Wondering about attitudes to illness

[Laura Corin]

I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular. It's something I've observed over a long period.

 

I see a lot of fear of illness and distress about the thought of illness. This is completely understandable if someone in the family has a serious underlying condition. But I wonder about the level of concern amongst generally healthy people.

 

Are we too used to being healthy, because modern medicine can help us to avoid many illnesses that our ancestors had to endure as a matter of course? We sometimes seem affronted when we get ill, rather than resigned to what is a normal inconvenience of life. Or is there something else going on?

 

I'm not expressing myself very well. Can anyone help me to clarify?

 

I'm in no way suggesting that the old days of suffering were better; just wondering if we expect too much these days.

 

Laura

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think the old days of suffering were worse among poorer classes and are worse for poorer classes even today. Illness = loss of work, often with significant consequences. Illness among those who don't have as severe a consequence = an imposition and an inconvenience IF you have someone to take over for you in your familial and societal roles.

[HS Mom in NC]

I agree. I think people (mostly those in the news industry) are very alarmist about medical conditions that are very treatable in people with normal immune systems in our modern societies with adequate nutrition, good sanitation, and modern medicine. The word "epidemic" is being used too loosely these days.

 

It's generational too. Remember when everyone expected to get a cold and the newest strain of the flu every year? The flu didn't make the news then and no one was freaked out if they were exposed to it. Now some parents who had the chicken pox themselves as children are all in a dither if their child vaccinated for the chicken pox is one of the few who comes down with it. It's not the plague for heaven's sake.

[EKS]

What I see is over concern about "germs" in general as evidenced by all of the antimicrobial products out there coupled with "under" concern (for lack of a better term) about diseases that are truly life threatening as evidenced by the relatively large numbers of people who don't vaccinate for "personal" reasons.

[kewb]

The people I know who fear illness/germs usually stems from fear of losing ones job due to too many sick days.

[Laura Corin]

The people I know who fear illness/germs usually stems from fear of losing ones job due to too many sick days.

 

Can you tell me what number of days would be considered too many where you are? I'm mostly thinking about colds, stomach upsets, flu. For me, that probably runs a couple of days a year (on average) off work. I don't get flu every year and I'm otherwise usually walking wounded.

 

Laura

[GraciebytheBay]

I think we just aren't used to hearing about many deaths due to illness anymore due to prevention. I will say that when I hear "it's a bad year for flu", I don't think a lot of it. When I hear "22 children have died so far during this flue season" (heard earlier today), my ears perk up, and I pay more attention. Put that together with the media hype almost every year, and it is understandable for people to be more aware. Also, I feel that people in general, are more fearful now than they used to be, especially when it comes to their children.

[kewb]

Can you tell me what number of days would be considered too many where you are? I'm mostly thinking about colds, stomach upsets, flu. For me, that probably runs a couple of days a year (on average) off work. I don't get flu every year and I'm otherwise usually walking wounded.

 

Laura

 

Different companies have different policies around here. When I worked fulltime I had unlimited sick days-but if you used them too frequently you got a warning (for example I had 23 sick days the first year of ds's life-granted that was a lot but people were written up for less). Where my dh works you get 20 paid days off. This includes vacation/sick/personel days. I have friends who work for companies where they get 9 sick days a year. One case of the flu will wipe them out. If you are a contract worker (which is prevalant where I live) you don't get paid sick time. If you are not working you are not making any money.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I never worry about cold and flu and such and my friends are pretty much horrified. I think my attitude came from my parents so are attitudes about illness learned?

[Farrar]

I agree that some people are way too oversensitive about these things. Some of the threads on here where people act like people who bring a sniffly kid to a party are carting about Typhoid Mary have really surprised me. Yes, we should try to be considerate about spreading illness and yes, a few people have specific issues that put them at risk, but I can't bring myself to worry too much about us getting sick.

 

In general, I try to weigh my worries with what I'm giving up if it makes me significantly change my behavior. In this case, if I let worrying about getting a lousy cold stop me from getting out, being around kids, etc. then that's a huge loss to my life over something so small in the grand scheme of things.

[Guest inoubliable]

The people I know who fear illness/germs usually stems from fear of losing ones job due to too many sick days.

