Missing School/Missing Work
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- January
- 30
This is America today: a sick kid goes to school because it’s midterm week and she can’t miss her test (even though she can barely concentrate due to a stuffy nose). There is just too much pressure to “succeed.” Meanwhile her mother (that would be me…) goes to work with her vibrating cellphone by her at all times (yes, even in the bathroom…remind me to tell you about my friend Karen who dropped hers in the toilet once as she was “on alert” with her three kids) because she, too, can’t miss work or her deadlines (despite the fact that she feels terribly guilty for sending a sick kid to school and tries to tell her daughter that she can MAKE UP a midterm). Not to mention the fact that we working moms have to “save” our sick days—not for Us (and our inevitable stuffy noses) but for our kids. Am I alone in feeling this way? Let me know…..
If not, I have LOTS more blog material from a parent meeting I went to last night. Can’t wait to fill you in!
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 11:03 am by Jeanne Muchnick.
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I have no sympathy. I am heartless after 5th grade or so they are on their own when it comes to; if they go to school sick or not. Because ,well, I did. sick as a dog sometimes. and no cell phones. That is what the nurses office is for or you stay home. Of course it depends on the illness. but if its just a stuffy nose. Go to school or stay home and keep yourself company. Kids are way too coddled. But I do agree, that schools have become much more demanding and really putting way too much pressure on kids way too early.
I went to school sick (barring a fever) all the time. Not really because my mother sent me, just because that’s who I was. It turned out just fine, although I also agree that kids today have to deal with way too much pressure. My daughter is in kindergarten and gets 10 pages of homework per week. Kindergarten!
As far as my own sick days go, I definitely save them for taking a sick child to the doctor or just staying home woth them instead of having the sitter there. I can recall my own mother comforting me when I was sick and want to be there for mine.