Paranoia about coughs, colds, sickness

[numnum]

hi

would love to hear your opinions on this

i live in a small place and i'm begining to notice how paranoid all the mothers are about any little cough, sneeze or sniffle their child or other children have

my partners family are really bad. they send emails around everyone if they've passed by someone thats been in the presence of a sick child. even if they've not seen that child they'll email to say avoid the house for 3 days.... so and so has cold, sickness or whatever.

its just getting a bit silly

when i was younger if any of our friends were off school the first thing we'd do is go round and see how they were doing and update them on school. no a days they seem to be put into quarantine!! my uncle said the same. when they were young they'd go round to try and catch it so they could stay off school but they'd never get any bugs

i was going through me and my brothers old school reports and each year we had about 4 or 5 days of sick (2 of those would've been for our summer and easter holidays) so really we were only ever ill a couple of times through each primary school year.

my partners familys kids seem to be off school a few days a month with something and always seem to be on antibiotics. and he has 3 sisters and 1 brother and there kids are always ill.

i've never avoided folk that are sick or the sniffles and my daughter has never had the cold. all she's had (she's 2) is an ear infection.

none of my friends are like this with their children. could this be a result of living in a small place and mothers aren't wanting to be the one blamed if someone elses child catches something!!!?

i keep thinking folk cant live like this. i've not seen my partners siblings for about 2 months because of their paranoia.

[numnum]

thank goodness i'm not alone

the funny thing is his sister in law lives in an old, damp, dirty house that you could make a meal out of the crumbs on the floor and yet she worries about a cough!!

i'm a complete clean freak but i jsut think if your going to get a cold or a bug you'll get it

[annie0000]

I can see the point if you have a child that is particularly vurnerable and has other health problems. In those circumstances, you might want to be careful about them getting something else. At the end of the day, we all need to catch those childhood things to build up immunity as adults.

With it being only a few days to Christmas, I would prefer my kids noy to catch anything now and spoil their Christmas a bit. We have had them ill on Christmas day and that is a bit of a shame. However, I have never avoided anything with my kids and they are remarkably healthy. My eldest is 9 and hasn't missed any school days for 2 and a half years. My younger son is not quite so great, but he has only had 2 days off over the same time period. I think some of that will be down to being a working mother though. We tend to send the kids to school and hope for the best rather than keep them off to see how they are! As for avoiding friends and family if they are ill, that seems way over the top to me. Normal day to day measures such as washing your hands properly, using tissues and disposing off them properly are all that is required.

[numnum]

my other halfs sister was very strict with hand washing and was even squirting me with anti bacterial stuff and guess who got swine flu.... her whole family

yet i met up with my friend at her mum and dads house. her sisters kids had swine flu but didn't live in that house. i hadn't even seen or been round the kids as they didn't live there and my boyfriends family avoided me for a week

[annie0000]

My other half is more paranoid than me, but then his job brings him in contact with loads of ill people and hospitals, he wont touch anything in the house until he has had a shower and he washes all his work clothes separate from the family washing. He gets more illness than the rest of us put together.

[cazzz1975]

well, if you know that the person you are visiting has the winter vomiting bug, you wouldnt go willingly to catch it. I have a poor immune system so I avoid severe illnesses when I can. fair enough you think your partners family are mad, maybe they have had a bad experience and dont want to readily accept a new bug merely because its doing the rounds.

[Nosha123]

perhaps they are all more worried they will have to stay home with a sick demanding child rather than send them to school!!! hahaha