In this thread, the issues of peanut allergies and schools’ responsibilities related to them are discussed. Point and counterpoint are made. Views are shared, etc.
But then Diogenes the Cynic steps in. Unsatisfied with the previous discussion, he launches the following steaming pile:
Freak? Very nice Diogenes, very classy.
Wusses? Okay, Diogenes, next time someone offers you a cyanide pill I expect you to down it without batting an eye. Maybe you can look for some on eBay and prove your manliness for us?
Apparently, not feeling that it’s enough for you to mock little children, you decide to threaten to kill them, using your daughter as a delivery mechanism:
Now it’s personal. You see, my daughter is allergic to peanuts. We are very careful with her food, and constantly tell her not to take food from other kids. She has a medic alert bracelet, we keep an epipen with her in case of emergency, and her allergies are one of the factors that may lead genie and I to home school. Would you like me to tell you what it’s like to sit in the emergency room holding my three-year-old daughter hoping that she’s vomited all the allergens out of her system? Checking to make sure her breathing is okay? Wondering if the next time this happens whether I’ll be there with her to help or whether she’ll be surrounding by moronic strangers like you?
Your threat is the same as if you told me you’d put your hands around her throat to strangle her yourself. Tell me how you’d feel when your daughter came home from school to tell you “I killed my classmate today”. Would you jump for joy because you’d managed to thin the gene pool? Would you congratulate your daughter for a job well done?
Let me tell you, if this happened to my daughter, I would not rest until the barbituates were in your veins as you were strapped down to the table waiting for your lungs to stop working and your last breath to escape your murderous lips. (Of course, that’s here in California. Out there in MN I guess the best I could hope for is life without parole and that another lifer might decide he doesn’t like child-killers.)
Umm, it’s not like he’s threatening to pry open your daughter’s mouth and force-feed her peanuts. He’s talking about sending a food for his kid to eat, not yours. It’s not the most admirable and understanding attitude to take, but I think you might be overreacting a little.
Without wanting to get embroiled in this mess, in context, what Diogenes is actually stating is that he would deliberately violate a regulation put in place by his child’s school; a regulation that (as far as the school is concerned) was formulated to protect allergic children from harm through contact with nut traces from other people’s food (or perhaps to protect the school from claims of negligence from allowing a child to come to harm from same).
CrazyCatLady, with that rationale, I can just blow cigarette smoke in your face, because it’s for my enjoyment, not yours. Too bad if you’re an asthmatic.
Many are the times I’ve crossed swords with Diogenes.
In this instance, I support him. I think he was clearly using hyperbole to make his point. I am sure, crazy leftist though he may be, he harbors no actual desire to see a child die – just a weary attitude at the percieved overreaction on the school’s part.
Dio advocating harming children? Perfectly ridiculous. No doubt there is some misunderstanding at play here. No doubt as well some posters who find his general political line offensive will take this opportunity to get in some low level digs (as amply demonstrated). But the premise is absurd.
I note that friend Dio has not dignified this with a response. I commend his restraint, and recommend he continue as such. This is the kind of thing you scrape off your shoes before you go into the house.
(Lest there be misunderstanding: I entirely sympathize with the OP’s plight, fear for ones children is a dreadful burden. But if a child is truly so allergic that the mere presence of peanut butter in the vicinity is sufficient for a life threatening reaction, I doubt there is anything a mere school can do.)
I was talking about violating a stupid and overprotective rule. If I thought that there was any actual danger that my kid eating a fucking peanut butter sandwich was going to hurt another kid then I wouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t “threatening” children I was ridiculing a bullshit rule.
How does what my kid eats affect your kid? Psychotically self-absorbed parents like you are the problem with this world.
Are you fucking kidding me? Giving my kid a peanut butter sandwich is the same as threatening to strangle your kid? Blow me.
No, it’s NOT like blowing cigarette smoke, it’s like eating a peanut butter sandwich in the same fucking building as someone who’s allergic to peanuts. There is no such thing as second hand peanut butter. Peanut butter doesn’t fly through the air. Have you all lost your minds?
I don’t think Doggy Knees (Sorry, but I forever now read your name as that) was threatening anyone.
I would like to think if my child was allergic to something and knew it would cause him severe distress or wind up with him in the hospital then I would make sure he knew to avoid eating those items. I think kids are smart enough to know to stay away from something if they associate it with having to go to the hospital??
I don’t think the entire population of the school should be told they can’t bring PB sandwiches or anything like that. That’s nuts.
Are they going to say milk is no longer allowed because some kids are lactose intolerant?
Heh heh. Nice one. elucidator compliments Diogenes on having the restraint to stay out of the thread and its immediately followed by the man himself posting three times in an angry fashion.
Still, i think you’re overreacting a little emarkp. He didn’t threaten to murder your child, he was making fun of a hypothetical restriction at his daughters school.
I agree. If I had read 'lucy’s post before I submitted I would have probably stayed out of the thread, but once I was already dirty I figured what the hell.
I’m trying really hard not to take sides here, but I think that with kids, there is such a thing as second-hand peanut butter - they aren’t always terribly disciplined about where their food goes while they are eating and about cleaning up after themselves or washing their hands; for individuals who are sensisitive to the point that skin contact with peanut traces is dangerous, this is a problem.
Although perhaps the measures required to accomodate such people are so excessive that the better solution (and I think I would be seriously considering this as a parent) would be to keep the affected child away from such situations because children who had just eaten peanut butter on toast for breakfast would present almost the same level of danger, even if they did not deliberately bring any peanut product to school.
While I agree with Diogenes the Cynic’s overall point I do think he could have phrased it a little bit better. But I also understand why he, in his fustration at the assinine rules, chose to use some un-PC terms.
The smell of peanut butter is enough to cause a reaction in kids who are very allergic, I have seen it happen, it is not over protectivness on the part of the parents, it is a real danger.
But if a child is that allergic, I don’t think they should be going to public school, because there is no way to protect that child, no matter what measures the school takes…well, uinless you had a change of clothing for every child at the school, and you washed them off before they went to class.
ps. I am sort of surprised that is was Diogenes the Cynic you choose to pit out of that thread, when another poster in that thread said that kids with nut allergies should be killed at birth.
