Sorry, no random news article here. Just an experience from a birthday party on Saturday.
(sidenote to start off: I think kid’s birthday parties are really stupid. Parents, mostly moms, make into way too big a deal, and it’s a huge waste of money)
I’m at a three year old’s birthday party on Saturday, my nearly 3yo is a “friend” (moreso the moms are friends). We’re there for a while, I finally get a break to grab some food. I go into the house (it was a camping “themed” outdoor party) and when I go into the dining room I see yet another family rolling in. I’m 99% sure they just walked in as I really thought I heard standard hellos and welcomes etc. Cute little girl walks in, semi-smiles, and BARFS. A LOT.
There’s a nasty stomach bug going around in the area. I go right to my wife and say “Hey, go in there, we need to know who that is and make sure < son > doesn’t get too close.” My wife is LIVID because she immediately assumes the girl is sick. We keep him away from her as much as we can, they never really interacted but were nearby a few times.
I’m leaning towards thinking the girl was sick, and the mom just brought her anyways. Even if that was the first sign of anything, don’t you have to roll out immediately? Kids rarely just barf at that age unless something is up. It’s not like she had been there for an hour and was slamming back 12 pieces of cake or anything.
What if the little girl had gotten some motion sickness in the car on the way to the party?
Just throwing another scenario out there. One of my memories of vomiting as a kid (about 4 or 5 years old) was from motion sickness, not a GI bug. Thank goodness I grew out of it.
Bringing the girl may have been an innocent mistake but who keeps a sick kid at a party? If my son starts puking everywhere we would be taking him home.
Not everyone subscribes to the quarantining their children every time they sneeze model of parenting. If you had an issue with a sick kid being there, you should have left. Paper after paper have been released about how parents today aren’t allowing their children’s immune systems to develop yet we dont let them out of their pristine little sanitized worlds. Not meant as an attack as I catch myself doing the same thing sometimes with my little one but Ive been getting much better at exposing him to the world and its myriad of germs.
We feel like we’re pretty good about that stuff. The general rule our school follows is if your kid has had a fever or thrown up within 24 hours of the next day of school your kid shouldn’t go. We follow that rule, we’ve fudged it a bit once, but in general (me especially) we’re not “our precious snowflake can’t get sick!” types.
I’m a “take your shoes off and lets play outside barefoot” dad. I want him exposed to the environment etc. Get some dirt under those fingernails kid!
I have no clue how this stomach bug spreads, I can’t imagine it is just being in proximity to the person, there has to be a sneeze or something…
You got way too worked up over that. Kids get sick and throw up unexpectedly. Happens all the time. Sure the mom could have dragged a known sick kid also. Either way, to me, it is a non event. Your kid will be around other sick kids all the time.
For you guys to get “livid” over the situation, is kind of whacked. Lighten up.
I think it also has to do with how you percieve the world. It doubt it would have even entered my mind that the parent brought a known sick kid to the party and to put some sort of “blame” on them for it. I usually go through life giving people the benefit of the doubt. My reaction probably would have been to feel sorry for the kid and mom and ask if they were ok and if I could help out…not circle the wagons with the spouse and quaranteen my kid.
Kids Barf for no apparent reason all the time. My buddy brought his daughter over to my house once to visit my dog. We were dog sitting for another dog at the time and she was so excited to see two dogs she puked all over our living room. After she was done being upset by what happened she was fine.
oh, and unless the kid has ebola or something life threatening you really shouldn’t worry. Also even if the girl did have a virus or something chances are she may not have shown any symptoms until she was vomiting all over. Kids get sick fast and well fast, unless of course you keep them in a plastic bubble until they are teens and then they could die form a simple flu because they have no immunity.
Not everyone subscribes to the quarantining their children every time they sneeze model of parenting. If you had an issue with a sick kid being there, you should have left.
Err . . . I disagree.
I agree with everyone that there all kinds of reasons besides being actually sick that a kid might throw up- car sick, nerves, over-excitement, no particular reason, etc etc. And I generally agree that many people have become way to germ-phobic.
But if your kid has some kind of contagious stomach bug that results in vomiting, you don’t bring your kid to a party full of other little kids. Obviously.
Couple weeks ago, my 15 month old had 2 mornings in a row in which he booted right after his morning milk. Got it out and started laughing. Was fine all day both days, no fever, no other problems whatsover.
What if the little girl had gotten some motion sickness in the car on the way to the party?
Just throwing another scenario out there. One of my memories of vomiting as a kid (about 4 or 5 years old) was from motion sickness, not a GI bug. Thank goodness I grew out of it.
my oldest son did this at age 5 on the way to a wedding once. He was all duded up in the back of the car, started to go green, "i feel kinda . . . " I whipped a plastic bag into his hand and he threw up right into it like a champ. The timing was great, the bride wouldn’t have appreciated it in the middle of the ceremony.
Kids at three do in fact throw up on occasion without being sick at all. Furthermore kids at that age often times don’t know they are sick and don’t show signs until they are well into the sickness, well past barfing. These two issues combined can mean throwing up doesn’t necessarily mean they are sick.
While I can’t say for sure I would have a hard time believing a parent would force their kid to go to a birthday party if they were sick. Our daughter often tried to get out of school claiming “Sick” and everyone once in a while she actually was. One time our son claimed “I’m sick” before school…and he ended up throwing up in Panera’s. We eventually figured out he was more truthful then our daughter and if he says he’s sick…he is
I’m just saying that there are ALL sorts of potential possibilities here most of which I doubt are in anyway malicious. Furthermore if there is a bug going around and we are talking three year olds, your kid is sick…end of story. Kids are slobbery, touchy, germ spreading machines. They are contagious LONG before they show any signs of being sick and by the time they are sick they’ve probably passed the germs along to 2-3 other kids that are doing the same.
lol…I dropped my kid off a daycare yesterday and hung around playing with him and the other kids for about an hour. Every single one of them, snot all over their faces.
I think some parents just become oblivious to said things after awhile. I actually posted some time ago on two separate instances. First a friend brought his son over to watch a football game, loud and disruptive to everyone, but then he shit his pants and the entire house reeked. Dad either didn’t smell it, forgot a diaper or didn’t want to mess with it. It leaked out of his pants and stained my Oriental rug and I had to pay ~ $120 to have it cleaned. Other issue was being invited over for dinner to friends. We come in and not 10 minutes into dinner the little girl comes out asking for mommy. Come to find out she had been puking all day/fever with the flu and the mom and son were just getting over the flu they passed on. Not a single moment of ‘omg I cannot believe we didn’t tell you this b/f you came over’. Just completely oblivious. I think kids can make the brain go cuckoo or something b/c I have known them for years and they weren’t that scatter brained b/f they had chillrins.
