I teach my kids to share and share alike. It’s nice to share your toys, your crayons–and because my boys are so close in age–your clothes and even your friends. And I’m sure that with all the sharing and passing of books and toys and Darth Vader masks that goes on in this house we also do a whole lot of swapping germs.
One kid sneezes and before we know it the whole house is blowing through the Kleenex box (yes, I have to admit that really bad pun was kind of intended). I know that passing around colds and even the dreaded stomach bug is pretty much par for the course in a family of preschool and elementary school age children with questionable hand-washing habits (“Oh, you wanted me to use soap and water when you asked me to wash my hands! Silly me”).
But I can not grasp, have no way of comprehending the thought of purposefully exposing my kids to germs from strangers. Browsing online for germ-soaked rags and (gag) infected spit riddled lollipops (gag again) is not something I can wrap my head around.
And yet some lady in Nashville was selling lollipops sucked by her chicken pox infected kids for $50 a pop (another one–sorry)! And sending them through the mail to people after receiving payment on PayPal! All this so your kids in Cleveland could get the chicken pox the good ol’ fashioned way: by sucking on dirty lollipops half eaten by strangers in another city! How cool is that? This story calls for exclamation points! I can’t help it! I’m amazed!
Here’s the deal: having the chicken pox sucks. I know this because I got them when I was 23 years old. I was sick as a dog for weeks and the residual effects lasted for months. I won’t go into detail because it was all pretty disgusting.
Maybe that’s why I don’t really understand going out of your way to expose your kids to a super nasty bug with the hopes that they get it. I don’t really understand the whole non-vaccination thing to be honest and I’m sure there are plenty of people willing to educate me on that. But this takes it to a whole new level–mail order viruses and parties thrown for the sole purpose of spreading germs. No thanks.
I have an easier solution–take the kiddos to Chuck E. Cheese and add an element of surprise. You might not be the Grand Prize winner and come down with a case of the pox, but roll the dice there and I’m pretty sure you are guaranteed a nice case of pink eye at the very least.
