A Spoonful of Sugar. Liz Fraser
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measles parties as soon as one of the girls got it. We didn’t have the vaccinations then. And we certainly didn’t mollycoddle them.’
She looks straight at me now, not in an accusatory way, but I feel she’s trying to drive a point home here about the level of fussing we modern mums do.
Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom
If our children had a fever, we kept them warm and in bed for a few days. We didn’t go to the doctor and demand pills. A child gets ill, so you nurse it better.
‘It took time, but that doesn’t matter. We had the time to keep them at home and nurse them back to health, and if things got really bad then of course we’d take them to see the doctors at the practice. But it started by keeping them at home and resting for the first week, and usually most things got better in that time anyway.’
Stop right there! Having a child at home for a week?! What, is this lady nuts? Does she have the kindest employer in the world who doesn’t mind her taking five days off to mop her child’s brow and thus miss out on two board meetings and a client deadline? Does she not have grocery shopping to do, or ludicrous amounts of dashing about between toddler groups and ballet classes and trips to the bank and visits to Zara just in case something exciting has just arrived on the shelves?
It’s then that a penny about the size of a small island drops, taking with it half a ton of guilt to choke even the most adoring parent: one of the main reasons we dash off to the doctor so often for a miracle cure for our offspring’s ailments is that we don’t have the time for them to be ill any more.
That day when you bundled your daughter off to nursery even though she had a stinking cold and probably infected the entire class before biscuit and juice time. That day I sent mine to school with impetigo claiming it was a rash brought on by some new bath wash. That week the entire Year One class got nits when Johnny came in crawling with the little buggers, because his mum was at a conference in New York and his nanny promised to get the nit-comb out for him but didn’t. All those times.
Let’s be honest: how many working parents do you know who can take time off every time one of their children is ill? One? Two? Probably three at most, and they’re probably the idiots like me who work from home as freelancers because they were too lazy to get a proper job. (Oh, I’m kidding, fellow freelancers!) Many parents are forced to take unpaid leave to look after sick kids, and they worry about their chances of holding on to that job if they are doing this more than two or three times a year, which is almost guaranteed even if you have only one child.
And for those who have a nanny to hold the reins, what are parents supposed to do when she is ill? Can’t she have a miracle cure as well so we can all get back to normal?
I put all of this, in a slightly gentler, explanatory way, to Granny. There is some more shaking of the head. She stops rubbing her leg and looks at me with a mixture of disbelief and deep sadness, making me half wish I’d kept such an admission to myself. Too late.
‘If you can’t look after your child when he’s ill, what sort of a mother are you, Elizabeth?’
Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom
Your primary role as a parent is as carer, whether your children are well and ill, absent or present. A child who is unwell needs their mother or father there to care for them – and no job should come in the way of that.
Clearly we can’t just drop everything every time Jack or Josephine comes home from school with a chest cough. But it’s a heartless parent indeed who honestly thinks it’s OK to pump her child full of Paracetamol and pack him off to school when quite clearly he needs to be in bed, warm, comfortable, and with whoever it is who normally looks after him to make him feel better.
I would like to add one thing about illness and families: while I agree that we need to calm down a little and not panic at the first hint of a cough, it is of course vital that if you really think your child needs medical attention you seek it as soon as possible. Also, prevention is as important, if not more so, than cure, so banish soggy, bacteria-laden hankies and use tissues instead, don’t cough all over each other, get a flu jab if someone in your family is particularly at risk and wash your hands regularly. These simple things can stop infections spreading like wildfire through a household.
The jury is still out as to what caused my entire family to fall foul of the vomiting bug all those Christmases ago. But my money’s still on the salmon mousse.
When your child is ill and needs looking after, one of his parents must be there to look after him. And let him be ill – don’t expect him to get up and get dressed!
Many illnesses just get better within a week or so – don’t rush to the doctor immediately, unless you are really concerned.
Know basic first aid and how to treat the most common ail ments yourself.
And one secret remedy? For bad skin infections, a bread poultice works miracles. I used one on Ken to draw out the poisonous pus in a nasty shoulder infection, much to the astonishment of the local doctor when it worked like a dream within twenty-four hours. Boil some water and when it has cooled from boiling to hot, pour onto thick slices of white bread. Lay the bread on the infected area and wrap in a clean sheet and then some oil silk (OK, since you ask, it’s silk treated with oil to make it water-tight, such as raincoats are made of. You learn something new every day …) to keep the moisture in. Leave overnight and in the morning, when you remove the bread, you’ll find all the poison has been drawn out into the bread and sheet.
–––– LIZ’S TIPS ––––
Make your work work for you: Many employers have a policy that states employees are allowed to take time away from work to care for dependants – make sure they stick to this and do NOT force you to take it as annual leave.
If your child is looked after by a nanny, make sure you have agreed how you’d like your children cared for when they’re ill, which medicines they can take and so on. And if you can’t take the day off to be with your child, that’s fine, so long as they’re happy to be looked after by the nanny. We don’t need you wallowing in guilt!
Sending a child to school who is ill is not only cruel to that child, it is also irresponsible. Children seem incapable of keeping more than five millimetres apart from each other for the entire school day and of not coughing, sneezing and wiping their germs over everything that moves – and everything that doesn’t too. I don’t want your kid’s bugs in my family, so keep them at home please!
‘Feed a cold’ is one of my mum’s favourites. If your child has a cold, try to keep him warm and resting, offer plenty of fluid (water or juice with high vitamin C is best) and regular snacks. And yes, home-made chicken soup really is a good place to start!
For gastric problems, avoid offering fatty foods or anything spicy or ‘complicated’. I used to get dry toast (no butter, as it’s hard to digest), plain white rice or just dry biscuits until it passed. Extra fluid is vital to avoid dehydration.
Remember that a raised temperature is actually performing an important function: by raising its core temperature the body is trying to kill off some of the bugs. If you cool it down all the time, this can’t work. If a child has a temperature it’s a good idea to try and keep it down