Reply to Please don’t let your children eat common allergens while playing on public playground equipment

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Please don’t let your children eat common allergens while playing on public playground equipment "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wouldn't wash my child's hands after eating. Wipe on a napkin, or realistically your pants or mine, and off you go.

Just an FYI, the equipment is really never cleaned so it is also covered in bird feces, squirrel and rodent schmutz, probably some fox and raccoon poop in the mulch. Probably some mold in the wood.  [/quote]

Very good points. [/quote]

They are 2 very different things though. My kids have allergies but I couldn't care less about bird poop and raccoon crap. I really don't mind what snack other kids eat but [b]I think it's selfish and odd to eat a sticky peanut food ON the playground equipment[/b].[/quote]

So here's the thing - as a parent without food allergies with kids who don't have food allergies, other people's allergies aren't at the forefront of my mind at all times. I do know that when it comes time for birthday treats at school I always need to check with the teachers to confirm any allergies or even intolerances to make sure all kids can enjoy something, but honestly, if we stopped at a playground for an unplanned activity, I'm not confident that making sure my kids hadn't been eating any nut or allergen-containing food would be something that would occur to me at the moment every single time. So I think it's really unfair (and unhelpful) to call people selfish or odd for doing something that YOU think about all the time but that isn't something they are that closely attuned to. Honestly, I bet you say or do things that other people find offensive (although surely you'll argue with me on this point...). I'll say that if giving up peanut butter forever meant that no child would ever have an allergic reaction and die or almost die again, I would totally do it. But that won't happen because other people will keep eating peanut butter, and there are tons of other allergens, so while I'm willing to be careful and not send things to school that I know would be a problem, I'm not intending to ban all potential allergens from my house forever, which means that my kids are going to eat things that someone is allergic to at some point and while I can make them wash their hands and not let them eat while playing on equipment, that doesn't mean they'll never have a trace of peanut butter on their leg before going down the slide (I mean, have you ever seen a little kid eat?!).

OP could have phrased her post (or, far more helpful, her in-person interaction, since posting on the internet does nothing but cause people to fight) as a gentle PSA to people. The title of her post sort of sounded like that's what this would be...and then it wasn't. I think this is an area where helpful and kind reminders that don't sound judgmental and one-sided would be useful, such as signs at playgrounds (which people have suggest OP lobby for). I know there are some real jerks out there, but I think most people aren't being intentionally thoughtless - they're just not used to dealing with an allergy issue so it doesn't occur to them to think about it all the time. So rather than going off on people and yelling at them for doing something with malintent, perhaps better education in a nice and informative manner would be the better way to handle this. Because I have to say, reading almost 20 pages of this post hasn't made me particularly more sensitive to parents with kids who have allergies than I already was. If anything, it's made me more inclined to get really mad if they do snatch a snack out of my kid's hand because it's made me realize there are many, many more effective methods of getting this information out. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics