Peanut Allergies

We visited the classroom and met the teachers of my soon-to-be-3 year old’s preschool class. He’ll be starting next week. The teachers went over the daily routine for the kids, and explained all the stuff we need to know, from the drop-off and pick-up procedures to how they’ll handle taking the kids to the restroom.

An interesting thing we learned is that one of the kids in the class has peanut allergies. Of all the kids I’ve known since having kids of my own, this is the first time I’ve encountered this well-known condition. For this child (which one we don’t know), the allergy is apparently severe. Severe enough to affect what all the other children can bring to class with them. Snacks and lunches, for all the children in this class (12 total), must not contain any peanuts or peanut products.

This is kind of a weird situation. I feel for the parents of the child—I know dealing with that kind of allergy has got to be tough, not to mention the fear they live with. But their situation is now affecting 11 other families. Eleven other children cannot bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (a staple of kids everywhere) and many other foods with peanuts in the ingredients. This is really not a simple thing. Check the ingredients on many of the snack and lunch foods in your home. We have to check the labels on everything we buy for and send with our child to school. So do the other 10 families.

Fortunately, the class is only twice a week, so we can work around this situation. But the concept of a single child with a problem affecting so many other families to this extent is a little . . . noteworthy.

The other parents at the meeting were obviously, and vocally, stunned by the rule.
“Peanut butter is the only thing I know my kid will eat.”
“Peanuts are in everything.”
“What will happen if someone forgets one time?”
No one was rude or inconsiderate—the class-wide rule just surprised everyone.

Imagine if a couple times a week, no one in your office could wear cotton, for the sake of a coworker’s severe allergies to the fiber.

It’s an awkward position to be put in. No respectable parent wants to harm a child by action or inaction or mistake, but it’s also pretty invasive for one child’s condition to control the perfectly normal choices and actions of 11 other families.

[Edit: See my September 5 2007 post for a post script to this item.]

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com