 

This. My best friend works for the local company that owns all of the area hospitals, hospice services, clinics, etc. They just released new visitor policies, and are recommending that everyone who works for them pay the $30 for a flu shot. If you call out sick, though, you'd better be well enough to come back after just two days or you lose your job. This, coming from a corporation pressing new policies in response to a bad flu and norovirus hitting our area. My friend is terrified of getting sick.

[Guest inoubliable]

The people I know who fear illness/germs usually stems from fear of losing ones job due to too many sick days.

 

This. My best friend works for the local company that owns all of the area hospitals, hospice services, clinics, etc. They just released new visitor policies, and are recommending that everyone who works for them pay the $30 for a flu shot. If you call out sick, though, you'd better be well enough to come back after just two days or you lose your job. This, coming from a corporation pressing new policies in response to a bad flu and norovirus hitting our area. My friend is terrified of getting sick.

[beaners]

I don't want my kids to get other people sick, but I don't worry much about us getting sick from someone else. I'll make an exception for that stomach bug we had around Thanksgiving. I would gladly have avoided that if someone had given me the chance.

[Arcadia]

Can you tell me what number of days would be considered too many where you are? I'm mostly thinking about colds, stomach upsets, flu. For me, that probably runs a couple of days a year (on average) off work. I don't get flu every year and I'm otherwise usually walking wounded.

 

Laura

 

It depends on the company and the nature of work. When I worked, it was 5 days official sick leave but I still had to clear urgent work from home because there is no one to cover me. More than 5 days and it gets deducted from my annual leave. However it would not affect my performance appraisal because most of my work could be done from home. The field engineers would not get a good performance appraisal if they have too many sick days though because they can't work from home so money is 'lost" when a field engineer falls sick.

 

For my hubby, he does not have any official sick leave. He just need to call in sick and work from home. However he is still expected to answer work emails. If he is down with fever, strep throat than the company kind of expect him to clear his emails twice a day. The bulk of his work can be done from home. If there is an epidemic, his department can do conference calls and discuss instead of going to the office.

 

For my brother who is a contract manufacturing worker, he gets no pay when he is sick even though he would not lose his job, He does not have paid sick leave.

[Murphy101]

Can you tell me what number of days would be considered too many where you are? I'm mostly thinking about colds, stomach upsets, flu. For me, that probably runs a couple of days a year (on average) off work. I don't get flu every year and I'm otherwise usually walking wounded.

Laura

 

It really varies. Typically tho, more than a day or two in a row can get even an employee with a good record a warning. Plus no work equals no pay, so every day sick on an already hard to make ends meet income means ends wont be met that month.

 

Also, even in companies with supposedly generous time off allowances, they strongly discourage taking that time off. Employees that use too much, as deemed rather arbitrarily, risk loss of promotions and evaluation rankings, which affects whether they make the next expected staff reduction.

 

And schools can be a royal pita. Parents get in trouble if their kids misses a lot of school, even if it's valid sometimes.

[DianeW88]

Yes, people do over react to the wrong things, and germophobia generally leads to more illnesses in the germophobe. Everyone needs to eat their pound of dirt, IYKWIM. I don't worry about shopping carts, bathroom stalls, library books, etc. Your immune system is bombarded by MILLIONS of germs, bacteria and diseases every single day. If you saw what was crawling all over your body right now, you'd probably pass out. That's what our immune system is for and it does an amazing job.

 

Also, the more crap you're exposed to...the stronger your immune system becomes. I literally can't even remember the last time I was sick, and I'm exposed to massive amounts of contagions every time I work. Don't wrap your kids in a plastic germ-free bubble. Eventually, they'll be the sickest kids on the block.

 

I also feel that because most people never see REALLY sick people, they have no idea what really sick looks like. A kid with a five day URI is nothing compared to a kid with measles, mumps or whooping cough. So sometimes people feel their doctor or the staff is ignoring them. They're not...they just know your kid's really not that sick.

[PrincessMommy]

I think another part of the issue is that we fear risk. I think that's an underlying reason for all the laws we have. We want to live in a bubble where there is 100% chance of being safe from injury or death. I've often wondered if we started to space program today if it would EVER get off the ground.

 

I see the media hype on the flu as feeding into this.

