I have a friend who has a child, and their child is always sick. Always crying. Just generally, not a very happy wee lamb. Every other day she’ll come to me, complaining how awful it is to have a Difficult Child. And at first I made all the right sympathetic noises, I consoled her, I asked how I could help.
And then her kid gets allergy testing done, and several allergies are confirmed, and I think great! This is likely why they are always upset and ill! Maybe now they can get better!
And my friend… does not stop exposing them to the allergies.
“But they’re allergic to wheat,” I say, “and milk, and you’re still giving them those things.”
“Oh but they’re only minor allergies, not like, anything dangerous.”
“But that’s not… that’s not how that works,” I say, trying to be helpful, as I explain that even low level inflammation can be extremely detrimental in the long term, and extremely painful to deal with and how exposure therapy doesn’t always work. So of course he’s always sick and always crying. Of course he is.
And she rolls her eyes and says, “Look, I know you think you know a lot about health. But you’re not a parent, so I can’t expect you to understand.”
Because apparently upon the benediction of motherhood, the sacred knowledge of the universe is imparted to you the moment the umbilical cord is cut. Because apparently someone who is sick all the time, wouldn’t be able to understand. Except of course I don’t understand her. I understand her child. And what it’s like to be ignored, and hurt, and abused. And sick.
And suddenly you realize, maybe your friend is not your friend in the way you thought they were. And maybe, likely, probably, they shouldn’t be a parent.
if you’re not a parent, then nothing you do matters. only parents experience real feelings and emotions, real loss and real joy. nobody else. not even their children.
welcome to abusive ideology. it’s about power and selfishness, justifications for why nobody else matters. and the whole goddamn world supports it. “you’re selfish if you don’t have kids”. blah blah blah.
Really hit the nail on the head.
My mother would have absolutely not ever exposed her kids to anything that she knew would only be detrimental to us. My dad WAS a detriment, and he thought he was right and everything he did was right and if you said wrong you didn’t get it because you weren’t a parent, or a parent to his “difficult” kids. (Hint: everyone kid difficult if you think everything they do is wrong and an attempt to make your life worse)
I have a gajillion allergies that with age have become closer to “extremely annoying” than “one peanut will fucking kill me”. But that’s because I had the luxury of a mom who literally fought tooth and nail to make sure irresponsible adults would never try to purposefully expose me to things I was allergic to. It didn’t always work, because people hear “minor allergy” and think “that wimp will be fine she just doesn’t like being outside” and yeet you into a blooming field sometimes and then you breathe funny for the rest of the day. And then my mom would tear them a new one, or two.
And that. That is what you need to do for your kid. And if you’re not willing to watch out for your own kid’s well-being, no matter how fucking minor the allergy is, don’t fucking have kids good god. Exposure therapy needs to be done by a professional, and if you keep exposing your kid to the thing it reacts allergic to, your kid’s immune system will continue to react because it continues to be exposed to the goddamn threat. And even the minor symptoms, the itching, the throat swelling, the tearing eyes, the runny nose, the mild rashes, are not fun. And the smaller you are, the less you are equipped to deal with these. And chances are your kid will fucking hate you for making it endure that. I know I would.
Overdressed & Underappreciated 