Anonymous wrote:My mom told me that she used to put me on the floor to crawl around, so germ exposure would strengthen my immune system (she was a bio major). I did the same to my kids. We are not compulsive hand washers or germaphobes.

I used to get sick a ton when my kids were small and were sick all the time, for months on end. After elementary school it got much better and now I rarely get colds/flu. Hang in there.

You don't have to be a "compulsive" hand washer to routinely wash your hands before you eat food. Our desire to stay healthy does not support a clinical diagnosis of OCD. Geez...

My mom told me that she used to put me on the floor to crawl around, so germ exposure would strengthen my immune system (she was a bio major). I did the same to my kids. We are not compulsive hand washers or germaphobes.

I used to get sick a ton when my kids were small and were sick all the time, for months on end. After elementary school it got much better and now I rarely get colds/flu. Hang in there.

More activities equals more exposures. Less sleep means exposures more likely to turn into illnesses. More kids going to school when still feeling sick because parents have to both be at work, means more germs in the school.

I used to stay home for 2ish days with every cold I got even without a fever growing up. My mom was a SAHM and elementary school was less intense. Now, kids don’t stay home with a cold. So kids get more colds. Also, kids go to school and then to indoor soccer and then to the math tutor and then to piano lessons- more exposures. And again, the lack of good sleep.

No, not quite as sick. More kids got all the vaccines available when I was a kid, and Covid has really ravaged peoples immune systems.

Combine that with overcrowding and diminished infrastructure improvement in schools and now more kids and adults are sick a lot.

I think we just don’t remember. I don’t really remember being sick as a kid but I had enough ear infections to need tubes and got my tonsils out in HS because I kept getting strep. So I must have been getting sick!

I feel kids today spend more time indoors, and you are not in a warm environment in the winter now in which you have less exposure to germs as you were outside more.

Also I feel lives today are more stressful and packed with activities, and maybe people rest less because of demands and staying up late with screens.

Also the food supply is probably more processed now, I feel when I eat more natural foods that our great grandparents ate, I am sick less.

Anonymous wrote:In the past children didn’t grow up in sanitized indoor household.
They grew up playing outside in the fields being exposed to various elements.
People who survived to adulthood had robust immunity.

Childhood immunizations are what turned the tide in surviving childhood. Now we are going backward, thanks to Trump and RFK Jr.

In the past children didn’t grow up in sanitized indoor household.
They grew up playing outside in the fields being exposed to various elements.
People who survived to adulthood had robust immunity.

I feel like my family is much less sick than we were growing up aside from allergies.

I'm in my late 50's and I was often sick with various viruses, colds, etc. during the winter months because we didn't wash our hands before eating, after school, etc. It seems like we were often treated with medication. Since becoming a parent, hand washing is strongly encouraged at our house, which helps a lot to reduce illness.

Yes we were. It's the little kids and school. More moms stayed home so less daycare meaning fewer contacts for many kids as well.

I wonder about this all the time. I WAS a really sick kid, like out of the norm it seemed at the time, and my kids are sick as much or more than I was.

I'm wondering if it is a little bit age? If the worst of the sickness is under age 6, and that's mostly when our memories kick in, maybe that's it?

It's definitely been the worst part of parenting for me (besides the newborn stage, also not a fan), and super unexpected.

I'm your parents' age and I actually do remember being sick a lot. We rarely were given the few antibiotics available (penicillin) or steroids and OTC drugs were pretty much just robitussin and aspirin. So we just sneezed and coughed our way through it, often coughing for months. My BIL lost his hearing in one ear from frequent ear infections. I never heard of anyone getting ear tubes. My mother insisted on us moving to a better climate because she was sick and tired of us being sick all the time.

I think indoor air quality may be worse (fragrances and more synthetic materials that outgas as well as more efficient buildings - they don't leak heat but also don't let in fresh air) and I think kids spend more time in indoor activities with other kids.
I never remember recess being canceled for cold weather as a kid, and I think we were just generally outside more.

I’m in my late 30s, and my kids, and our whole household, seem to be sick for about two weeks at a time, at least twice every winter. They’re otherwise very healthy, active kids, and we all get flu shots. It doesn’t seem unique to our family either; my coworkers’ kids and my friends’ kids all seem to be constantly sick as well.

I don’t remember being sick this often when I was a kid, and my parents didn’t seem to get sick much either, though maybe memory plays a role. My parents have also said we weren't sick like this, nor were they sick like this as kids. I grew up in Miami, so I wonder if we were less affected by seasonal illnesses there. I remember having strep throat and some kind of enterovirus, but I don’t remember getting the flu every single winter. Are flu and common colds actually worse now than when I was growing up, or does it just feel that way?