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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to feel so angry about the kid at school with a streaming cold?

99 replies

fircone · 18/09/2007 10:06

I'm not cross with the kid - I felt sorry for her. But her mother came in yesterday with the poor child who obviously had a temperature - hot face, rheumy eyes - and said to the teacher, "Oh, she's a bit poorly - call me if she gets any worse" and then the child is there this morning with an absolutely streaming cold, crying and her mother says "She's got plenty of tissues" and waltzes out. I was puce with rage. How dare this woman leave a child who is clearly ill, and also inflict the germ on every other 4-year-old in the class?
Anyway, am I going round the bend because I'm thinking of writing a note to the headmistress to ask her to remind parents that school is not a suitable place for SICK children.

OP posts:

madness · 18/09/2007 11:17

well, i have done that, ds vomiting and left him at school later.
But he wanted to go himself.

Have also given calpol and neurofen for fever and then dropped dd off at school. After having taken of 5 consecutive mondays off work for children's illnesses.

duchesse · 18/09/2007 11:17

contentiouscat- at your mil... Mine would feed them on sweet stuff until their teeth fell out... It's just an excuse for her to get to eat such stuff...

contentiouscat · 18/09/2007 11:20

I can remember with great shame feeling resentful of the parents who always took school holidays off because I couldnt take a summer holiday & had to cover their work.

Interesting to see it from the other side now.

OrmIrian · 18/09/2007 11:22

If she did have a temperature she shouldn't have been there. Otherwise it wouldn't bother me. You aren't going to avoid all colds when your child is at school unfortunately.

Childcare is a nightmare when you work but even so, a really sick child takes priority. But we all differ in our idea of 'really sick' I guess. Temperature, D&V, lack of appetite or serious pain of any kind are where I draw the line. Not a runny nose or a slight sore throat.

HonoriaGlossop · 18/09/2007 11:23

YANBU. The child should be away from school. Other people's difficulties in getting childcare or days off work CAN be real of course but then it's priorities; we are dealing with classes full of kids not tins of beans; kids get ill and it's really not fair to send an obviously ill and infectious child in. Part of the responsibility of having children is making SOME sort of contingency plan for if they're ill. I'm sure that won't be a popular view but that's what I think.

And yes, I am lucky enough to have family to help, however if I didn't I would STILL consider it my responsibility as a parent to have something in place; my mum managed it with two of us when her own mum was dead and my dad's family lived hours away; we were not sent to school ill.

emj23 · 18/09/2007 11:23

YANBU, DS had been back at school for five days before he brought a cold home. He has had to have three days off because it turned into a chest infection requiring antibiotics. After a whole summer of no illness, he immediately gets sick when he's back at school. I wish parents would keep their children home when they are ill, if at all possible. I understand some may not have any choice, but I think some just send them anyway, at DS's school at least.

maisym · 18/09/2007 11:27

yanbu - just hate this situation - the child isn't able to be at school. Germs can come from anywhere but seeing ill kids at school (plus kids with nits who will be treated at the weekend....) just gets to me.

contentiouscat · 18/09/2007 11:28

I think its easy to say she shouldnt have been there but if you need the job to pay your bills & have no childcare and an unsympathetic boss then its a difficult situation isnt it?

I worked for a very small company when I was pregnant...the business was struggling financially and the MD tbh was horrible when we announced we were pregnant. I won brownie points because I lived locally and had all my apppointments & antinatal classes out of work time, my colleage lived further away and took the time out of work because it was her "legal right", hence to say once we had our babies he bent over backwards to keep me as an employee and wouldnt change her terms & conditions at all to take into account the fact that she had a child. Yes its wrong, unfair and against the law but it still happens.

NKF · 18/09/2007 11:29

I needed to be at death's door before my mother would let me have a day off school. Perhaps she's that sort of parent.

madness · 18/09/2007 11:29

would be a pretty empty classroom if all children would stay at home when having a cold and still would not stop to spread the infection (children are kept away from dd's playgroup if they have chickenpox. Still, that didn't stop the majoruty of the children getting chickenpox.

But, like I did send ds to school the other day but only because he wanted to. If he is ill and does NOT want to school it means he is REALLY not feeling well.

