Co-Author Phoenix Celello
There are some situations, social issues or events I choose to write about that I am certain my comments will not be well received by a majority of those who take the time to read them. This is going to be one of them. In the past, I have offered my opinion on several subjects that has been criticized as being overbearing, opinionated, closed minded, insensitive and outright lies. This article may revisit some, if not all of these views and could possibly prompt a few new ones.... as a matter of fact....I'm sure of it. Because today, my fellow Observers, I'd like to take a minute to discuss how we are reacting, or more to the point, overreacting to something that affects our children. I'm referring to the going off the deep end approach we have taken in the past decade or so when it comes to how we deal with children allergies.
Not only are we going overboard with precautions and bans when it comes to this, we are jumping ship without a life jacket off a Beconase boat that has no Dimetapp dingy. And while some parents may have no problem walking the plank off the SS Anaphylactic and falling into the sea of Benadryl, I, however, tend to have questions when overcautious measures are implemented especially when they never existed before.
In order to try to understand these current practices, I believe it would be helpful to us all if we broke them down using the basic journalistic questions we all learned in the third grade.
Why have we chosen to sensationalize this problem? This isn't something new. Allergies and reactions have been around a long, long time and will continue to be an unfortunate facet of life that we simply have to live with if you or someone in your family is affected by them. Its not as if the landscape has changed much either. With all of our research, billions spent on studies and medication we still are no further along in understanding why some are allergic while others are not or even how we become allergic. More importantly we are no closer to any type of viable cure than we were a century ago. The only thing that has had any significant change is that some treatments have become marginally more successful and are more readily available to the general public. With that stated, again I ask why are we blowing out of proportion a situation that has remained pretty much exactly the same as it was decades ago?
Another thing that we can ask in the why? column is why are nuts the only thing that are banned from classrooms? Feels a little one sided to me. Children are allergic to a lot of things, aren't they? Strawberries, coconut, gluten, bee stings, latex, dairy....etc. Some to the point that their reactions could be potentially just as life threatening as a spoonful of Skippy or a small sampling of Planter's holiday collection. Shouldn't these items be banned from the classroom as well? Seems kind of unfair that we only want to protect the children that may require medical attention because they happened to touch a Nature's Valley granola wrapper. If we are going to ban nuts because they can hurt our children we should be willing to get rid of everything that is a threat. Along with restricting pretty much everything edible we should also be boarding up all the windows, spraying pesticides around the perimeter of the classroom to keep out the wasps and bees as well as putting up barriers to keep children away from latex painted areas that may chip or peel because we all know kids love to eat paint chips. Sounds kind of ridiculous.... doesn't it? That's because it is.
Even my 10 year old daughter has an opinion on this subject and its not a very tolerant one either. She simply can't understand why when a child in her class is allergic to nut products, the whole class, including the teacher, aren't allowed to have them in the classroom. She also has a lot of trouble comprehending (along with her father) why they are only banned from the classroom and not the cafeteria. Seems anything goes there. It didn't used to be that way. Our school, like many others, had instituted "nut free" tables in the lunchroom. That made sense. What doesn't make sense is why our school system eliminated them and that nuts are only prohibited from the classroom. Seems to me that it would be easier to monitor a twenty kid class than half the student body at lunchtime....but I could be wrong. It also breaks away form any type of logic if they are concerned about osmosis transfer reactions that occur when a child touches a nut contaminated surface (which life threatening cases are beyond rare). If nuts can be anywhere in the cafeteria, how can we possibly keep these kids from being exposed to them? In any of these cases, in my daughters mind, the solution to the problem is easy. The affected child simply doesn't eat nut products. Leave it to a child to come up with an answer the adults should have had in the first place. This should be and has been a sufficient maxim, but apparently not in today's society. Not only do adults choose not to employ this obvious course of action, instead they offer that our children don't understand and that as responsible parents we need to educate them on the subject. Not true. I hate to break it to these Walnut Warriors, but our children understand all too well. Especially when it means that they can't have that Quaker chewy granola bar with chocolate chips and peanut butter. They have a very firm grasp on that concept and they shouldn't have to. Adults are the ones who don't understand. We don't comprehend that by overprotecting one child and holding their needs above everyone else's we create animosity among our children all because we deny the majority a snack they love because one can't have it. We forget that things we find insignificant can mean the world to a child. We also forget that the more we call attention to a situation the more likely our children may respond to it in an improper manner. Some may disagree, but the over the top approach we partake in as of late may just be the reason children have been reported throwing peanut butter sandwiches under the nut free table in the cafeteria.
When? When did it become everyone else's responsibility to protect these children? Don't they have parents? I'm pretty sure they do and that's where the trouble starts because it's these parents that are making it everyone else's problem that their child has a condition. Worse yet they expect and more often demand that actions be taken to "protect" their children which in reality pressures school administrators to put their children's welfare in a higher position than the others. The aforementioned statement may sound callous, but in my opinion that is exactly what they are doing. To make matters even worse, the majority of the school boards are giving in to these tactics and masking this social extortion by claiming that is their responsibility to implement these rules for our children's own good. Far be it for me to point out that it may be less about responsibility and more about avoiding potential lawsuits.