[melmichigan]

I think 24 hour media is feeding the fire so to speak, at least with the flu. The flu has reached epidemic proportions each year since it was last pandemic in 2009, and probably long before that (I'm just to lazy to look up the statistics right now). Most people hear "epidemic" without realizing what it means from a medical standpoint. Many people are no longer being taught what "normal" illness is, nor are they taught how to deal with it appropriately.

[K&Rs Mom]

Plus no work equals no pay

 

I find that we're MUCH more aware of this now that dh is running his own business and doesn't get any "sick days." It doesn't change our behavior, but it's there in the back of my mind in a way that it wasn't when he had a regular job.

 

I think another part of the issue is that we fear risk.

 

This has become a huge thing in all areas of life. Somehow our culture has come to view any inconvenience as a huge disaster, I think just because we're so used to things running smoothly. So illness that used to just be accepted as the cost of living around other people is now seen as a catastrophe.

[Danestress]

It's interesting, isn't it? And I am not sure how things are different than in the past. I will say that people *talk* more openly and honestly about illness then they used to. When I was a kid, if an adult was sick, you might get the general idea, but what the problem was was always "hush hush." I remember when I was in 8th grade I had a teacher who was out for a while with a tumor on his spine. My mother was absolutely shocked he told us anything specific about the medical problem. She is a big believer that anything medically significant is also very "private" and would never be generally shared.

 

Now days, people talk very openly about cancer and other illnesses. They make specific prayer requests, maintain websites to update their friends, and hope that their sharing will help someone. And I think this is probably better, but I wonder if it's related to fear. Maybe now that we know that lots and lots of women suffer from breast cancer, we feel more worried about it, because we have real experience that this is something that affects a lot of people?

 

I don't know.

[FairProspects]

It is the sick day thing for us. At dh's last job he got 5 days per year for sick leave, and you had to "earn" them meaning you got 1.5 days every 3 months. If you had one bad illness, that could wipe out your sick leave for the entire year. We had little kids and we both got sick often so poor dh frequently went to work sick. :(

[Guest]

In general, I agree with the OP. Dh and I were just talking about this. It does not seem (from memory) that there was news coverage about the flu when we were kids. Every year, it was completely accepted that the kids would suffer numerous colds and probably at least one influenza-type or severe cold per year.

 

Having said that, I also agree with the posters who cite loss of work as a major reason to try to avoid illness. My dh is "the boss." He almost never misses work because the stakes are so high for missing. It's a pretty big problem for him when his employees can't come in, too. He worked this past weekend because his plumber was out two days last week and the work must be done.

 

And having said that, I do practice some avoidance behaviors in times like these. I had the flu a few years ago and it STUNK bad. I'm not keen to get the flu and if I can wash my hands more often to avert it, then I will.

[Melinda in VT]

I've wondered the same thing. We don't practice much avoidance here, and we don't stress about colds or the flu, although I do try to be conscientious about not spreading germs at church. (For school, we follow the guidelines from the school.)

 

However, I am very fortunate in that I work from home all the time, so it is very easy for me to take sick days or half days when I need to while still being accessible in case of an emergency. And my employers have always had generous sick time policies, so I've never had an issue, even when I worked in the office.

[Joker]

Yes, people do over react to the wrong things, and germophobia generally leads to more illnesses in the germophobe. Everyone needs to eat their pound of dirt, IYKWIM. I don't worry about shopping carts, bathroom stalls, library books, etc. Your immune system is bombarded by MILLIONS of germs, bacteria and diseases every single day. If you saw what was crawling all over your body right now, you'd probably pass out. That's what our immune system is for and it does an amazing job.

 

Also, the more crap you're exposed to...the stronger your immune system becomes. I literally can't even remember the last time I was sick, and I'm exposed to massive amounts of contagions every time I work. Don't wrap your kids in a plastic germ-free bubble. Eventually, they'll be the sickest kids on the block.

 

I also feel that because most people never see REALLY sick people, they have no idea what really sick looks like. A kid with a five day URI is nothing compared to a kid with measles, mumps or whooping cough. So sometimes people feel their doctor or the staff is ignoring them. They're not...they just know your kid's really not that sick.

