

Original poster
Booper13 · 20/10/2011 20:29

That's exactly the problem! He does ask, but people selling the cakes won't know whether there are nuts in them as they didn't make them all. You couldn't tell from the outside whether there was eg ground almonds or almond oil in a cake.

OP posts:
libelulle · 20/10/2011 20:31

There is another thread about this which points out that many expert bodies as well as parents disagree with nut bans, for very good reasons. I think you are lulling yourself into a false sense of security to think that anywhere is definitely nut free. What about kids who have peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast? Or parents untrained in allergy who don't know that groundnut oil contains peanuts? And as for 'well ds should be able to eat the cakes', I don't have much sympathy. Dd is allergic to dairy, which will never be banned in schools, and has always had to watch forlornly at birthday parties while other children scoff cake. It's shit, I agree, but I don't think it's realistic to trust the nut free status of some random parent's kitchen, nor is it reasonable to expect them to make it so in the first place.

HecateGoddessOfTheNight · 20/10/2011 20:31

Could you not ask, or make sure he asks if a cake contains nuts before he buys it? Or is he so allergic that being around a cake with nuts in it would trigger a reaction. Because if he is that allergic then really it's not unreasonable for the school to ask that things brought on site to be sold do not contain nuts.

Otherwise, he can ask "does this have nuts in?"

Or you could send something that is nut free for him to buy, so he is not missing out.

EndoplasmicReticulum · 20/10/2011 20:32

Booper would you trust a cake from a cake sale if the baker said it was nut free? I could make cakes for PTA and not put any nuts in, but there are nuts in my kitchen and I wouldn't like to guarantee "no traces of nuts".

silverfrog · 20/10/2011 20:32

in that case, the school's suggestion of labelling is a good one.

or, as other posters have suggested (and as I have had to do in the past) - you make what you know is suitable, and he can buy from those options (I have been known to make a couple of different things for cake sales, so that my dds can 'choose' rather than be stuck with one type)

MrsPeterDoherty · 20/10/2011 20:32

Well he can't have the cake then, can he? Why not do as Altinkum does, so he can buy the cakes you have made and know are safe?

HecateGoddessOfTheNight · 20/10/2011 20:32

oh, sorry, x post with you saying they don't always know.

Bake/buy something you know is nut free and make sure he has that.

I hate cake sales. It costs more to buy the cake/make the cake than it's sold for. The only winners are the supermarkets. The school would make more money if you just lopped in the amount of cash you'd have spent on a bloody cake.

littleducks · 20/10/2011 20:32

I think you are being unrealistic to think he can eat homemade cakes at a cake stall. Even if a leaflet is sent out.

DD doesn't eat certain food, not for allergy reasons. When she had a cake stall that sold in school time, I sent in a donation for the cake stall and seperately in a small sandwich bag a cake for her to buy back. It worked, could you consider something like that?

academyblues · 20/10/2011 20:33

YANBU. Nut allergy is serious. Other children are NOT 'missing out on nice cakes' - since when do 'nice cakes' HAVE to have nuts in them?

Dairy allergy, albeit unpleasant, isn't life threatening. It's not a sensible comparison.

OP isn't asking for a nut free world; she's asking for the school to uphold its status as a nut free school, which seems very, very reasonable to me.

zdcgbjm · 20/10/2011 20:37

YANBU our school is nut free and that includes packed lunches and I'd assume they would expect cake sale stuff to be nut free too. That said I don't think I'd let my DS (also has a nut allergy) have any of the cakes anyway because some people's idea of "nut free" is dubious to say the least. So perhaps there's no point in requesting those cakes to be nut free.

littleducks · 20/10/2011 20:37

I thought that 'life threatening' depended on the person not the allergen? So one person could have a life threatening allergy to eggs another to nuts?

altinkum · 20/10/2011 20:37

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zdcgbjm · 20/10/2011 20:38

Dairy allergy can be life threatening! My DS's nut allergy is not a bit of piriton is all he needs. Yes before you ask it is a "proper" allergy, he's under a consultant at the hospital for it.

KittyFane · 20/10/2011 20:39

:o @ Bridget' nut free world.
YABU OP, your DC should be taught to ask and if they (or stall holder are unsure) he should say no.
The school is BU to think it possible to be nut free, too many ways for this to fail.
We cannot always have what they want. Sad but true is that we all have to live within our own bodies, things don't always go our way.

geisha · 20/10/2011 20:39

Yabu. Dd has severe nut allergy (also epipens etc) and my PTA cake stall labels all cakes as 'may contain nuts'. Dd knows she can't have cakes from cake stall and I make sure I have cakes at home. At some point your ds is going to need go understand he has a condition which means there are some limitations in life and the sooner he gets to grips with it, the easier it will be. Sorry if it sounds harsh, just my view.

KittyFane · 20/10/2011 20:39

We, not they

Original poster
Booper13 · 20/10/2011 20:40

Altinkum - I def do not want other kids to miss out on nice cakes. There are millions of cake options which don't contain nuts. Sorry your son has allergies too.
DITDD - It IS the risk factor which concerns me. Sorry your DD has a dairy allergy.
I guess it is just that with nut allergies in particular the consequences can be so severe (I'm not downplaying the effects of other allergies - I don't know much about any other than nuts). DH says we should ask whether they would do this if a child died as a result of unwittingly consuming something with nuts at a cake sale. If the answer is yes, then shouldn't they just do it now.

OP posts:
ScaredBear · 20/10/2011 20:40

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