Justified complaint, or drama queen/control freak?

Tell me your thoughts on this one. I'm a mean bastard, and I think a fair number of parents claim their kids have food allergies for attention, sympathy, and exerting control. Not all parents, but some. "Grandma, li'l autard Hayden is awwergic to tap water, so you have to provide him this special expensive bottled water with gold flakes in it." What makes me suspicious in particular: multiple allergies to completely unrelated foods. "He can't have gluten, fish, milk, sugar, soy, chocolate, or yellow veggies."

But maybe I'm wrong. Please chime in.

What follows is Carolyn Hax's column of 27 July 2019. It's available in plenty of newspapers and online, so I won't post a link. Posted under fair use for discussion.

Dear Carolyn: My children have serious food allergies. I have had difficulty educating and bringing my in-laws on board with our way of managing their food choices.

I recently found out from my sister-in-law that my in-laws have been saying they think I am making up my children's allergies.

I am beside myself. My husband stated he is angry, but is unsure of what action to take. If he says something to my in-laws, it puts the relationship with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law at risk.

But my children are not safe around them, and I feel humiliated and furious at their accusations. I find myself directing anger toward my husband — not expressed to him yet — just because it's his family.

Is it on me to just deal with this while being hypervigilant around my in-laws? That's where I find the most peacekeeping resolution, but these feelings are eating me up inside. I feel like I need a better plan.

— M.

M.: You certainly do. Arrogance like your in-laws’ puts kids in emergency rooms, if not the ground.

Therefore, your husband’s hesitation demonstrates misguided priorities at best — at worst, betrayal of his spouse and kids — so you have grounds to be full-on angry at him in his own right.

It also goes without saying that protecting your brother-in-law and sister-in-law as informants is just not a valid priority at this point.

So here’s where all of this puts you, this risk to your children and the kowtowing to his family and the strain on your marriage and the roiling undercurrent of his parents’ resentment of you:

Your husband acts on this, now, or you do.

First conversation is with the sibling and spouse to say how grateful he is for the truth about what his parents are saying — and how sorry he is that he’s going to have to risk betraying their confidences to talk to his parents about this. He can assure them he’ll try to shield them, but obviously can’t top the parents from deducing the source. He can vow to stand up for the whistleblowers for doing the absolute and only right thing in reporting the truth to you, which it was, without question.

Second conversation is with his parents, to say their attitude about the kids’ allergies made its way back to him; to say he is horrified by it; to say this kind of defiance kills children; to say he will not allow his kids to spend time with anyone who fails to respect their dietary requirements; to say that if they don’t respect you, they don’t respect him, and he will not stand for it. Not one minced word.

I don’t know where this I-think-they’re-making-it-up cancer started, but it’s smug and dangerous and by no means unique to your in-laws. I’ll give it the kindest spin I’ve got and say people aren’t great at processing change, and food allergies and intolerances are on the rise (fact sheet here: wapo.st/foodallergies101). So, people are being asked not to serve X and Y when serving X and Y was never a problem when they were growing up. So, the less adaptable among us are pushing back.

But it is about 18 kinds of not okay to do this.

And it doesn’t take a whole lot of mental lifting to figure out that a successful “gotcha” on one hypothetical fake allergy is not worth the terrible risk of anaphylaxis for being wrong. Seriously — who freaking cares that much about being right. (Besides the entirety of 2019.)

Anyway. Your husband draws this line with his folks, or you do. Soon.

And if he refuses, then it’s time to address the crack this puts in your marriage before it’s too big to fix — and/or, before it seriously harms your kids.

One response said this: "Self-diagnosing allergies has become popular, and leads to skeptical relatives questioning why they must twist themselves into pretzels accommodating the newest 'in' disease."

There are children out there who are allergic to almost every food under the sun. I know this because my older sister was one of those children.

Robyn could eat just FOUR foods, not food groups, four foods. This lasted several years, and she was severely under weight. This was due to her acute, not severe, but acute unmanageable asthma. The diagnosis was made by multiple doctors. This was also diagnosed in the late 1960s so this was long before allergic children became a fashion statement.

It is very possible that these kids have every allergy under the sun, it is becoming more common. No one knows why children are becoming more allergic. I personally think that children are more defective than they were in the past.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

I think it is becoming more common, for two reasons:

1) Modern medicine means that more defective moos are able to breed, and more defective loaves are being born and surviving past infancy.
And
2) Today’s moos are so terrified of bacteria that the growing child’s immune system isn’t being given the tools it needs to learn what is good and what is a threat. So that immune system turns on itself (autoimmune disorders) or goes into overdrive and sees everything it encounters as a threat (allergic to everything)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"Not every ejaculation deserves a name" - George Carlin

It's possible that her kids may have food intolerances or sensitivities, but I want to know if an actual doctor diagnosed this plethora of life-threatening allergies or if it's more like Mommy decided that her children were allergic to eggs because one time they ate scrambled eggs and barfed. I would also love to know what her brats are allegedly allergic to. Like are they actually allergic to chocolate, or does she just say they are because they don't brush their teeth and making them "allergic" to sugary candy bars is cheaper than getting cavities filled?

