Should I Allow Other People to Exclude My Child Due to a Food Allergy?
We have heard of food allergy and food intolerance; what is the difference between the two?
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “Food allergy causes an immune system response, causing symptoms in your child that range from uncomfortable to life-threatening. Food intolerance does not affect the immune system, although some symptoms may be the same as in food allergy.”
The prestigious medical organization states that about 90 percent of all food allergies are caused by the following foods: milk, wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, shellfish, and fish. Of these 8 foods, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, and fish generally cause the most serious reactions.
In the case of children, almost 5% of kids below five years of age are afflicted with food allergies. Most of these kids outgrow their allergies, but allergies to fish, shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts may last a lifetime.
These facts are among the reasons why many parents are concerned about food allergies involving their own children or somebody else’s child. Emergencies are hard for a lot of parents to deal with; it’s why they would like to avoid these situations as much as possible.
But, according to the National Peanut Board, “This is manageable, you can do this, you can live a normal life, day to day, you can go to restaurants, you can travel, you can go to school — it’s all about education. Livingwithfoodallergies.org serves as a resource for properly diagnosing and managing food allergies. We encourage you to spread the word to those who think they might have food allergies and those who do. We are all in this together.”
Sadly, in this popular post on MumsNet, a mother felt that her child had been left out due to food allergy. And she couldn’t help feeling anger toward the person who did it.
Here is this mom’s story under the username AIBRU: “DC has food allergies. There’s a school mum I’d spoken to about this before as she was curious. She had told me her DC had a birthday coming up and that she didn’t know how to navigate the food allergies. I explained that we never expect people to cater to it and always make sure we bring alternatives. When she mentioned again ‘still, it must be so tough’, I said it wasn’t. It isn’t at all, DC has now been to loads of parties, and DC has never had to eat the food we’ve taken with.”
Nevertheless, OP’s child didn’t get invited to the party. What’s more, OP learned from another parent that the event was in a party venue. It deeply irritated OP because they have never experienced a party venue charging them more for their DC’s special needs or turning them down. In fact, every restaurant they have been to knows how to cater for people with food allergies.
OP’s last words in her post were: “I’m annoyed, not necessarily that my child is the only one who’s not going (although it’s a bit of a shitty thing to do) but that they’ve clearly used this as an excuse. AIBU?”
Commenters offered various points of view:
From Fansandblankets: “Ah that’s rubbish ☹️. My son had two friends with nut allergies. They came to all our parties and the parents just left epi pens with me.”
From ThrowAwayOne: “Ah this sucks, my DS has a food allergy too and unfortunately this does happen. The kids are all actually very good with him and would ask if it’s ok to eat certain foods around him but the adults, I’ve found, just have no patience for it and would rather just not invite him. Luckily DS understands that not everyone is ok with being responsible for a child with an allergy so I just remind him of that when it happens.”
From Cassiehopes: “She might not be a terrible person. I have OCD and would have enormous difficulty navigating this situation, it would probably trigger weeks of anxiety and intrusive thoughts before the party. I’m not a terrible person but would be very concerned about having a child with severe food allergies in my care when I’d be providing the food!”
