Getting sick is vile, miserable, and a waste of time - so do something about it!
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For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.4 -
OneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
^^ This is so true. I can't tell you how many times ( US here ) I have heard of the schools complaining about students missing class. Even if they were legitimate illnesses with doctor's notes! (Not just colds). And employers are just as bad. I remember my time in retail management. There were some people who would call out every Monday with brown bottle flu. I did not feel bad at all for writing those people up for missing a bunch of work. But the ones who were legit sick? If they missed too many days I had to write them up still. (My store manager made sure to see it was done) I felt like the largest jerk in the world! I would just tell them "I realize you were sick, and then your kids were sick causing you to miss 5 days this month. So I am obligated to fill out this warning. I'm sorry." I hated it. There was one time (at the same company) my mom got sick, then right after that my brother's came down with fifth disease (aka slapped cheeks disease) causing them to have to be quarantined at home until they got better. She missed a bunch of work, and got pulled into the manager's office to be "talked to" about her poor attendance.
..Then we wonder why so many come to work sick? This is why.
@AoifeFitzy I wish there were more employers like you!5 -
When it's possible, of course one should stay home when they are I'll. However, when people are in such hardscrabble conditions that missing a day of work may mean not enough food for the family or am eviction notice, it's tough to think of higher concepts like herd immunity. I've been there myself. I've also been written up for calling in sick twice in the same month.
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OneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).5 -
I agree that we should take precautions to not spread germs however if you work a job like mine it can be difficult to take time off. I started a new position in October and you are not allowed to use any PTO (sick or vacation) until 6 months after your hire date. I am not in a position where I can afford to take time off of work unpaid, plus if you call in sick more than 3 times in a 12 month period (paid or unpaid) you get a verbal warning, 5 times is a written warning, and more than that can be a fire able offense. I will admit I have gone to work with a gross cold but I simply cannot afford to take 3-5 unpaid days off for a cold which I can easily work through. I did warn all my coworkers I was sick and made sure I disinfected things after I used them.
Plus my job as a social worker is helping clients in crisis. If I am not there to answer my phone a client could suffer and go without food or shelter. Yes I have co workers who can assist when I am out but we each have caseloads of about 40 people and we help their whole family. That is an awful lot to ask a coworker to take on, on top of their own case load.4 -
I don't think your biscuit is quite done in the middle if you thought this a good thing to post.
This little phrase is delightful
Aaron_K123 wrote: »
I honestly think that if deadlines are so tight that a project falls apart because of one employee taking a sick day that's a failure on the part of management. That's a risk the company is taking by trying to run on a skeleton crew.
My job is fine with paid sick (and I have ceoliac so if they try and discipline me I have some sort of protection) but I am going to look into joining a general workers union this afternoon anyway on principle.
Honestly there are professions where it isnt feasible for an employee to have a backup. Someone gave an example of a college professor who if they dont show up something like 200 people dont get the class they essentially paid $300 each for. They can't just replace them that day and that doesn't represent a "failure of management". Science is similar...you are specialized in your field and you can't just be replaced if you dont show.
I get you are talking from your own personal experience but honestly when you overgeneralize like you are doing...your going to be wrong. There are legitimate cases where the cost of coming in sick is less than the cost of not.
This is coming from someone who literally works in developing therapies for infectious diseases by the way so yeah I do care about illness and human suffering.10 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »
Honestly there are professions where it isnt feasible for an employee to have a backup. Someone gave an example of a college professor who if they dont show up something like 200 people dont get the class they essentially paid $300 each for. They can't just replace them that day and that doesn't represent a "failure of management". Science is similar...you are specialized in your field and you can't just be replaced if you dont show.
I get you are talking from your own personal experience but honestly when you overgeneralize like you are doing...your going to be wrong. There are legitimate cases where the cost of coming in sick is less than the cost of not.
This is coming from someone who literally works in developing therapies for infectious diseases by the way so yeah I do care about illness and human suffering.
I worked at a university for two years (PhD studies) and professors are, and should be replaceable and definitely take sick days. I know there are 3-4 faculty members off on long term sick due to stress right now in that department (because my partner works there now) and their classes are being taught by others using their lecture materials and the occasional email. You can also just reschedule classes, send the class notes round to everyone, maybe see if they want an extra tutorial session when the staff member is back in. The world doesn't end and they are entitled to their leave.