I would find it very hard to believe that a single child could have multiple serious food allergies, and it's even harder to believe that more than one child in the same household has so many food allergies. I think she's either making shit up or has misinterpreted her kids' reactions to certain foods and decided they were allergies with her vast medical education and training.

Don't fucking leave the kids with the in-laws if you're so worried about them ignoring the kids' allergies. If these kids genuinely have so many dangerous food allergies and the in-laws can't be trusted to feed them safely, then don't send them over there.

How do the in laws know about the allergies? If the in laws/parents somehow mentioned them in conversation and were then accused of making the allergies up that would be rude. But something tells me the parents expected the in laws to accommodate the brats. That crosses a line.

I think it is fine for parents to bend over backwards catering to their brats real or perceived allergies.
And some parents are prone to exaggerate or want to play the biggest victim so we know some are perceived.
I don't see the point of wasting energy on a perceived allergy because we all know how bizzy they are. But it is better than Fakebook.

When they expect others to cater to them (including the in-laws) then they can go suck it. Bring the special food
with you for visits and take care of it 100%. Stop trying to make other people responsible for what your brats are eating. Who is going to pay for the visit to the emergency room if your brats have an allergic reaction? I'd think an emergency visit or two would knock some sense into them.

If the relatives/friends are kind enough to offer to create special food then they can call the shots on the extent they are willing to cater to the requests. Unless the brats are at the in laws house 4-5 times a month, how could the in laws possibly be expected to track allergies of them or any one else who visits?

Any consideration at all offered is to be accepted graciously and not expected. Now if parents provide the special food it is the only food the brats can eat, period. But we all know how sneaky brats can be and if allergies are deadly and ingredients found in many common foods they'd be better off not visiting.

The easy solution is for parents to stay at home with their brats if they aren't going to get the accommodations they think they deserve. Or eat at restaurants for the duration of the visit that will accommodate the brats.

If they did that then this whiny letter from a parent wouldn't exist. The outrage is better aimed at the parents for thinking they can assume the in laws should cater to food restrictions.

It isn't that difficult to research a restaurant to insure they accommodate various diets or carry your own food. People do it every day!

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Cambion
I would find it very hard to believe that a single child could have multiple serious food allergies, and it's even harder to believe that more than one child in the same household has so many food allergies. I think she's either making shit up or has misinterpreted her kids' reactions to certain foods and decided they were allergies with her vast medical education and training.

I disagree. It's fairly common for people to have multiple allergies, especially if their allergies are more severe. Likewise, many allergies have a hereditary component, so I would actually be more surprised to learn that one child in a family had allergies while the others were healthy.

That said, I certainly don't deny that people are too quick to claim allergies. A proper diagnosis is essential, especially if you want to make any kind of demands on people or businesses.

Quote
LoveToLurk
1) Modern medicine means that more defective moos are able to breed, and more defective loaves are being born and surviving past infancy.
And
2) Today’s moos are so terrified of bacteria that the growing child’s immune system isn’t being given the tools it needs to learn what is good and what is a threat. So that immune system turns on itself (autoimmune disorders) or goes into overdrive and sees everything it encounters as a threat (allergic to everything)

I agree with these, but I might also add toxins we've added to the environment. There have been plenty of studies that show that you should not keep things too clean, and we are certainly passing on genes that should have been weeded out.

I don't think that we should go around killing everyone who would have died without modern medicine (which would include me; I have multiple diagnosed allergies), but unless we want humans to end up completely incapable of life without technology, people who would have died should remove themselves from the breeding pool. We certainly shouldn't be pushing it with IVF to try to make increasingly defective (from a Darwinian perspective) people.

Quote
yurble
I don't think that we should go around killing everyone who would have died without modern medicine (which would include me; I have multiple diagnosed allergies), but unless we want humans to end up completely incapable of life without technology, people who would have died should remove themselves from the breeding pool. We certainly shouldn't be pushing it with IVF to try to make increasingly defective (from a Darwinian perspective) people.

Unfortunately the pharmaceutical industry finds defective moos and calves very profitable, and are pushing along with the GOP to make abortion illegal even of incompatible for life brats.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

I’m not saying all or even most allergies are fake, but I wouldn’t put it past breeders to make stuff up. When I worked in the ice cream store, I had a woman come in and ask me what was dairy free, because her daughter “is allergic to milk.” I told her she could have mango, strawberry, or raspberry sorbet, or any of the smoothies without the yogurt. She ordered a cup of chocolate ice cream. Before I made it for her, I asked her “the chocolate ice cream contains milk, is that ok?” She told me “it’s fine because the chocolate cancels it out.” Uh, ok.......I was not aware of any food that would nullify an allergic reaction when eaten with the offending food, but what do I know? /s. I think some parents, in an effort to make their kids spesshul, make up allergies because there isn’t anything truly special about their kids.

ETA

@craftyzits, I think I heard on scishow that kids are more allergic now because they aren’t getting vaccinated. Iirc vaccines lower the risk of allergies.

Lock him up or put him down.
Stolen from Shiny.