When I was a child, you had to be dying to get a day off school.

It wasn’t that my mother was cruel, it’s just that she wanted us to learn to soldier on

because in real life – adult life, you couldn’t just take days off when you felt a little under the weather.

As a mother, she was still expected to carry on, regardless.

I hated it

and I resented that other kids would take time off for a sniffle

when I was made to attend class, with what I considered to be the most awful lurgy that could possibly end in the loss of a limb

or even death.

Of course, that didn’t happen

and for the most part I was okay at school because I wasn’t thinking about how I felt

and Mum was right.

In the real world everyone keeps on keeping on.

There is nobody to wrap you up and feed you soup

and what I’ve found is that people expect that you will keep going to work,

keep being the mum,

keep up with all of your commitments

no matter how lousy you feel.

With no regard for the spread of infection at all

because it’s inevitable, right?

Humans go through the seasons where they just expect they will catch something.

As a mother of my own brood though, I am soft.

I could say it’s because of Ivy’s illness and I know sending a child to school sick promotes transmission of infection that made me that way

but honestly,

I was a push over right from Immy and Maddy’s first day on this earth.

If any of them are sick and they are even slightly unwell,

if they ask for time off to recover, I give it to them.

Most of the time they are all stoic and go because they have work to complete or important social connections to make

but sometimes they have lounge days -

with blankets pulled up to chins

and comfort food at the ready.

Sometimes just for a day and other times longer.

I’m not sure why I have adopted that stance.

Since our arrival home the kids and Dave (and I) have all been lurgied with some disgusting cold

and there have been days off.

When I took Noah back to school and guiltily explained he had the lurgy but had energy to burn and was not sick enough to stay under the covers

the teacher nodded sagely and smiled.

“It’s  going around”, she said.

I still felt guilty though.

Today, Ivy is all coldy

and I really really want to wrap her up and keep her warm and feed her all kinds of soup that she doesn’t even like

but she wants to go.

It’s news day, you see and she wants to take the growth hormone in and tell everyone she has grown.

She’s dressed and ready to go

but I am sitting here, in my jammies,

listing all the reasons why she shouldn’t.

My biggest thing is that sending her makes me a hypocrite.

I implore people to keep their kids home if they are sick to prevent the spread of disease

and yet another part of me thinks;

it’s just a cold and she caught it from someone at school anyway

and in the real (adult) world nobody would stay home.

It’s hard to let go of the sicky girl and accept that she knows in herself

whether she is up for the day

but I think I’m going to have to.

How about you?

Did you stay home as a child, when you had a lurgy or did you soldier on

and what are you like as a parent now?

Just to clarify: Noah did not return to school when he was acutely unwell. He went on the tail end of the cold.

If any of the kids have a temperature or anything that I thought was infectious (such as gastro) in any way

they would be kept home.