I don't think there is any person in the world who is so valuable that people can't do without them for a day. The person who is going to cure cancer (or your chosen infectious disease) still deserves their days off when they're sick. You need workarounds and back up systems in place or management hasn't done their job properly. I know this isn't the case in a lot of places but rather than making my statement untrue I would say there are a lot of very badly managed companies around.11 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »I don't think your biscuit is quite done in the middle if you thought this a good thing to post.
This little phrase is delightfulAaron_K123 wrote: »
I honestly think that if deadlines are so tight that a project falls apart because of one employee taking a sick day that's a failure on the part of management. That's a risk the company is taking by trying to run on a skeleton crew.
My job is fine with paid sick (and I have ceoliac so if they try and discipline me I have some sort of protection) but I am going to look into joining a general workers union this afternoon anyway on principle.
Honestly there are professions where it isnt feasible for an employee to have a backup. Someone gave an example of a college professor who if they dont show up something like 200 people dont get the class they essentially paid $300 each for. They can't just replace them that day and that doesn't represent a "failure of management". Science is similar...you are specialized in your field and you can't just be replaced if you dont show.
I get you are talking from your own personal experience but honestly when you overgeneralize like you are doing...your going to be wrong. There are legitimate cases where the cost of coming in sick is less than the cost of not.
This is coming from someone who literally works in developing therapies for infectious diseases by the way so yeah I do care about illness and human suffering.
My husband is a scientist too, a chemist...whereas I can easily work from home, it's not like he can bring home all his test tubes and equipment and bottles of acid and such.
As far as redundant employees, it doesn't make a lot of sense to maintain two chemists to do one chemist's job, or to expect a secretary with some business college experience to be able to pick of the slack, in addition to assembling his reports. A lot of people have a lot of deep knowledge in their heads (and in their hands) that can't be replaced except by someone who would apprentice to or be mentored by them.
He has contractual deadlines that he has to meet if he wants the company to stay in business. The fact that he has a generous number of sick days is a moot point. Fortunately he is pretty isolated in his lab.6 -
This issue should really be addressed with employers, not employees. The vast majority of employees who go to work whilst sick do so because they will either lose much needed pay, it affects their performance review (unfairly) or they are at risk of losing their job.
I'm in the UK. My company policy is to provide sick pay, BUT, it is at their discretion whether or not this is full pay or just statutory sick pay (a pittance) AND, they can choose not to pay it if they feel it appropriate (ie, they feel you've had too many days off sick).
Also, my company employs a Bradford scoring system for sick days. It's designed to catch patterns of lots of random, one or two days off sick. ie, people who are lying. Unfortunately, it would show the same result for someone who took a couple of days off sick every time they had a cold. If your score gets too high you have to have a meeting with HR, face disciplinary action and possibly even termination of employment (if you haven't got a sick note from the doctor for your illness). Even if it doesn't get that far, loads of sick days will definitely have a negative impact on your performance review.
So guess what? We all come in sick unless we are on deaths door. I've had 3 days off in the last year. One was a nasty cold, and one of the days I just couldn't face it anymore. The other two days were due to labrynthitis - I couldn't even turn over in my bed without spinning out and vomiting, let alone stand up and walk around etc. Luckily for me, after those two sick days I had a weeks holiday already planned, so I was able to rest enough and the tablets I was prescribed eased the dizziness to a point where I could function again. Ironically, I wasn't contagious with that illness.