 

 

I just read this and came here to this thread. I thought it kind of funny. :D

[ktgrok]

well, I'm the library book poster, but I swear I am usually NOT paranoid about illness. I do, however, have an infant in the house, so I'm more cautious right now than I would otherwise be. I don't worry about me other than if I'm incapacitated who will take care of the kids? And I could give it to my husband who can't afford not to work. I don't worry about colds in the normal course of events, but at the same time think there is a difference between normal exposure and being AROUND known sick people. Common courtesy is you don't go around others when sick.

 

And we have great immune systems here. We eat dirt/dog hair/play in the mud and don't wipe down shopping carts. But I don't want to be vomiting and I really really really don't want my newborn doing it.

[Parrothead]

I don't fear illness. I just don't have time for it. I'd rather not get sick since it leaves things undone.

[Guest]

I just read this and came here to this thread. I thought it kind of funny. :D

 

I have heard that before about farm animals being a good "dirty vaccine." I think there's some wisdom in that...although what the mom says about not telling her kids to wash their hands unless they have clumps and hunks of dirt visible does skeeve me a little. Or a lot. :laugh:

[Hunter's Moon]

I am one of those who could not care less if they get sick, as long as there is no vomitting involved.

[Halftime Hope]

I don't worry about illness, but I do everything I can to keep dh well, because when he gets sick it can very quickly spiral out of control.

[ChristusG]

Well, I'm one that will do whatever possible to avoid illnesses. I use shopping cart covers for the baby, carry hand sanitizer, and refuse to go around people who are sick. I can't stand being "down and out" for weeks. Usually it cycles through the family, one by one, and it drags out for several weeks to completely get through all six of us. By then I'm exhausted (waking at night to tend to sick people), ready to get out of the house from being cooped up, and on edge. So yeah, I'm paranoid about sicknesses. And I hate feeling bad. I have a nursing baby and I worry when babies get sick too.

[Ellesmere]

Nm

[Reya]

What I see is over concern about "germs" in general as evidenced by all of the antimicrobial products out there coupled with "under" concern (for lack of a better term) about diseases that are truly life threatening as evidenced by the relatively large numbers of people who don't vaccinate for "personal" reasons.

 

You are my hero of this thread!

[Reya]

What I see is over concern about "germs" in general as evidenced by all of the antimicrobial products out there coupled with "under" concern (for lack of a better term) about diseases that are truly life threatening as evidenced by the relatively large numbers of people who don't vaccinate for "personal" reasons.

 

You are my hero of this thread!

[Harriet Vane]

It's a hard issue. On the one hand, a little sniffle does not bother me, nor does a lingering cough absent of other symptoms. I don't object to someone being out in public when they are a little under the weather.

 

When my kids get sick, we just hunker down and get through it--it's just a part of life. My attitude drives my mil nuts--she wishes I would take the kids to the doctor more quickly, and is not comfortable with the fact that I am comfortable letting a low fever burn and letting an illness run its course.

 

On the other hand, there are certain things that should be kept in isolation. When a child has bodily fluids (vomiting, productive cough, or constant blowing their nose), that child should not be out. Same for a fever. It makes me really angry when people bring a child in that condition out, both because those are indicators of contagion, and because the poor child is miserable and needs rest and quiet.

[goldberry]

We are reasonably careful and don't purposely go around sick people, or if we are sick ourselves. Example, if one of DD's friends is newly sick with runny nose and hacking cough, or especially a fever, we would cancel a sleepover.

 

However, we had a friend who cancelled DD sleeping over at THEIR house because of ME being sick.. I was on the tail end of a cold, DD had no symptoms whatsoever. But this friend cancelled a much-looked-forward-to sleepover, again at their house, not around me...because DD had been around me. I considered that excessively fearful.

[SJ.]

Well being sick pretty much sucks so I'm sure that is part of it!

 

[SKL]

I tend to be pretty much like my mom was 40 years ago. I can't remember taking any measures to prevent picking up "germs." We got a few vaxes for the illnesses that would put you in quarantine if you caught them, but that's about it.

 

I used to get a stomach virus every winter like clockwork. I used to look forward to it as it would cause me to lose the extra weight I put on over Christmas. But at some point my nice reliable annual "24-hour flu" stopped being annual. Bummer.

