Tomato allergy is not life threatening

Like any other mother in Germany at some point I had to pick up my kid from the day care due to some of these reasons:

-Allergy reaction to a tomato (Dani loves tomatoes)

-There is a remote chance he ate a poisonous fruit in the park

-He is feeling unwell with vague symptoms and for unspecific reasons

-His poo is too soft (of course in a mother blog you need to talk about poo at some point)

-He ate a yogurt and vomited

Like any other mother in Germany I had to take my child to the doctor and got all red while listening to one or several of these:

-Tomato allergy is not life threatening

-This (reading a 25 characters long illness name) is basically asymptomatic and requires no treatment

-I would not recommend making a blood test in a baby without a solid reason

-So… he vomited once this morning… and there are no other symptoms...

-I can suggest: homeopathy, moisturizing cream, baby gymnastics, and other placebos

Does not matter how many times this happens, and even if it always happens when I am on business trips, I cannot complain about it. Of course they worry about my son’s well being in the day care! Would I prefer they don’t call me if they think he is sick? What about the other kids? What kind of mother I am?

In these situations you can only pick up your child, smile and say thanks. Period.

What it does bother me is what they tell you in the bi-yearly personal interview. Apparently we should worry about he making a mess when eating and the fact that he is too thin and eats too much.

Having a healthy child is greater than a paid mortgage. That relief you feel when it is confirmed your fetus has five little fingers in each hand is for me the peak of prenatal maternal instinct. That’s why I think it is almost insulting to worry without a good reason, just because it looks like you are a better mum if you get hysteric once in a while and call the pediatrician over green poo (here it is the poo again).

I know this will put me in a category lower than the rabenmutter, if such a thing exists, but I have the feeling the personal in the day care, and German mums in general, are overqualified and get bored with normal children. We are talking about babies and in many cases the worst they can do is biting with their empty gums. The moment will come when we find marihuana in their room, but we are not there yet.

Maybe we have access to too many psychology and pediatric books for kids. In my personal experience, 95% or motherly worries can be answered with “it’s normal. It will get better with time” and the rest is easily identifiable. It is when you spend the night giving suppositories and measuring his temperature. In these cases, you generally obtain from your pediatrician real medicine, not the one you can put in your coffee when you run out of sugar at home.

At the end of the day there is no need for anyone to dramatize because any mother will always create some drama on herself. When the day care calls me (always me, never my husband) my hand shakes and I run horrific scenarios on my head. A mother can imagine dozens of horrific scenarios per second. A film-lover mother will remember movies such as Alien and Armageddon to spice her horrific scenarios. In short, I panic. So I decided to take revenge with a slightly hysteric speech:

“Tomato allergy! You called the hospital first, I suppose? How is he? Is he breathing well?”

And this way, my dear rabenmutters, you can obtain a slightly more realistic assessment of the situation “well, it is just a skin rush, he is well now, maybe there is no need to pick him up after all”

Plus, this is exactly what a good mother would do, isn’t it?