Dear Judy,
I hope I don’t sound hard-hearted, because I’m really not, but my daughter, now in the fourth grade, is being traumatized. At least every other week in school she sees a classmate who is pale, bald, and so skinny that it frightens all the other kids. Sometimes the boy’s skin breaks out in a terrible rash, which is pretty frightening. Once I found my daughter sobbing into her pillow, she was that scared.
This sick kid is now supposedly in remission. But frankly I doubt it. Anyway, the cancer treatments he underwent seem to have made him weaker – and scarier to look at . And I know I’m not the only one worried about the effects on other children. Some of the other mothers feel just the same.
When I tried discussing this issue with the teacher, she looked at me like I was a monster. Judy, I know we can’t choose our illnesses, but we can choose how we subject others, kids especially, to our own personal tragedies. And I feel that in ignoring our concerns, the sick child’s parents are acting – and this is an understatement — totally inconsiderate.
Stephanie in Chicago
Dear Stephanie,
So now we’ve gotten to the place where we think it isn’t enough for a sick child to be deprived of health and vitality. He should also be deprived of an education.
I think you’re confusing two diffent issues with respect to your fourth-grade daughter: protection from harm, which almost every parent desires for a child; and protection from life (or death), which no one can or should provide. If you explain the sick child’s condition carefully to your daughter, acknowledging that the boy may look thin and bald for some time, then she might come around and grow to accept the differences in him.
But if you react as you presently are doing, with revulsion and fear, then those are exactly the emotions your own daughter will adopt; in fact, from your description of her, already has adopted.
And please remember this. Bad luck isn’t picky. It enters and exits just about any household at any time. And the door always remains open.
Thank you for writing
Judy