So if that girl was crying because she felt poorly then I agree she should have been kept at home

lulumama · 18/09/2007 11:33

not read the thread , but not all parents have the option of taking the day off to be with their child unless they are really, really sick.

a feverish cold is a hard one, i would keep mine at home, but i have that luxury as a SAHM...

contentiouscat · 18/09/2007 11:34

My Mum never believed I was ill, and tbh sometimes I wasnt, but generally you can tell by their behaviour whether they are playing up or not. DS takes to the sofa with his fleecy blanket when he feels ill, if hes scrapping on the floor or pretending to be spiderman on the back of the sofa then its safe to assume hes OK for school

iliketosleep · 18/09/2007 11:36

My DC spent most oflast night throwing up, even though they are fine now i havent sent them to school!

YANBU

bozza · 18/09/2007 11:37

My problem is that on days I am working, I have to be out of the house very early (in order to finish early enough to organise, beavers/swimming/football training/homework) that it is hard to decide how the child is. It is not the same as having until 9 to decide. And I have made the wrong decision - both ways, as it happens. Sent poorly child and kept just slightly off colour child at home.

OrmIrian · 18/09/2007 11:37

If I can get my kids to eat breakfast inspite of them swearing to me that they feel soooo ill, I generally know that they are OK. Food normally distracts them enough to make it clear they are OK even if there are no other clear signs.

Original poster

fircone · 18/09/2007 11:38

I think you can see when a child has a temperature - and the mother in question is a SAHM. I was angry that this woman didn't seem to see that her daughter was so under the weather, and had such scant regard for anyone (everyone!) exposed to this germ.

OP posts:

NKF · 18/09/2007 11:40

But what would someone be angry about? I can understand feeling sorry for a sick child and wondering what the circumstances are that there isn't a famliy member to look after the child at home. But why anger? That mother who "waltzed out" might have felt dreadful and been putting a brave face on it. She might be about to go into work and lie or beg for some time off so she can race the child to the doctor's after school. Surely if mothers supporting mothers means anything at all, it means giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

As for the germs questions, they're a fact of life. Schools are full of them. So are buses, doctor's surgeries, theatres. Kids get sick and then they get sick less often because it builds up immunity.

HonoriaGlossop · 18/09/2007 11:47

But it's not a cut and dried case of 'I can't take a day off work so my child has to go to school'. As I said, I have family who can help if ds is ill and I fully realise how lucky I am, however I have also wracked my brains for a small list of people I could ask to help me if I had no-one else. Neighbours or friends COULD be asked; not ideal in some cases but it's something that covers the situation. It's surely part of the responsibility of being a working parent is that you attempt to put these things in place so that you don't have to send an infectious and upset child in.

contentiouscat · 18/09/2007 11:50

NO excuse for leaving a sick and distressed child at home if you are a SAHM, those of us who are caring and empathetic people would naturally feel for the child. If the school are any good they will call her to get the child and bearing in mind other parents do have to work and wont want their children to catch it this is rather selfish behaviour.

Just before the summer holiday a SAHM i know was taking her children into our school with sickness & diarrea - I did point out to her that it was a little selfish as people were about to go on their annual holidy which these days costs a lot but she said "oh they wanted to go to school"

contentiouscat · 18/09/2007 11:51

See the one message I didnt preview I meant "NO excuse for leaving a sick and distressed child at school"

putitdown · 18/09/2007 12:00

Temperatures, D+V, floppy and miserable stay at home. Cold I send them

bluejelly · 18/09/2007 12:04

TBH I am staggered that the op was puce with rage

Takes a lot more than that to get me going

OrmIrian · 18/09/2007 12:09

LOL bluejelly! Can't remember anyone or anything making me that mad ....apart from DH of course

fireflyfairy2 · 18/09/2007 12:11

so, you're saying it's ok for the germs to be passed onto the children of SAHM's seeing as they wouldn't have to take time off for a sick child?

duchesse · 18/09/2007 12:11

I don't know- the time my then toddler (4 and 2) older children shoved an entire roll of loo paper down the loo in five sheet lengths over the course of ten minutes (I was on the phone!) got me quite close to puce. Needless to say, they had a little time-out that day while I unblocked the near to overflowing loo by hand (urgh...)

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