The Lesson of Swine Flu Isn't Necessarily One We'd Planned on Teaching

I'm no Protestant, but where I grew up, the work ethic was firmly instilled, religion or not. If you could stand, you got out of bed. If you could walk, you walked yourself right into the bathroom, put your clothes on, and went to school. In my family, only actual, active vomiting really constituted an excuse, and even then, under certain circumstances (big test, a team commitment), you might just be handed a bucket.

It's clear that in the case of pandemic flu, those rules can't and don't apply (it's also fairly clear that maybe they weren't the best rules in the first place). But if you're lucky enough to have kids home with only mild cases of the flu (blogging parents are reporting fevers that come and go while kids stay full of energy and schools requiring that kids stay home for seven days), what's surprising isn't so much how difficult it is to deal with missed work and bored children. What's surprising is how wrong it feels to let a kid who's not feeling that bad just ... stay home. It feels too lenient. It feels indulgent. Won't they learn that when the going gets tough, the tough watch a Scooby Doo marathon?

Maybe they'll learn that sometimes, the most responsible thing to do is admit that the world can keep going without you for a while.

 

Tags: H1N1 swine flu

KJ Dell'Antonia Former Manhattan lawyer and prosecutor, Xxtra Small reviewer, parent of four. Lover of books and bacon.

Comments

in defense of the Blackberryers...

By: patresponse | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 19:52

... they're sometimes working for the kind of employers who *expect* a call checking in.

And those of us in the super-wired workplaces might be able to provide an example to children who are out of school because of sickness. When I had swine flu in the spring, I took off three days from the office in the interest of not spreading the disease while I was most infectious (unlike the co-worker I strongly suspect infected me due to his coming to work while hackingly sick and promiscuously touching doorknobs, printer buttons, etc). But Thanks to Modern Technology! I was able to stay in touch with work: answer emails, even knock out few hours on a project each day when I was feeling at my best. Similarly, it's good for the kids to have few hours of academic productivity while they're home from school. Nowadays kids can get their assignments e-mailed and avoid falling too far behind. There's no reason for a sick day to be like a vacation day.

I completely agree with that

By: buggie | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 14:13

I completely agree with that last comment. I do think that 7 days is a lot of school for a kid to miss, but anyone who is sick, child or adult, is unproductive anyway, so what's the difference? It's not worth making other people sick over. I liken the going-in-not-matter-what mentality to the people you see on planes and in airports calling their offices as soon as they land: "just checking in. how's everything going there?" as if the whole enterprise will cease to function because they're out of town.

in the case of H1N1 things are a little different

By: xxreader | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 13:09

KJ - I agree that kids are often coddled by their parents and that parents can sometimes be too lax on staying home from school with the sniffles.

But - I think the schools are right on when it comes to H1N1. Yes it goes away in a couple days and no, no one healthy is really dying from this. But, I'm just getting over H1N1 myself (after making snarky jokes about it for months). It is very contagious and where most kids have had the seasonal flu, unless you were around in the 70s you weren't exposed to H1N1. It has a cough that lingers and people that have it are contagious until their cough is gone - well after their fever has worn off.

I'm not worried that these kids are going to die. I am worried that if little Johnny gets it and mommy sends him off to school after 2 days, he will spread it around to many people. This wouldn't be so bad if there weren't a shortage of the vaccine to prevent the disease in the first place and tamiflu to knock it out of your system.

My two cents....

H1N1

By: Redhead Ranting | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 12:02

Yes, when I was a kid we didn't stay home unless we were vomiting too and then there was no TV, no talking on the phone when everyone else got home from school, nothing to do but sleep or study. Of course we walked miles to school, uphill both ways and in the snow. I think we ate rocks for breakfast too. I remember faking to stay home. I don't remember why I did it but I did. My dad was a doctor so it was hard to get anything over him until I hit puberty and then I could say it was cramps. Since he couldn't relate, and couldn't tell, I would get a pass. I miss those days.

Thanks for shout out!