I'm currently in work now with a mild cold. Again. I've only been free of one for about 2 weeks. It sucks, but if I had taken a day or two off for every cold I've had in the last 12 months I'd be facing disciplinary action!6 -
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
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Oh yeah, DD is 2.5 years old. DH is a stay at home dad, so she doesn't go to nursery, but she does go to playgroup and swimming every week so she catches plenty of colds. Which means DH and I also catch plenty of colds. If we're lucky we don't get them at the same time, or one of us escapes getting ill altogether. Sadly for him, even if I am healthy and he is sick, he still has to soldier on at home and look after DD, cos I can't take a day off every time he is ill either (unless he's on death's door). I hate that. It sucks. But the only option for me there would be unpaid leave, which we can't afford.1
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
Ugh, I got hand, foot and mouth when it went around my kids' daycare! Horrible. I had a mouthful of sores, while they barely got anything (which I'm glad for, since they weren't nearly as miserable as I was). I wasn't homeschooled but somehow missed out on that childhood virus.0 -
Horrible virus. Mind you, if it wasn't for me getting it, I'm not sure anyone at the playgroup would have known that it was HF&M, because the kids didn't get it badly enough to develop the sores. I did though. Boy, did I.HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
Ugh, I got hand, foot and mouth when it went around my kids' daycare! Horrible. I had a mouthful of sores, while they barely got anything (which I'm glad for, since they weren't nearly as miserable as I was). I wasn't homeschooled but somehow missed out on that childhood virus.
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Aside from those who are immune-compromised, there is something to be said for exposure and building your immune system. My N=1 expirience here: I only get sick about once or twice a year. Meanwhile, I watch people all around me get sick. I load up on vitamins to support my immune system, and rarely catch the crap that's going around. I think the small levels of exposure while others are sick is a contributing factor to my not being sick all the time. My husband (also a home-schooled kid) seems to get sick every single time he is exposed. Perhaps due to less exposure growing up? Kind of interesting to think about...
Fighting off some sort of crud right now actually.. I have a feeling this will be one of those times that zinc and vitamin C won't help me. Luckily I already have a planned day off tomorrow to head into the weekend.3 -
HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
Horrible virus. Mind you, if it wasn't for me getting it, I'm not sure anyone at the playgroup would have known that it was HF&M, because the kids didn't get it badly enough to develop the sores. I did though. Boy, did I.HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
Ugh, I got hand, foot and mouth when it went around my kids' daycare! Horrible. I had a mouthful of sores, while they barely got anything (which I'm glad for, since they weren't nearly as miserable as I was). I wasn't homeschooled but somehow missed out on that childhood virus.
Same!
In keeping with the thread, I did have to go to work when I had it - it lingered on MUCH too long to stay home the entire duration. I warned my co-workers and kept to myself as much as possible. Nobody else there got it.0 -
Crafty_camper123 wrote: »Aside from those who are immune-compromised, there is something to be said for exposure and building your immune system. My N=1 expirience here: I only get sick about once or twice a year. Meanwhile, I watch people all around me get sick. I load up on vitamins to support my immune system, and rarely catch the crap that's going around. I think the small levels of exposure while others are sick is a contributing factor to my not being sick all the time. My husband (also a home-schooled kid) seems to get sick every single time he is exposed. Perhaps due to less exposure growing up? Kind of interesting to think about...
Fighting off some sort of crud right now actually.. I have a feeling this will be one of those times that zinc and vitamin C won't help me. Luckily I already have a planned day off tomorrow to head into the weekend.
It would be so interesting to know if this (the homeschool thing) was supported by non-anecdotal evidence. I was also homeschooled and my husband has commented that I seem to get sick more often than he does. He's wondered if that has something to do with it. I was always more inclined to think it's because I commute on the bus and work in an office (while he works from home).3 -
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other, I expect. Very difficult to split out the individual factors. Especially as I notice that getting a couple of viruses in quick succession from co-workers seems to leave people more vulnerable to getting another.janejellyroll wrote: »Crafty_camper123 wrote: »Aside from those who are immune-compromised, there is something to be said for exposure and building your immune system. My N=1 expirience here: I only get sick about once or twice a year. Meanwhile, I watch people all around me get sick. I load up on vitamins to support my immune system, and rarely catch the crap that's going around. I think the small levels of exposure while others are sick is a contributing factor to my not being sick all the time. My husband (also a home-schooled kid) seems to get sick every single time he is exposed. Perhaps due to less exposure growing up? Kind of interesting to think about...
Fighting off some sort of crud right now actually.. I have a feeling this will be one of those times that zinc and vitamin C won't help me. Luckily I already have a planned day off tomorrow to head into the weekend.
It would be so interesting to know if this (the homeschool thing) was supported by non-anecdotal evidence. I was also homeschooled and my husband has commented that I seem to get sick more often than he does. He's wondered if that has something to do with it. I was always more inclined to think it's because I commute on the bus and work in an office (while he works from home).
