In the nineties, people started to pay attention to peanut allergies. There were definitely people with severe peanut allergies before than, and to lots of other things, because human bodies are bs. It’s likely that some quantity of unexplained deaths in children came from allergies they didn’t know about. But in the nineties, people started to get scared of it, wanted more safety, wanted to be sure their child didn’t become allergic because they were exposed to an allergen too young.
New parents got scared and got told that you shouldn’t expose your baby to any of the big bad scary allergens. Not until they’re older and their immune systems are more developed. Peanuts were the most notable. So parents kept little kids away from peanuts entirely. Peanut allergies — severe allergies rose. And it showed up later, and was more severe from the start. Some schools fully banned peanuts. And the allergy rate continued to rise.
In the nineties, immune system fears increased. Stories like bubble boy made new parents think about germs a lot more. The idea of antibiotic resistance was entering the public consciousness, and people were scared for their kids when they got sick. Parents got obsessive with hand sanitizer and bleach and keeping their kid clean all the time. No more playing outside in the dirt. We need to sanitize the playground. Stay out of that ball pit. Give them the antibiotic just in case so the parents didn’t worry.
More kids had a harder time fighting it off when they got colds or bugs. Schools and parents got more worried and pushed for more hand sanitizer and wanted more antibiotics for any and every cough or cold. They wanted to be sure they had some later if the doctor said no next time, or if a friend needed some for their kid. Parents would only give 5 of 7 days, stop when the kid seemed healthy, and keep the last few, because they wanted to keep their kid safe. Drug resistant bugs got more dangerous and more prevalent. More kids showed up with weaker immunity to things and got scarily sick from stuff that would have been a few days feeling gross.
In the nineties, the idea of kids not having an education became a nightmare scenario for parents. It became a social taboo not to graduate high school, and college became an expectation not an achievement. Parents were scared their kid might fail a grade, and it would ruin their life. To help stop that, schools added standardized testing, no child left behind type initiatives, and parents fought for things that promised all kids would graduate.
Testing got tied to funding for schools, so the tests became the most important thing, and classes shifted focus. Teacher’s jobs got tied to whether all the students passed, or got high enough scores, and schools with lower graduation rates were tarred and feathered. Parents showed up screaming at teachers if their kid got less than an A on a test because that might keep them out of the best college five years later. Kids got shoved into advanced classes and yelled at by parents if they weren’t perfect, because they wanted the best life for their kid. Schools lowered the standards, changed the requirements, made sure that even if they had to lie, even if the teacher had to fake the test scores, the kids would pass and graduate on time.
Now the general recommendations say to make sure toddlers taste peanut butter with other early foods and are exposed to as many potential allergies as possible while young. That you should toss the kid in a mud puddle and shrug when they eat some dirt, and give them soup and a popsicle before you rush to the doctor for a Z pack. That standardized testing has wrecked the education system, and made sure that kids learn less, and made it harder for them to handle failure.
Sheltering kids from anything that might hurt kids, hurts kids.
The fact that there are kids with severe peanut allergies, and there are kids with dangerously weak immune systems, and there are kids who will flunk out of school does not mean it will happen to all kids. And you’re hurting the majority by sheltering them like the minority.
They’ll find out they’re allergic to mangos when their lips swell up, they’ll have a runny nose most of preK and kindergarten, they’ll fail a class or a test or a grade and learn that the world doesn’t end.
Some kids get truly, scarily damaged by things. The others get stronger, more resistant, more able to shrug it off later if they got mild exposure when young and they become healthier adults. They don’t get knocked into a dangerous overreaction when they finally encounter it. They learn, physically and mentally, how to handle things that might be bad for them, without crashing out.
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