How Selfish Can A Parent Be???
By LadyMarissa
@LadyMarissa (12148)
United States
March 24, 2011 9:11am CST
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3041445/ns/today-parenting
This link takes you to a video which takes a couple of minutes to load.
A little girl in Edgewater, Florida, suffers from a "severe" peanut allergy & the school she's going to is requiring the children in her class to wash their hands & rinse their mouth out twice a day. This little girl's allergy is so severe that she eats her lunch under adult supervision in the classroom at her desk. The parents of the other children are trying to stop the school's efforts to accommodate this little girl saying their child is losing 30 minutes a day of learning while they are washing their hands to protect "one" child. Oh come on, does it really hurt to wash their hands twice a day??? Are they really losing that much time from learning while washing their hands??? Please tell me how this is not selfish on the part of the parents of the unaffected students??? In place of using this situation to "teach" their child how to be compassionate toward a person with a disability, these parents are saying that it is OK if they kill this little girl by causing her to go into Anaphylactic Shock. I'm sure if it were their child with the disability, they would pray the school took good care of their child. How would you react to this situation no matter which side you're on???
6 responses
@cutepenguin (6431)
• Canada
25 Mar 11
I don't quite understand why parents would object to their children washing thier hands. I mean, come on, around here you'd have to do that because of colds and flus. At my toddler's preschool class, they have handwashing time before snack. Is this really such a big deal?
And since when should we not protect every child?
(Although I do wonder what will happen when she goes to university or gets a job. I hope they have some kind of medicine or something by then.
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
24 Mar 11
I see nothing wrong with teaching the kids some hygiene.. regardless of the reason.
1 person likes this
@LadyMarissa (12148)
• United States
24 Mar 11
I know It's been a really long time since I went to school & things have changed since then. However, we were taught to wash our hands. We marched in a straight line from our class room to the bathroom where we washed our hands before going to lunch. Then after we ate lunch we walked in a straight line back to the bathroom to do our business & wash our hands before going back to class. If you didn't need to do your business right after lunch, you had to hold it until class was over nearly 3 hours later. I also know that it didn't take 30 minutes for us to make both trips which included the walk to/from the cafeteria. If you add up the time, the 30 minutes adds up to 80 hours per year or approximately 2 weeks out of the year. I think the school should now give them a reason to squeal by adding 2 weeks of school to the year for the time they miss washing their hands!!! 
I bet every one of these parents have let their child lay out of school one day so they could extend a weekend away from home & thought nothing of it!!!! 
I bet every one of these parents have let their child lay out of school one day so they could extend a weekend away from home & thought nothing of it!!!! 
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
24 Mar 11
Someone brought this up yesterday, too. I remarked that it's pretty strange that most of today's parents are turning their kids into OCD victims by insisting on strict hygiene, spraying for germs, hand washing after every act and yet they protest one instance of hand washing to protect a little girl who might die if it isn't done.
Can you say hypocrite?
If it was their child, you better believe they'd take it to court to make the whole school wash their hands! 
1 person likes this
@LadyMarissa (12148)
• United States
24 Mar 11
Can I say hypocrite???? Some of my friends thinks it is the ONLY word I know!!!! 
Sad as this sounds, while searching for the link to post here, I found dozens of law suits of parents suing businesses for serving peanut related food to their child. Some of the dumb arses took their child to a Chinese restaurant & ordered their dinner for them & sued the restaurant for serving the food "they ordered" to the child because it had peanuts in it. The parents raising all the hell about the time wasted on washing hands are now raising hell because the school stopped having snack time every day. I would think that losing the snack time would "make up" for washing the hands time. Anyway, I would hope the school would have them wash their hands twice a day as normal procedure!!! Back when I was in school (yes it was after the dinosaurs), after we ate lunch, we were required to go to the bathroom AND wash our hands before returning to class!!! If you didn't go to the bathroom during that time, the teacher didn't have to let you have another bathroom break until school was out. One lady was whining that it wasn't fair for her kid to have to abide by rules only one child required & that it should be rules for the majority of the students in the class that took precedence. I bet this same woman would be the first to sue the school for not making "special accommodations" for her child if he had the peanut allergy!!! I agree that MOST parents are waaay too anal on their child's hygiene. I don't think they need to keep a bottle of disinfectant in their pocket to use every time they touch something. However, I don't see the harm in washing their hands twice a day!!!!
Sad as this sounds, while searching for the link to post here, I found dozens of law suits of parents suing businesses for serving peanut related food to their child. Some of the dumb arses took their child to a Chinese restaurant & ordered their dinner for them & sued the restaurant for serving the food "they ordered" to the child because it had peanuts in it. The parents raising all the hell about the time wasted on washing hands are now raising hell because the school stopped having snack time every day. I would think that losing the snack time would "make up" for washing the hands time. Anyway, I would hope the school would have them wash their hands twice a day as normal procedure!!! Back when I was in school (yes it was after the dinosaurs), after we ate lunch, we were required to go to the bathroom AND wash our hands before returning to class!!! If you didn't go to the bathroom during that time, the teacher didn't have to let you have another bathroom break until school was out. One lady was whining that it wasn't fair for her kid to have to abide by rules only one child required & that it should be rules for the majority of the students in the class that took precedence. I bet this same woman would be the first to sue the school for not making "special accommodations" for her child if he had the peanut allergy!!! I agree that MOST parents are waaay too anal on their child's hygiene. I don't think they need to keep a bottle of disinfectant in their pocket to use every time they touch something. However, I don't see the harm in washing their hands twice a day!!!!
@MysticTomatoes (1053)
• United States
24 Mar 11
The child should be at home or in a controlled environment, especially since she's what? 6? A six year old doesn't understand that because Jimmy is eating a cookie with peanuts in it that she can't. My sister's child is allergic to eggs and they have to be careful with what he eats. She doesn't force the entire school district to go egg free or force the school district to become OCD robots with handgel and toothpaste.
If the kid is that allergic and it sounds like she is, she needs to be at home being homeschooled.
I saw in another article about the same story that she has a peanut sniffing dog that follows her around. What happens when a student in her class is allergic to dogs? Do they bust out a peanut sniffing parrot? A peanut sniffing cow? In that article, it's stating that every time they get near the girl, they have to do the handwashing and Listerine thing because of how severe allergic she is. That's taking time away from learning and taking time away from actual school work.
The parents of the other students are right. This is stupid. If the girl is that allergic she has no business being out in public like that. It's babying the child and when she gets older she'll be in for a huge slap to the face when she realizes no one cares about her like mommy and daddy do.
@webearn99 (1742)
• India
25 Mar 11
While I agree with you that other parents are not being considerate about the child having the allergy, I am worried about the risk the girl is being put into. She should have a lasting remedy. One kid with hands not properly washed can be devastating for her. I admire the Florida education system for taking in such students and taking preventive care for their health. Left to me, I would home school the girl.
@katie0 (5203)
• Japan
25 Mar 11
They can and should be in a way of having time for the couple, having time to talk to the husband/wife, not be around the kids screaming all the time, but to explain to them that they need a time to talk, can say they are going to date right now, I know a couple that did this and it was fine to the kids, they were confident kids with good self esteem, they didn't feel bad or nothing. They also should once in a month leave the kids with someone they can trust to go to a good restaurant or a motel. To have a life together. I think that's how far their selfishness should go.
@LadyMarissa (12148)
• United States
25 Mar 11
What does this have to do with the discussion??? You didn't read any of the discussion did you??? Care to try again???
