My daughter’s school has a no-peanut policy. But it is not just a no-peanut policy. We are not allowed to bring in anything at all that has even been processed near peanuts. For instance, because Snyder’s brand pretzels are manufactured in a facility that also processes peanuts, Snyder’s pretzels are prohibited at school. The reason for this, is that apparently some children are so allergic to peanuts that even being near something that has once been near a peanut can make them seriously ill.
To me, this is insane. I certainly do not want to offend any parents out there who have children with peanut allergies, but when I was growing up, such things did not exist. Were there kids out there who would die if they came near a peanut? I don’t remember hearing anything about that. I do remember half the kids in school bring PB&J for lunch every day. Why were none of my classmates allergic to peanuts? I mean, I know some adults who are allergic to peanuts, but in the way that you just don’t eat them, or if you touch some, you wash your hands.
The stories I hear these days involve life-threatening peanut situations, and it makes me think: what is different? What are we putting into our bodies, and our children’s bodies, that is causing this new and horrifying allergy? What are we breathing? What is in our food? It’s really scary, actually.
What I don’t understand (and admittedly, I have not really researched this) is what is going to happen to these kids as adults. Do they grow out of this, or will they have to spend their whole lives in bubbles, avoiding Reese’s Pieces and Thai restaurants? I find it incredible that schools will go out of their way to ban peanuts, but I don’t hear about a lot of office buildings banning them. By my way of thinking, if you are going to go out into the world, you are going to encounter a peanut at some point, or at the very least a Snyder’s brand pretzel. How can one possibly avoid peanuts for their entire lives? And what if, suddenly, tons of kids became deathly allergic to corn? Would we ban that too?
Here’s another concern: a week or two ago, when I dropped Ruby off at school, she was eating breakfast in the car, which consisted of toast with peanut butter on it, and she shoved the last bit of it in her mouth as we walked across the parking lot. Does peanut butter breath kill kids too? If she had some peanut butter on her clothes, what would happen? I am not going to ban peanut butter in my house, however I also don’t want to be responsible for harming somebody’s kid.
I can barely imagine what it would be like to have a child with such a terrifying achilles heel. I don’t think I would let them out of my sight, if being near something that had been near a peanut might mean their death, but on the other hand, how can one possible avoid peanuts forever if one is that sensitive to them? I’m sure parents whose kids actually have this problem have done a lot more research and have a lot more information than I do, so perhaps you can fill in some of these blanks. I’d love to hear from the peanut gallery.