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
I was actually homeschooled all the way through, k-12. Went onto college afterwards etc. In my 40's now and I never get sick
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
This makes me think of something I read many years ago; my focus was the medieval era with one focus on the history of medicine (and disease) and its representations in literature. So I was widely read across 3000 years of diseases, with special attention paid to plague and leprosy. At some point I came across something that stuck with me, that in looking at the WWI recruits, the army thought all the strapping, healthy, well-fed farm lads would be far more resilient than the scrawny, pale, undernourished, rat-like, disease-ridden lads coming out of the urban slums. But the farm boys ended up being knocked on their backs and even killed by the common childhood diseases that ravaged the trenches, while the city boys just shrugged them off, having received multiple exposures over the years and thus being up to date on their "vaccines" such as they were at the time.
I wish I could remember where I read that...maybe Zinsser's "Rats, Lice and History" or McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples". Some more popular work. Maybe "Guns, Germs and Steel." Now that's really going to bother me. I am getting old.
At any rate, when my kids are sick and miserable, I tell them, "Good job! Keep up being tough! You're doing the work you need to be doing to make your immune system strong!" (Might as well put a positive spin on it as I hover over them fluffing their pillows and bringing them Sprites on lacy trays).
I must be like one of the city rats, because I rarely get sick, and if I do, it's not for long.
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French_Peasant wrote: »HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
I'm sure that's the case. However, as a former home-schooled kid who's all grown up now, I promise you that all you're doing is storing up illnesses for the future. My mother used to boast about my healthy immune system. Turned out I wasn't catching any bugs, because I wasn't being exposed to them. Ill kids don't go out to play or attend after-school activitiesOneRatGirl wrote: »For most viruses you're contagious for at least a day before, sometimes a few days, and for the first few days of the cold.
Schools (at least here in the UK but I've heard similar complaints from the US) complain if kids have too many days off. If you let your kids stay off every time they're contagious, you'll be getting visits from social services (CPS), possibly fines and even taken to court. We're teaching kids to not take days off from the age of 5 (or earlier).
And frankly I'm prone currently to catching every cold that goes around. If somebody is like that, they'll get fired if they're taking days off every other week.
This is one of the reasons why we ended up pulling our kids from the traditional school setting a few years ago and now do online schooling/homeschooling. My kids were constantly surrounded by sick kids and were getting sick all the time. Now they very rarely get sick (I can't even remember the last time one of them has gotten sick).
When I integrated into college/work/etc, where everyone has to turn up whether they're ill or not, I ended up catching about a cold a month at one point. After a couple of years, it calmed down, because I'd caught up on exposure. Then I had kids and they went to nursery and school. Holy hellfire. I was ill so much. Even got hand, foot and mouth virus.
This makes me think of something I read many years ago; my focus was the medieval era with one focus on the history of medicine (and disease) and its representations in literature. So I was widely read across 3000 years of diseases, with special attention paid to plague and leprosy. At some point I came across something that stuck with me, that in looking at the WWI recruits, the army thought all the strapping, healthy, well-fed farm lads would be far more resilient than the scrawny, pale, undernourished, rat-like, disease-ridden lads coming out of the urban slums. But the farm boys ended up being knocked on their backs and even killed by the common childhood diseases that ravaged the trenches, while the city boys just shrugged them off, having received multiple exposures over the years and thus being up to date on their "vaccines" such as they were at the time.
I wish I could remember where I read that...maybe Zinsser's "Rats, Lice and History" or McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples". Some more popular work. Maybe "Guns, Germs and Steel." Now that's really going to bother me. I am getting old.
At any rate, when my kids are sick and miserable, I tell them, "Good job! Keep up being tough! You're doing the work you need to be doing to make your immune system strong!" (Might as well put a positive spin on it as I hover over them fluffing their pillows and bringing them Sprites on lacy trays).
I must be like one of the city rats, because I rarely get sick, and if I do, it's not for long.
I never tried particularly hard to shield my kids from common illnesses. No hand sanitizer, no wiping down the cart at Walmart, etc. We just went about our life and if someone got sick, they just got sick. I don't think they were any more or less prone to getting sick than my friends' kids who went out of their way to protect them.1
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