I went to the Big 2 Toyota dealership today with Ammon to get an oil change in the Sienna. They have this super cool pirate ship for the kids to play on that Ammon just loves. While we were there, there were many kids coming around to play on the ship as well and Ammon was having a great time with all of them. Then this mother walked up with her kids and they started to play as well. The mother talked with Ammon for a little bit while her kids played and they all were having a good time. Then Ammon wipes his arm across his nose, like every three year old on the planet; this mother freaks out and tells her kids that they need to leave because there are germs. Meanwhile I have called Ammon over to me so I can wipe his nose (he always has boogers, even when he is perfectly healthy). This mother proceeds to get all of her kids out of this play area and douse their hands with sanitizer from her purse saying, "We need to leave here right now," and the youngest kid is crying because they have been playing for all of one minute or so.
Okay, so first of all, any time you let your children play on a public piece of equipment that other children play on, it will most likely have germs, right? And, isn't it awful rude to treat a child like that and to do that when you know that the parent is right there (not that it's okay when the parent is not there either) and can obviously hear you as well? Is that really a good trait to pass on to your children?
To make matters worse, I know the woman. She is the wife of one of my husband's best friends...I wonder if she recognized me...after all we do send Christmas cards to one another every year...
In any case, I hope that I have never done that and that I never do that to another person. If I have offended any one of you I am truly sorry for that. But I don't think that any child should be treated like they have the plague...unless of course they have the plague, but then you still don't treat them poorly because of it.
Anyway, I just needed to blog a rant for the day...sorry.
4 comments:
Rude indeed. You're better than me. I would have gone over and sneezed on her ;) People are weird. Tell her if she keeps making her children used hand sanitizer her children will grow up with no immune system and be very sickly adults. Sarah B.
What a prick. Guess she never heard of the immune system.
So sorry that Ammon had to put up with that... Public equipment is public, meaning, it has germs, nasty ones... Seriously, they pick up more germs by going to church than they do at the play ground, and we're not going to stop going there... Kids get sick, who cares, that's life. Besides, a nose wipe can have nothing to do with germs. Carter has had a runny nose since September. I promise he hasn't been sick the entire time. I would rather a kid wipe their nose on their shirt instead of pick it and eat it. Okay, sorry, I'm done, but the lady in your story made me angry... :)
I find that we have all forgotten how we survived just fine without hand sanitizer as children. Studies show that children are more sickly than ever, and it's attributed to the hand sanitizer wiping out all of the germs. Every time we do this, we are making the kids' immune systems start over. When I have kids, they are going right outside in the dirt until dinner. They'll wash their hands, and that will be it.
Yolanda*
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