I’m all about helping a working mom out. One of DD’s friends’ moms had to work today and her dad needs to stay home with her brother. I had agreed to take her daughter with us tocan activity at a local art studio. I messaged her this morning asking if her daughter still wants to go. She answered that her daughter has an ear infection and is hoarse, but she can wear a mask if she feels up to going.
I’m going to have 3 kids across in the backseat for a 45 minute drive each way. That is a lot of exposure, even with a mask. And this little girl is a limit-pusher, so I doubt she would spend 4 hours wearing a mask. Heck, I couldn’t wear one for that long.
I’m thinking of telling her dad we can’t take her if she’s sick, but I’m having guilt. WWYD?
I'm pretty much a hard pass at this point. Yes, your kids are going to be exposed to germs regardless, but I think those circumstances significantly up the likelihood. I don't want to sign up for being sick.
It doesn't sound like she's been sick for long if the mom is phrasing it as "if she feels up to going." If she were on the upswing, I may feel differently. Maybe.
Also, if she has what's going around here, the hoarse voice is really on the beginning side. And it's a nasty, nasty bug.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Nov 23, 2018 12:49:13 GMT -5
How hoarse is she? I'm just surprised that wearing a mask is something that would even occur to someone as an option. I would think that you're either sick enough to stay home or well enough to go.
Yeah, that's a no. It's the holidays, there's so much going on, and I would definitely avoid direct exposure to known illness. I agree with k3am - this bug is awful. We had it earlier in the fall and I was down for the count for 2 days - which is insane for me. Like - sick and miserable for well over a week, but unable to move off of the couch for 2 days. Avoid it!
mustardseed2007, her mom is a pediatrician and I think is just more blasé about illnesses. Hence the mask idea. Her dad texted and said she’s fine today. She has an ear infection. That makes me feel better.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Nov 23, 2018 19:29:29 GMT -5
I mean...my kid has a cough right now that she's had for a while. It wouldn't occur to me to keep her home from school or a play date with that, but she has no other symptoms of illness like a fever or anything.
So it's not that I think kids have to be perfectly healthy to hang out with others because if that were the case we would never go out. The fact that she's a pediatrician makes the mask thing make a little more sense I guess. It also sounds Asian. I know it's very common in Japan and China to wear a mask when out and about for several reasons.
We ended up taking her. She wore a mask most of the time. Her mom tested her for strep (Which the mom didn’t tell me but the kid did). However, she seemed absolutely fine. Her mom answered the door when I went to pick her up, which left me kind of going, “Wait a second. I’m taking her because you are working. You obviously are not still working.” But maybe she was on call or something. I’m trying not to judge.
The rest of the parents were definitely wondering about the kid wearing a mask and not being there with her own parents. I just told them what her mom told me. She had an ear infection but appeared to be fine. I added, since her kid was announcing she might have strep, that her mom had tested her for strep but I thought it was because her mom had seen a lot of strep at her clinic. I was pretty sure her mom wouldn’t have sent her if she really thought it was strep.
Maybe she gave her the rapid strep test and knew right away it was negative.
My sister does on call as a tech and that results in super weird hours- several middle of the nights, sleeping and going in during the day. She has an hour to get to the hospital so she couldn’t take her kids to an event because she would have to drive them home and then drive to the hospital and then she wouldn’t make it in an hour (hospital is about 40 min from her house).
waverly- according to the kid, they didn’t know yet if she had strep. So not the rapid test. I know she’s not a big fan of the rapid test because of the high false result rate. We happen to have had a couple of conversations about that. But the kiddo didn’t seem to have a lot of strep symptoms beyond a voice that was a little raspy. She was energetic, happy, and didn’t complain of a sore throat.
And she very well could have been on call. We were the complete opposite direction of the hospital where she has privileges, so it would have been well over an hour if she had to respond to something.
My kids both have tubes now, but before had 8 thousand ear infections each. Like at least one a month each. An ear infection doesn’t phase me at all, totally would send my kid. Also being hoarse, one kid just had their adenoids our for colds that never go away. So again, wouldn’t think twice.