 

I don't really even look at colds/sinus illnesses as being "sick." I can't imagine taking off work for a cold, or anything else that doesn't absolutely prevent me from remaining upright for x hours. I send my kids to school that way too, as long as they don't have significant fever, vomiting, or considerable discomfort. Shoot, if I kept my kids out of school for every snotty nose, they'd have missed the equivalent of a whole school year by now.

 

We don't wash hands much and I abhor "sanitizer." I let my kids eat off the floor and cough at each other. I just don't think it makes all that much difference. Either you expose your family to germs and they develop immunity except for the really bad stuff, or you protect them and they still manage to catch the really bad stuff (because sooner or later, it's everywhere no matter what you do).

[Sahamamama]

In part, I think this anxiety stems from the fact that many of us are bombarded with copious information about what we can (and perhaps should) do to maximize our health. Perhaps, as a result of so much information, we begin to see ourselves as responsible for the total outcome of our physical lives. From an early age, our generation has been taught to:

• "Eat right," whatever that may mean. Of course it means eating plenty of vegetables, little or no sugar, fewer processed foods, and so on. Now, add to this list warnings and concerns about GMFs, non-organics, gluten, dairy, beef, nuts, this food, that food, this additive, that preservative, mad cow disease, salmonella, and so on. We are told to "eat the pyramid," but the pyramid keeps changing. We are told to go primitive and eat like a hunter-gatherer. Or to eat like our ancestors, whomever they may be. Or to eat less fat. Or more fat. Or more protein. Or less protein. Or fewer carbs. Or more carbs. Or to go nightshade-free. So there is perhaps an underlying concern in some people that they aren't quite "getting it right."
  
• Exercise regularly, at least 30 minutes, 5 times per week, in the target heart range.
  
• Refrain from using and/or abusing drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and prescription medication.
  
• Practice "safe" sex.
  
• Wear a seat belt in all vehicles.
  
• Wear a bicycle helmet.
  
• Brush three times a day, floss, and use a mouthwash.
  
• Wash hands before and after everything -- toileting, sneezing, coughing, working in the yard, walking the dog, shaking hands with the pastor, visiting a neighbor, shopping for groceries, eating.
  
• Get all the recommended medical exams and tests.
  
• Avoid exposure to radiation and ultraviolet sun rays; use a sunscreen with SPF 50+; wear a sun hat; wear protective eye gear.
  

 

 

IMO, with all this information, there is (perhaps) the underlying assumption that we are in control of the lion's share of our health. That is, if we do A, B, and C, then we will be healthy. If we do X, Y, and Z, we will be unhealthy. While there is much truth to this, there are no guarantees in life. In many ways, it is what it is.

 

Laura, do you think the anxiety you are observing stems from the realization that we are not in control, as much as we've believed? As in, "I did all the right things, and I'm sick. I don't understand it?" Or, "Can I do enough of the right things to keep sickness away from my doorstep?"

 

The person with that perspective is taking on all the burden for his or her health. We do have responsibility to act on what we know -- and I don't think our generation knows too much, exactly -- but we don't control all things that come into play with our physical (and emotional) well-being. Sometimes it is what it is.

[twoxcell]

I think 24 hour media is feeding the fire so to speak, at least with the flu. The flu has reached epidemic proportions each year since it was last pandemic in 2009, and probably long before that (I'm just to lazy to look up the statistics right now). Most people hear "epidemic" without realizing what it means from a medical standpoint. Many people are no longer being taught what "normal" illness is, nor are they taught how to deal with it appropriately.

:iagree:

I start feeling like this everytime I see the CDC warnings about the current flu season. :001_rolleyes: It is amazing how every year is some kind of flu crisis. I swear they are just trying to scare people into getting shots so they can make more money. :leaving:

[staceyobu]

:iagree:

I start feeling like this everytime I see the CDC warnings about the current flu season. :001_rolleyes: It is amazing how every year is some kind of flu crisis. I swear they are just trying to scare people into getting shots so they can make more money. :leaving:

 

Yeah... what was it, three years ago? We were all going to die of the swine flu? I keep hearing media reports that people are DYING of the flu this year. Uhhh... don't people die of the flu every year?

