Discussion: How Many Times Have You Gotten Sick From Your Kiddos?
A mental health Monday check-in about all those germs our babies bring home.
Welcome! Formerly Raising Gen Alpha, this newsletter has been renamed Parenting in Hard Mode (read about why here). We’re a community and safe space for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and differently-abled parents who are raising Gen Alpha kids (born 2010-2024) and nurturing social justice-minded families—all while taking care of our mental health. Allies welcome, too. Please subscribe to connect with fellow parents through empathy and compassion. Let’s build our virtual village together.
This past week, I have come down with not one but two sicknesses that I surely caught from my now 4-year-old child and their friends.
TWO!
And since it’s been a while since we’ve done a Mental Health Monday check-in (or those of you who are new here haven’t done one at all), I think it would be helpful to get real about all of the germs our little ones bring home from daycare, school, and their friends. Scroll all the way down to leave a comment or continue reading for the not-so-fun story that inspired today’s discussion.
Last Monday, I came down with who-knows-what and felt so sick by the evening that I had to call my partner and ask him to come home early from his bowling league because I simply could not parent solo that night. It ended up being a mild stomach flu that had me bedridden for a couple of days.
I was well enough by Wednesday evening and was even able to make it to my sober book club on Thursday evening and dinner with a friend on Friday night. (Yes, I can’t believe I had two days of social plans either.)
But then… it got way, way worse.
I started to feel stuffy as I was going to bed on Friday, and I had a terrible night’s sleep due to my neck being super sore, my eyes hurting, and not being able to breathe through all the snot. I actually woke up my husband in the middle of the night and asked him to get me some over-the-counter pain medication. I just couldn’t fathom getting up myself.
The neck issue was thankfully solved with an ice compress, but the eye issue turned out to be (dun dun dun) PINK EYE!
Rio had a mild version of pink eye a month or so ago, but it’s been going around his classroom for months (same as with the stomach bug). I’m not even sure exactly how I caught it, but we did have his birthday party the previous Saturday, so it’s very much possible that I touched all the germs but they decided to stagger their infectious impact on me. How nice, no?
Well, let me tell you, pink eye is terrible as an adult.
Not that it’s not painful as a child either, but I have the additional enjoyment of worrying about how I will look on Zoom calls at work or dreading what will happen if the pink eye doesn’t clear up in time for my business trip next week.
The good news (if you believe in such things) is that nobody else in my family has gotten sick (yet?). And my pink eye has gotten better in terms of the, ahem, leakage—which means that I shouldn't be contagious for too much longer. Yet the actual “pink” park can take up to a couple of weeks to fully disappear.
As you can imagine, this has majorly stressed my household.
My introverted husband had to do the majority of the parenting, both when I had my rare outside-the-house plans with friends and when I was sick. He’s a fantastic dad and a great partner—and I obviously would have done the same for him—but not getting a break from our extremely active 4-year-old for days on end would be stressful to anyone—yes, including a big ole extrovert like me.
And that’s not even to mention that the house was still a serious mess after the previous weekend’s birthday festivities. The playroom looked like a tiny tornado had just come through, and every single one of our kitchen surfaces was cluttered with random junk that needed to be sorted, food that needed to be put away into the cluttered pantry, and a growing brood of dust monsters. (Trust me, they weren’t cute little bunnies anymore.)
Let’s just say there was a whole lot of survival mode happening this weekend. I know we’ll get through it because we always do and we have to, but I miss my pre-mommy days of barely ever getting sick thanks to the “strong immune system” I inherited from my own parents. Now I’m worse off than my partner, who historically gets majorly sick like twice a year. Effing kid germs…
And so, now it’s your turn to share those nightmare-but-hopefully-we-will-laugh-years-from-now stories of getting sick as a parent.
DISCUSSION: Seriously, if you had to estimate, how many times have you gotten sick when your kiddo brought home germs from school? Tell me your favorite, funniest, and worst tales of getting sick while parenting.
Abrazos,
Your friendly neighborhood bisexual Latina mom with ADHD raising a Gen Alpha kid
Hard relate to this because I caught Covid from my son first time around (sadly, I’ve had it twice), and hand foot and mouth from my youngest a few months later. The latter was AWFUL. He only had a high temperature while I had that + weird spots all over my hands, feet and around my mouth and nose thus making it an aptly named bug.
Since then I’ve been more diligent about supplements and immune-boosting veggies and foods in general because I was catching bugs off them too easily.
Everyone in our household is currently sick. I dread sickness so much more now because it's a 3 week ordeal. Kid gets sick, stays home from day care. Gets us sick, we miss work. Then we get my dad (our part time sitter) sick, so then we have to find replacement care or miss more work. Then the whole thing repeats itself in 4 weeks.
Seriously though, we get sick at least every month or two. We'd gone about 10 weeks before this one, which felt like a lot.