The Season of Sick Kids

(Alternate Title: The Moms Are Not Ok)

“Mama, my froat hurts.”

I grimace and glance over at my three-year-old. It is 8:00pm, and I am lying on her bedroom floor trying fruitlessly to help her fall asleep.

“I’m sorry bunny. Let’s do another spoonful of honey.” I sigh and heave my fatigued body up, my own pile of tissues limp and damp by my toes. Her humidifier silently puffs cool wisps of mist in the corner. Outside our door I hear my five-year-old wail from down the hall “my bummmm!” clearly in discomfort from his fresh new illness of the week- drum roll please…..perianal strep. I grit my teeth. “Is it spring yet?” I think to myself, padding across the room to retrieve that damn (largely useless as far as I can tell) honey spoon.

But alas, it is not spring. It is January. And, as a household with a three-year-old and a five-year-old, we are smack dab in the middle of the winter illness train- choo choo! Mothers -who- lost- their- last -shred -of -sanity- three- weeks- ago- and -are- currently- rocking- themselves- in- fetal- position first please! All aboard!

I don’t know how else to put it other than to say- we are sick a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Since my children started inhabiting communal spaces with other children, the winters are a slew of illnesses, one after the next. Strep. Colds. Pneumonia. Noro virus. Hand foot and mouth. Random rashes. Viral infections. Coughs. Ear infections. Flu. Covid. You name it, they contract it and then it blows through the house like a gross, unstoppable cyclone.

If someone had warned me before having kids about how often they are sick in these younger years I would have thought, “oh, stop being dramatic. There is no way that is true.” Or worse yet I may have thought, “Maybe for you, but I will figure out how to keep them sick less often.” But now that I am in the depths of it all myself, I can verify that, reader beware- it is true. Gulp.

We are sick so often that I have often wondered “what the hell am I doing wrong here?” We wash our hands constantly. I bleach and disinfect things frequently. We bath them daily. And yet- there are so few illness-free weeks in these colder months that I actually find myself noticing them. No joke I will sometimes pause on a day that we all seem to be feeling well and think “Hu! Now that is nice.” And then I spin around to find wood to knock on frantically.

And even as I type this out, I am thinking of how I would respond to a friend. “You are not doing anything wrong. Kids get sick! Especially when they are surrounded by other young kiddos! Especially as we labor in late-stage capitalism-and very few parents have the luxury of taking off day after day to make sure their children truly are symptom free. So kids are often sent back, likely still symptomatic, by their desperate (and frankly justified) parents. Especially in these post-intense-COVID years, when there is now some research that indicates folks are getting sick a little more often. (Research indicates that covid lockdowns may have shifted baseline immunities to some illnesses, although climate change, rising social inequality and depleted health-care services cannot be discounted as additional players in this.)

“Kids also get sick because they need to!”(I would remind my friend.) The Hygiene Hypothesis is actually one theory that says we need exposure to each other’s germs to build our immune systems. Dr. Rivers of Johns Hopkins talks in one article about how one reason people who live on farms have fewer of these diseases is because they’re exposed to the fecal material of animals (commensal bacteria). Let me just say that one more time for all of my fellow bleach-loving, restaurant table—cloraxing moms: Fecal. Matter. of .animals.

Now I know the science of it all is hotly disputed and way too complex for this stuffy nosed, moaning mom’s substack. But the overarching point is, there are MANY reasons why our young kids are sick more often than not right now. And none of it has to do with us being bad parents or “doing it wrong.” (Yes, I am speaking to myself as much as anyone else right now. Spoons of honey, sore bums and all.) I am not doing it wrong, and neither are you. Young children get sick. A lot.

And you are doing a damn good job helping them through it. Every time you get up, rubbing your bleary eyes and stumbling towards the room to press the back of your hand against a sweaty forehead- Every time you gently tap those Frida Baby eucalyptus drops into the humidifier- Every time you hold their little body against yours to comfort them (knowing full well that you will be getting what they have within 48 hours because you are doing so)- you are doing superhero work. Caring for sick kids is no small task, and here you are doing it, week after week. You are such a wonderful mom.

And this work- this comforting them, this quelling their distress simply with our own presence-it is truly the most tender, beautiful expression of love. The work of superheros, and the work that I (when I am rested and less cranky) know that I am truly so thankful is mine. They (fevers, rashes, continuous coughs and all) are everything important in this world to me. I know you feel the same way friend (and I know you are FREAKING tired. We can hold both.)

And, just in case you need to hear it like I do-There is no winter so long that spring doesn’t eventually follow. Spring will come, all jean jackets and tulips poking out and playground dates. And when she does, we can collectively hold hands and sigh together- we made it through another one mamas.

In love and mama camaraderie,

Colleen