[Cassy]

Over Christmas we all had both the norovirus bug and a nasty cold that dragged on for around three weeks. Yesterday DS13 came home from school to say that a number of people from his form were off with flu. DH immediately suggested that we all have flu vaccines, which seemed an entirely rational response, given how much illness we've all endured just recently. And yet, I felt a really strong resistance to the suggestion. Maybe I'm just very stupid and irrational, but somehow having the flu seems more normal and natural than dragging us all along to the doctors for flu jabs. I may, of course, feel entirely differently about the matter if and when the flu catches up with us :tongue_smilie:.

[Laura Corin]

Laura, do you think the anxiety you are observing stems from the realization that we are not in control, as much as we've believed? As in, "I did all the right things, and I'm sick. I don't understand it?" Or, "Can I do enough of the right things to keep sickness away from my doorstep?"

 

 

I think that perceptions of control have a lot to do with it. You could connect it with people's attitude to other risks: most people seem to be much less concerned about statistically greater risks where they feel they are in control (for example, non-essential trips by car) and much more more concerned about lesser risks when they feel less in control (child abduction).

 

I also think that life is generally so much more convenient than it was that people react more strongly to inconvenience. There's a line in a Dorothy Sayers novel about the character's father buying a car (probably in the early years of the 20th century) and having to leave extra time for every journey because it was so unreliable. Now we expect cars to work, and a breakdown is a shock.

 

Laura

[fairfarmhand]

What I see is over concern about "germs" in general as evidenced by all of the antimicrobial products out there coupled with "under" concern (for lack of a better term) about diseases that are truly life threatening as evidenced by the relatively large numbers of people who don't vaccinate for "personal" reasons.

I have friend whose Grandma watched siblings die from things like measles. I think we forget that many vaccines protect from diseases that are truly awful.This friend was considering not vaccinating her kids and her Granny pretty much said, "Are you nuts????!!!! Vaccines are great! They are there to protect your baby!" My Grandmother's generation had no hesitancy about vaccinations because they'd seen the horrors of the diseases personally. Yet, they'd consume raw egg products without thinking twice. I have an ancient baby care book that recommends adding a raw egg to baby's bottle. :blink:

 

I'm referring to vaccines for bad diseases. I think that putting chicken pox in with diseases like diptheria also contributes.

 

I do believe that part of this is a fear of dying. People have a difficult time recognizing and dealing with the fact that sometimes, people die young from illness or accident. They can't do anything about it. It happens. And that is scary.

 

But also, families are SO stinkin' busy these days. With 2 incomes, one parent must take time off of work to care for ill kids, and it is a big deal with potential lost wages, etc. So instead of staying home in bed when they are sick, they get out sooner than they ought to. spreading the illness and potentially prolonging the illness.

 

I do believe that the 24 hour news cycle has a huge part to play in this, and the fear of people in general. I never remember people freaking out about bad weather like they do now, and I lived in Florida. Now people sit around and watch the weather channel every time they get a bad storm and they understand what "could" happen.

 

(I do believe that parents of babies and toddlers do have a right to be a bit paranoid about illness. When kids can't blow their noses or control their vomit, illness is a huge deal. )

[Cassy]

Now that my kids aren't so young I can actually be sick from time to time. I used to hate getting sick when they were little because I felt like dying having to take care of them while being so sick and DH wasn't in a position at the time to be able to take any time off. Now they are older and DH actually can help me if need be. I used to get angry at him when he would get sick because he would lay in bed the entire time. He didn't work through his sickness like I was expected to. So that made me mad if I'm being honest.

 

 

Ooh, I could have written that exact same paragraph!

[Jenny in Florida]

Something I've noticed, in general, is that we are being told all the time we don't ever need to be or feel less that great. Feeling sniffly today? There's a product for that! Cramps? There's a product for that! Feeling blue, emotionally? There's a product for that!

 

Of course, each of those products comes with potential side effects that may be worse that the ill being treated, but, hey, there's probably a product for each of those, too!

 

Don't get me wrong: I'm the first one to search out the acetominiphen when I have a headache. And I don't in any way mean to suggest that it's "wrong" to treat serious issues like depression and similar things. But I do worry a bit that all of the advertising and the wide array of products available to insulate us from the least little problem may be encouraging us to believe that simply feeling "bad" is pathological.