And when did it become our duty to educate everyone who doesn't have an allergy about the few that do? The children that have the allergies are the ones who need to be educated about them. Doesn't that make more sense? How about we try that approach, huh? That's the way we did it in the old days. I can't be the only one who remembers this. If little Jimmy would blow up like a puffer fish if he ate nuts or cousin Sally might turn into one giant red bumpy hive because she happened to down a strawberry, little Jimmy didn't eat anything that had Mr. Peanut on the label and cousin Sally did the same when it came to strawberry shortcake at the family picnic..... because they knew not to. We didn't make it our school board's and teaching staff's main agenda to put policies in place that made Jimmy and Sally's condition a top priority. Parents simply reported their child's malady to the school nurse and he or she took the appropriate steps to inform who needed to be.
By the way, where are the school nurses anyway these days? Where did they go? I know we still have them because I constantly get Strep throat, pink eye and head lice notices on a regular basis. Aren't they the ones we pay every week to look after our children's medical welfare? Can't they administer emergency medications like Epi-pens? I believe that they should be the ones most qualified to do so. Even with all the "doctors" we have running around the halls of our schools, they seem to be the only ones with any type of a medical degree. And speaking of Epi-pens, there has been a commercial around for a couple of years now that informed us that people with allergies can now carry their very own Epi-pen. Soooo....where are these pens and why aren't children carrying them at all times? The ones in the commercial do. Moreover, why aren't they at our disposal in the classroom or in the cafeteria or on the playground? Especially the classrooms that have children with severe allergies. Wouldn't it be a better course of action to educate our teachers and school staff on how to identify a child having a reaction and administering this medication in an emergency if the child doesn't do so first? If my child had a severe allergy I know I would feel a lot more assured of his or her safety if measures were in place to practice life saving protocols and dispense medication instead of just hanging a "nut free" sign beside the classroom door that half the children and parents are going to ignore anyway. Maybe I'm just nit (or in this case...nut) picking, but the former makes a lot more sense to me.
While we are on the subject of sense, what ever happened to common sense? Have we really become so blind that we don't recognize when we are being taken advantage of? The treatment of allergies has become a multi billion dollar business in the last few decades and even though, as I already stated, we are no further along towards a practical treatment or cure for these ailments, we seem to have no problem throwing our money down a bottomless pit of white coat guess work that offers no solution. And here I thought we were supposed to see "clearer" with Claritin. Not only are little Jimmy's parents forking over his college fund in a vain attempt to find out exactly what made him turn into a rootin' tootin' raspberry last Friday afternoon, children are being subjected to countless allergy tests that cost thousands and more often than not, return inconclusive results. Both my son and daughter went through bouts of allergic reactions as well as myself when I was a child. In each of our cases a cause was ever found. Oddly enough all three of us are still alive despite the fact that my parents, myself or my wife refused to throw money at the allergy huckster....oh...excuse me...."specialist" to root out the itchy bumpy culprit. This leads me to believe that the only thing these children are truly allergic to is the bullshit that their doctors and parents are feeding them.
A perfect example of this is something my family witnessed a few years ago. When my daughter was in kindergarten her classroom was designated a "nut free" zone because one of her classmates was diagnosed as being severely allergic to nut products. That entire school year my wife and I scoured the stores looking for snacks that were not made in a facility that processed nut products. Anyone who has gone through this painstaking unnutted procedure will tell you that is a daunting task that requires a lot of effort. Which leads me to wonder what these people eat as almost everything has some kind of nut in the process of manufacture. Made in a facility that processes nuts, may include nut products, made with peanut, sunflower, safflower oil....the list goes on and on right down to a monocle wearing peanut with a cane rearing his ugly, severe reaction top hat bearing head. You might as well ban wheat.....wait a minute.
After a ten month struggle at the local Wal-mart snack section the child that everyone bowed and catered to all year celebrated his birthday in class with an abundance of peanut butter products. Somehow this child was miraculously cured of his severe allergy. Will wonders never cease? Hold on...Oh...that's right...I almost forgot...there is no cure. So logically we have to deduct that the child was never allergic in the first place. Answered prayers and divine intervention aside, I put my faith in more realistic answers than ones that require a shovel and rubber boots in a precautionary role. But that's just me.
Nut free classrooms, nut free restaurants, nut free tables, nut free bake sales, no outside food allowed at school functions and I just recently found out that we now have nut free ball parks. Seriously?....Peanut free baseball games?!?!? How have we let this happen? How have we allowed a select few make the rules for the majority? I thought our democratic system worked the other way. I understand that people are only trying to look out for their loved ones but do we really have to ban nut products from entire venues? I guess nut free areas are not enough. Now Mr. and Mrs. Nonuts and their legume intolerant offspring want the whole ballpark, please....along with all the schools, cafeterias, movie theaters and while your at it, throw in the malls, county fairs and Hershey Park, if you don't mind.
Finally, my loyal reader, we come to who. Who is responsible for all this? Who is making these rules and more importantly, who is entertaining them? In all fairness we usually have the best intentions in mind when it comes to protecting our children, but this type of protection does more harm than good. It teaches our children to rely on others for their welfare. To not act independently and not take responsibility for their own well being. This type of shielding behavior gives children a false sense of security that others will always have their best interest and safety at heart when the truth is sadly far from it. It may indeed take a village to raise a child but that village should not be expected to bear responsibilities belonging solely to the parents. Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, I have to find a healthy, no nut, gluten free, low fat, sugar free snack for my daughters end of the year celebration.
Phoenix with some of her favorite "banned" snacks
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