- A kid is sick. If there is vomiting or a fever of some form of skin rash, you will generally concede that your kid is sick and needs to stay home. You may need to keep multiple children home because carting two kids back and forth to school or the sitter with a puke-y sib in tow isn’t fair to anyone. Alternatively, one of the babysitter’s kids could get sick.
- A kid could think he’s sick and then be totally fine. Like, a six-year-old boy could wake up in the morning clutching at his stomach and then proceed to eat one and a half bagels but still insist on feeling sick. You may be highly suspicious of this stomach malady but if he’s never tried to get out of school before you’ll still believe him. By 10am even he will admits he’s perfectly fine, never felt better, for example.
- A kid could claim to be sick, actually vomit all over the kitchen floor when you refuse to believe it and then STILL turn out to be totally fine. Because maybe what she was complaining about was a sore throat, by which she actually meant she had some phlegm caught in her throat, but she couldn’t actually say that because she’s only four. That phlegm, coupled with the most sensitive gag reflex in the history of the world, could cause her to actually vomit a small amount of real vomit on her way to the breakfast table. Instant win, she’ll get to stay home (as do all the others because you don’t want hurling at the side of the road), and will be totally fine, running and dancing and begging for food by 10am. Hypothetically.
- A kid could be perfectly healthy and still have to miss school for a doctor’s appointment. Between regular checkups, dentists appointments, emergency room visits for head injuries, and having to return to the hospital for cast removal, stitches or x-ray results it’s a wonder kids ever get to school. Or perhaps your doctor insists on seeing your perfectly healthy toddler every three months for no reason other than she’s skinny just like her brother of sister.
- All the kids are healthy, but you are sick. Every once in a while some little bastard of a virus will wipe you right out no matter how convincingly you tell yourself to, “Suck it up, Rebecca. You can’t get sick.” If you actually manage to get sick enough that someone else has to take care of the kids, though, it’s almost as good as a vacation.
Of course, if you have three kids like me, you can actually multiple this list times three and that makes 15 reasons why you are a professional disappointment. So cut yourself some slack.