Some cultural differences...

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Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,998
4,650
S. Lanarkshire
I've been thinking on this immune system thing.
I don't think it's household cleanliness that's the issue at all; I think it's that there's no real outdoor muckiness for a great many children nowadays.

As for the disease vector thing building up immunities.....well that all sounds very good in practice, but in reality many of the virus' stay with us for life. Childhood chickenpox is suspect in many of the auto-immune diseases of adulthood, as well as coming back in adulthood as the nightmare we call shingles. Mumps can leave males sterile; cold sores are a herpes virus, and will erupt for the rest of someone's life. Let's not start on the polio, etc., either.

I think it's a balance that's needed. Most of us live very modern lives; we don't have lice and other buggits running around our homes, stinking loos are stinking loos regardless of where one is, most of us make an effort to keep the indoors ones pleasant to use, we eat off a clean table (if cluttered :eek:) we don't put filthy children into clean beds.
Those same children though can get absolutely manky through the day, scrubbed, fed, cuddled, cooried down to peaceful, and bug free sleep........and get up the next morning and outside again to live in the grubbiness of happy childhood playing outside in the soil, the trees, the garden, the burn, the mud :) investigating everything from bird nests, frogs and newts, ants nests and hedgehogs (don't ask :sigh) Season in and season out. It all changes, and it's all very real.

I miss having children around, those of you who still have them at home, I hope you enjoy them :) they grow up so quickly, and while you are unlikely to wish you had spent more time at work, you will regret that you didn't spend more time with them.

Mary
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,208
1,574
Cumbria
Too true Toddy.

Right now I have the house to myself as baby and mother is at her parents. I get asked if I am enjoying it with all the sleep I can get. Truth is NO! I miss the tiredness of waking up in the night to feed, burp, change and comfort the blighter. I miss the noise of his crying (not that it happens that much at all, he's actually a quiet baby). I miss the lack of time I have for anything. I get too bored of the internet because I've looked at all the sites whereas before all my forums had plenty of new stuff Iu hadn't read. I don't get as much time for myself these days and this week I do but I would rather not have it.

I think it means I am missing the blighter!!! He does come with his mother thought!!!! ;) joking, she's ok too but just as hard work at times if not more so. PS she doesn't know about this site, thinks I'm on Facebook!!!! :D

Anyway, dirty kids are perfectly acceptable. It gives us parents something to shout at and fuss over getting them clean!!!
 
Jul 12, 2012
1,309
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Liverpool
You know the dog cages that some people have for small dogs in the back of cars? I saw one listed on ebay as a baby cage... food for thought :p

To be frank I like kids, but I don't see myself becoming a parent I feel I am too imature to have kids and I don't want to have a kid till I am old enough not to find lego and mechano more interesting than the kid I am lucky enough to help out a friend of mine who has his kids from time to time and I love them and being the geek I am blow his mind with cool science tricks that keep his 6 year old brain entertained for hours. My problem comes in when it comes to sticky fingers and runny noses part of parenting it freaks me out, I don't know how he dose it.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
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Florida
.....once he is at school I'll follow the same methods my mum did with me and let him play with the kids who have measles mumps chicken pox etc. Get it all over and done when he is a child......

What Toddy said. And out of curiosity, what are the vacinations required of school kids? I know here an MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) is one of the required shots. It wasn't when I was a kid though. I got Measles, Mumps (twice! Once on each side) and German Measles. The resulting quarentine kept me out of 8 weeks of the second grade.
 
Jul 12, 2012
1,309
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Liverpool
Depends on the school and the school district, when I was a kid not having the MMR was fround upon, since the MMR scare ******** the yummy mummy set has made a noise so it's now advised but not requierd, but serious infectious desese will keep a whole class or school closed for a week or more one school I attended as a kid recently had a Meningitis case and the whole juniors school was closed till it could be sterilised to prevent any additional infection.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
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Florida
Thanks. I just realized though that my post might have been misleading. When I said "quarentine" I meant I was quarentined. Not the class or the school.
 
Jul 12, 2012
1,309
0
38
Liverpool
Thanks. I just realized though that my post might have been misleading. When I said "quarentine" I meant I was quarentined. Not the class or the school.

Oh no that's fine I understood that, but I was saying what the odd extremes are and odd points exist in the UK education system. Not just there too a Chef friend of mind if he has the squits is off for 5 days if my ex the doctor had the squits it's 3 days (but I have been told it's the same in the US, an Canada) but if you have a family member who has had a heart operation your supposed to keep sterile for about 4 weeks.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
Oh no that's fine I understood that, but I was saying what the odd extremes are and odd points exist in the UK education system. Not just there too a Chef friend of mind if he has the squits is off for 5 days if my ex the doctor had the squits it's 3 days (but I have been told it's the same in the US, an Canada) but if you have a family member who has had a heart operation your supposed to keep sterile for about 4 weeks.

No the bit about the chefs and Dr.s isnt the same here. Firstly they're regulated by the individual states rather than the federal government. But more importantly, if they don't choose to tell anyone they're ill (including employers) they don't have to and who would tell them not to work (if they didn't know they were ill)

But I'm afraid we're drifting the thread.
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,208
1,574
Cumbria
Wish someone had told the "cafe blue" in Aviemore that. Seems the whole staff had a party and most of them came down with the squits but they still kept it open. It was real nice the staff member serving us while talking to her colleague while puttint the cake on the p[late by hand then delivering it to our table just as she said something like " yeah! a good party but I was up all night with the ****s. It was everywhere!!"

