Were we always sick like this in past decades?
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Anonymous
My parents both worked and we stayed home alone when sick. Mom was a teacher and NEVER would have taken an unplanned day off- she rarely called in sick herself in her 35 years. Price is Right, Soaps, Oprah, what's not to love? |
Anonymous
| Kids also died. I had chicken pox and mumps as a kid. And many many colds. Flu 2ce. |
Anonymous
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My family wasn’t sick much when I was growing up, and my own family doesn’t get sick often either. Maybe we are just lucky.
We are also taught as part of our culture to ignore illness and solider on unless truly comatose, so that may be part of it too. But I think we truly also get sick less than other people. Just lucky immune systems I think. None of us are germaphobes or particularly hyper-vigilant about hygiene. |
Anonymous
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My family had a few years of constant illnesses. Kids were mid/late elementary and just caught everything going around. And so did my DH and I. Actually, now that I think about it we were living in an older home at the time. Maybe there was some underlying environmental factor? But before that and after that we haven’t gotten sick very often. One of my kids never even got Covid.
As a kid, I remember getting extremely sick a few times but outside of those incidents rarely got sick. I had perfect attendance for most of my school years. |
Anonymous
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Many times as a young adult, I just had to go to work. I would have needed to be throwing-up or unable to stand, to not go to work. Or I would lose my job.
Not that I wanted to go in. Not that I thought me being there was the responsible thing. I think the bar for-being-sick has been lowered. Now there are pretty high benchmarks of being well, or don't come in. |
Anonymous
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Hard to tell. On the one hand, I think there's a lot of selective memory. Kind of like how your MIL will tell you that *her* babies never cried, walked at 8 mos., etc. Maybe we all were sick a lot more than we remember.
On the other hand, more dual-working parents means more pressure to "just go to school and see how you feel." And running around from activity to activity means less sleep overall and less time to rest and recoup if a kid is fighting a bug. Plus more meals eaten on the go, from prepared foods, etc. instead of basic, boring but complete dinners at home. |
Anonymous
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Op here. But I don’t remember going to school sick. I don’t remember a cough lasting for months like my kids get. I was in lots of activities.
I’m not sure it’s selective memory. I only remember one time in my whole 20s that I got sick and I got bronchitis. I never was sick until I had my own kids. Post covid since about 2022 it’s been straight insanity at my house- flu, covid, pink eye, stomach bugs. It’s alllllll winter long. They catch it from elementary school. I can’t remember one time that my youngest in daycare was sick before the older 2. Daycare actually cleans. I think schools only get cleaned over summer break. |
Anonymous
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I was going to agree with OP but then I really thought about it and remembered these things from the early 1980s:
-my brother being hospitalized at 1 year old for a respiratory thing -my mom having to cancel my birthday one year b/c she had such bad strep -having a runny nose for what felt like all winter in elementary -my best friend being forced to suck on cough drops (she was a picky eater) by our 4th grade teacher who was sick of hearing her cough -missing a band thing in high school because of a stomach bug -staying home all day and watching indiana jones and much ado about nothing on repeat because they were the only VHSes we had - a whole lot more I think we were sick about the same, we just don't think of those times right away because they were mostly boring and we were mostly asleep during them |
Anonymous
I wash my hands after the bathroom and before cooking but not necessarily before eating food. IDK. I don't get sick often and have a very robust immune response to every vaccine. |
Anonymous
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There were less people in general.
But you can look up illness trends. So far this flu season more children have died than any year since 2009 (which was a HUGE outbreak year). 84% of those dead children were unvaccinated. |
Anonymous
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No I really think covid messed with everyones immune system
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Anonymous
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I had chronic ear infections, but never got the chicken pox. I remember my mom plunging me into cold baths when I had a fever.
We definitely got sick. |
Anonymous
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We got sick. I had constant chronic ear infections as a kid. I remember having strep, chicken pox, etc. They also passed out antibiotics like candy in our era.
Reality is also some people get sick less and some don't. My older child is WAY more likely to get sick. He is now an older teen and it's better but even as an older teen he will get the flu most years and a couple colds. My younger one (younger teen) is teflon. Really nearly never sick. Her whole life. I rarely get sick but I am also super careful about hygiene and never ever touching my face or touching common area surfaces with bare hands. My husband gets sick more. But I go years without being sick. |
Anonymous
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My family is not as sick as my immediate family was growing up. When I was a kid, we'd all share colds, stomach viruses, you name. it. But I had a big-ish family of 6.
Now there are 3 of us and we're rarely sick and when we are, 9 out of 10 times it is extremely mlid and doesn't spread. [knocking on wood] |
Anonymous
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Some people just get sick frequently, others don’t.
I doubt there’s *more* sickness, we just can’t shut up about it now. |