 

I'm always fascinated, for example, by the number of people who don't know the difference between over-the-counter products that are palliative and things that are curative. When a kid gets sick, parents dash out to Walgreens to stock up on cough and cold "medicine" and start dutifully dosing the kid, not understanding that, for the most part, they are alleviating symptoms and doing nothing at all to "cure" the underlying illness. There's a place for that kind of thing, if it helps the kiddo rest, for example, or to bring down a fever that is dangerously high. But I worry that we are masking symptoms so consistently and effectively that we have raised whole generations of people who think actually feeling sick is by definitition bad.

 

And, yes, I do think constant news coverage of whatever the current big thing is helps to create a culture of fear. And all of that terribly good advice about washing hands and covering mouths in order to avoid illness, when you've heard it repeated over and over at increasing volume, may well tend to make us feel like we're living in the midst of a terrible epidemic and that we have somehow failed if one of our kids comes down with a cold.

 

To be fair, I am also personally acquainted with a fair number of people, mostly children, whose immune systems are compromised in some way, something of which I don't remember being aware in years gone by. I don't know whether there are actually more people with these kinds of issues or whether we've just gotten better at identifying such problems, but having one or two of those folks in my life does make me aware of germs and potential illness in a new way.

[I talk to the trees]

I dislike the inconvenience of catching someone's cold. It means I have to reschedule some things, and it is positively gross to be around the adults who lack hygiene training.

 

Frankly I think the noise people are making is a lot about the lack of consideration exhibited by the germ givers. My time and my quality of life are valuable.

 

A big ol' :iagree: to that! It's mildly irritating to encounter children who haven't been taught to cover their coughs or sneezes. But when an adult behaves in that manner, it's just plain :ack2: and rude!

 

As someone with asthma, I can tell you that getting a cold isn't just about inconvenience. If I catch a nasty cold, I'm likely to end up with bronchitis, which means a doctor visit/ chest x-ray/ antibiotic, which means $$.

[Wheres Toto]

Interesting thoughts. I don't worry about illness too much. No hand sanitizer, probably not enough hand washing, my kids don't take vitamins and aren't eating the greatest diet, we do all vaccines except flu shots, don't stay home (although I'm a bit of an introvert so we aren't out a lot either), etc. But, my kids very rarely get sick. A normal year would be one or two days of sniffles and done. They've vomited (other than ds car sick) maybe once in their lives each from illness. Dh is the only one who has to go out to work and he never gets sick. So, maybe I would worry if it seemed like they were more susceptible.

 

Now the above only applies to my little guys. My oldest doesn't get sick anymore, and hasn't for years, but when she was a baby she caught everything. She started in daycare at 7 weeks old, had back-to-back-to-back ear infections for the first year, chicken pox at 9 months old, and probably a million other things. It was rough because I had to work full time but I don't remember being obsessed about it back then either. I sometimes worried about missing too much work but there was only so much that could be done. By the time she was 2 or 3, she evidently had built up some immunity because she hardly ever got sick after that point.

[Guest]

I think we just aren't used to hearing about many deaths due to illness anymore due to prevention. I will say that when I hear "it's a bad year for flu", I don't think a lot of it. When I hear "22 children have died so far during this flue season" (heard earlier today), my ears perk up, and I pay more attention. Put that together with the media hype almost every year, and it is understandable for people to be more aware. Also, I feel that people in general, are more fearful now than they used to be, especially when it comes to their children.

 

 

I agree. I think the media is causing the fear.

[OH_Homeschooler]

I can't really compare to the good old days since I wasn't around but I would think we are now a very over-scheduled society. There is also a lot of "suck it up" mentality. People don't want to hear that you are sick and they don't care why you may need to cancel on them. If you are sick you are still expected to honor the obligations you committed yourself to. There's no time to be sick, so rather than looking forward to napping all day with the flu you have to figure out how to carry on even with a 103 degree fever. There's no real benefit to being sick anymore! You can't even catch up on your favorite soap opera!

 

The media do what they do-they create stuff to talk about.

 

I do think there should be some concern about super bugs.

[HomeschoolMamaOfTwo]

Normally I am not a person that freaks out about germs or being sick unless we have a trip coming up. If getting ill would cause us to cancel our trip and be out a lot of fun and money, I get really antsy about it.