It almost stopped me eating it!!!:(
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,208
1,574
Cumbria
Scouse - I'm actually glad to be a new father. I saw it as a good excuse to get toys to play with. My boy wants a scalelectrix, meccano, technical lego, a nexus 7 tablet and...

He's only 2 month old!! Seems I can't get him the toys he really wants until he's a bit older. He told me he wanted them soo much too!!!!!!
 
Jul 12, 2012
1,309
0
38
Liverpool
No the bit about the chefs and Dr.s isnt the same here. Firstly they're regulated by the individual states rather than the federal government. But more importantly, if they don't choose to tell anyone they're ill (including employers) they don't have to and who would tell them not to work (if they didn't know they were ill)

But I'm afraid we're drifting the thread.

I am just going of what I have been told, I know for a fact in the UK and EU the days are the same but I have been told in the USA it's a little different but enforced days apply. But I am shocked it's State to state rather than national. I would rather a Doctor has 3 days off if they have the squits so they don't pass it on to me than go back to work and carrying a infection, having said that what reforms are needed in the US health system are much more vital than that. If you want to discuss that we should do it via PM.

Chris.
 

RonW

Native
Nov 29, 2010
1,575
121
Dalarna Sweden
Society and parents have gotten too soft!!

All this pampering... creates nothing but troublesome, spoiled brats.
Sleeping out is loads better than indoors, even at -10. Eat what is being served or go hungry, play in the dirt, rain, sun or snow and go to school when there are measles or whatever. Vaccinations? If it is polio, typhoid or something, then yes, but the ordinary kids diseases only serves to activate their immunesystem and makes them stronger.
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,208
1,574
Cumbria
Well you should see the first year's vaccinations and boosters and second vaccinations. It is something like 15 things. Admitedly the first 5 are in two injections and some of the others are repeats of the first but ***!! I want it all done as I do have faith in modern medicine but other half is searching for all the research she can find to say it will kill him!!! Or give him the sniffles in reality. I do think some mothers over-react. You should read mumsnet forum. jeez! If a kid gets the sniffles it's down to something given to it in the vaccinations. A kid gets diagnosed with Asthma and they are soul searching to find out what they did wrong and what chemical in their food did it. They're linking to research to prove that vaccination X,y or Z did it only to get told by sensible posters that the link was to a well known, unreliable website forum whose research was to call up 25 mothers who had posted on the forum to ask if their kid sneezed after a jab. Or some such research. But it is all evidence supporting what the panic stricken mothers want to believe so it is gospel!!!

Sorry! Off topic but I do think that in this highly litiginous world any doctor that recommended a course of vaccination would only do so if the relevent bodies recommending it to them in the form of a standard protocol had the firm evidence to back it up. I tend to go for available vaccinations unless the latest evidence says they are not safe or work less well and when that evidence does exist the protocol has already changed to reflect it so I still stick with the Doctors recommendation.

BTW I am sorry but I would rather vaccinate against German measles, measles, etc. especially since by doing so it is giving the population herd immunity thus protecting those who don't too!! BEsides, if a kid gets German Measles I could get it without vaccinations at a high enough rate in society. Same with chicken pox. And even if you have had the chicken pox as a kid you can get it again. It does not protect you against future infections and besides the shingles is not very nice and can last for many weeks!! That too can repeat on you as an adult. So sorry, self preservation means vaccination in our household and I hope as many of you lot too!!
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
Society and parents have gotten too soft!!

All this pampering... creates nothing but troublesome, spoiled brats.
Sleeping out is loads better than indoors, even at -10. Eat what is being served or go hungry, play in the dirt, rain, sun or snow and go to school when there are measles or whatever. Vaccinations? If it is polio, typhoid or something, then yes, but the ordinary kids diseases only serves to activate their immunesystem and makes them stronger.

Ordinary childhood diseases? Like the flu pandemic that killed 50 million in 1917. Measles has always been known to leave a certain percentage blind. Mumps can leave them sterile. And as Toddy said, chicken pox comes back as shingles later in life.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
....the shingles is not very nice and can last for many weeks!! That too can repeat on you as an adult. So sorry, self preservation means vaccination in our household and I hope as many of you lot too!!


As soon as I turn 60 I intend to get the shingles vaccination too.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,998
4,650
S. Lanarkshire
I didn't know you could get one :) Thank you :D
I'm going to find out about it. I'm not 60, but I finally got chickenpox when I was 29, and it was beyond miserable :( The only thing worse was real 'flu which floored me for months. I've been dreading the shingles tbh.

We live and learn :D


Mary
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
60 is the Protocol here Mary. Might or might not be be different there. Worth asking your doc.

Hi Toddy, pretty sure it's 60 here too, though if you've other health issues they generally seem keen to use you for target practice. I just got stuck on Friday there with some new pneumonia jag, and had the flu one a while back too.
The practice nurse at your local surgery will be able to help you out if you've any concerns.
Cheers GB.
 

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