People will blame “but I had to go to work!”

Nope. You chose to have kids. Kids get sick. Have a plan. Have a backup. Hell, have two. A job is no excuse to be a self-centered jerk.

I had to do it in the past because I had a very suspicious boss who wouldn't believe it if I said I had to miss work because my kid was sick. So I had to send her sick and wait to be called by the school to go pick her up in order to not jeopardize my job. It was terrible.

Some people just feel more entitled to do as much as they can get away with. This goes across many areas of all of our lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people who send sick kids to school are probably not on this board. This board is full of high income white collar workers. People who send very sick kids to school are probably hourly wage earners who cannot afford a sick day.

That isn't my experience. My experience matches the OP's that the kids who come to school sick are most likely to be higher income. It's an entitlement issue. Low income families who live on the edge have empathy for other families and figure out a solution that doesn't expose other children to illness.

It doesn't divide along these lines. It's actually not a class issue.

Some people send kids to school sick and others don't. You see this issue at Title 1 schools with high FARMs populations and you also see it at elite privates or schools in wealthy districts.

My kid attends a Title 1 DCPS and we have friends at the school across the socioeconomic spectrum. I know families at all socioeconomic levels who are really careful about illness and get really mad when other kids come in sick. Of the two moms who are most likely to text me if their kid has even the hint of a cough after hanging out with my kid, one is UMC and the other is working class. And likewise I've heard about kids throwing up in the classroom or coming to school clearly lethargic with a fever and falling asleep in classes, and they include kids with families at all income levels.

This is not a class issue, it's a values issue.

I don't think it's UMC parents who do this. At least not the moms. Especially not the moms.

The reason why is that in DC, moms are super competitive and judgmental about anything that could be considered unhygienic or could lead to spreading illness. Like people still do stuff like take kids with colds to playgrounds, but only if their kid has no visible symptoms or they don't know any of the other families at the playground.

Once when my kid was in preschool, another mom basically yelled at me during drop off one day because my child sneezed and the mom saw me hand my kid a tissue. I explained to her that my child has seasonal allergies and had been checked out my a pediatrician, and that the preschool had a note on file from the pediatrician explaining the allergies. We gave her meds in the morning but they had not kicked in yet that day or the pollen was really bad. The mom stopped yelling at me after I explained this but she remained very cold to me for the rest of the school year and I honestly think she still suspected I was lying and that my kid was sick.

So no way am I sending my kid to school with a fever or vomiting. I wouldn't anyway because I have flexible work and can pretty much always stay home with her, plus I dont' want my kid suffering through a day of school if she is sick. But I'm probably hypervigilant about keeping her home because I feel like sending her even in a borderline case (no fever or vomiting, but really bad congestion or cough from a cold) would get me shunned. Not worth it!

Anonymous wrote:The people who send sick kids to school are probably not on this board. This board is full of high income white collar workers. People who send very sick kids to school are probably hourly wage earners who cannot afford a sick day.

That isn't my experience. My experience matches the OP's that the kids who come to school sick are most likely to be higher income. It's an entitlement issue. Low income families who live on the edge have empathy for other families and figure out a solution that doesn't expose other children to illness.

Excluding those whose work does not allow time off, it is selfish parents. The "I need a break" and "how can I get any rest with a sick kid" sort.

When I worked at a preschool those parents would rationalize "Larlo prob got sick at school anyway" and "well, teacher, don't take this job if you can't deal with sick kids."

I’m the PP above with my friend who is the kindergarten teacher - this is a very upper class school in a very wealthy neighborhood. Most of these kids going to school do not have parents with inflexible jobs or without other options.

We definitely have parents at our school who literally have no other choice that do this - lose their job or lose benefits if they don’t get where they need to be going. I don’t judge and just feel bad for the kids and the teachers. I don’t do it because the parents in our family have the privilege to stay home or work from home. In fact DCPS sends us texts, emails, and paper letters what feels like weekly because my child has missed 6 days of school already.

The people who send sick kids to school are probably not on this board. This board is full of high income white collar workers. People who send very sick kids to school are probably hourly wage earners who cannot afford a sick day.

I’d imagine the people that do this have inflexible jobs with crappy leave policies, and maybe don’t get paid if they don’t work. And no, I would not do it, but it’s pretty low stakes for me.

I have never sent my kid to school with a fever or a stomach bug. The only time my kids had Covid I kept them home until they tested negative, even when I didn’t have to and could have sent them masked at a certain point. However, I do have a good friend who is a kindergarten teacher and people send their kids with fevers and vomiting all the time- it’s wild how many times she has had to send them straight back to the nurse to have the parents come back and pick them up.

Anonymous wrote:No one should send their kid in vomiting, but I can understand why with cold-like symptoms, since kids are sick so often anyway.

OP said fever, not cold-like symptoms. You should not send your kid to school with a fever.

No one should send their kid in vomiting, but I can understand why with cold-like symptoms, since kids are sick so often anyway.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had students come to school saying they took medicine for their fever or threw up on the way to school.

DCUM darlings: why do you do it? You are the target demographic and are the ones who most likely send their sick kids to school. How do you justify it?