Picketing a six-year-old?? For reals?

It's been weird, being home most of this week. I've had time to watch the news and keep on top of laundry, oddities for a working mom like me.

So yesterday, I caught this story while watching CNN's American Morning (my fave news program - I have it on right now, in fact).

Basically, parents in a Florida school are pissed off because there's a little girl with a sever peanut allergy in their children's first grade class. To attempt to ensure that one girl's safety, all the children are being asked to wash their hands before and after lunch and occasionally rinse out their mouths.

These aggrieved parents are actually picketing the school, attempting to have this SIX YEAR OLD GIRL removed from their children's class because these clearly overwhelming precautions (Seriously - washing the hands of small children before and after eating? Excessive, right?) are impeding their precious children's learning time.

Ok, all snark aside...are you kidding me? Washing hands is taking away from learning time? Zoe's class (pre-school, I know, but still...) has entire routines around washing hands in an attempt to keep the kids from spreading germs. Most six year olds I know have grubby hands at most points in the day, so having them wash their hands sounds like a good plan to me, life threatening peanut allergies notwithstanding. How can anyone argue against such simple steps to help keep any number of children safe?

I was happy to see that the CNN commentators were equally appalled by this situation and had a few snarky comments of their own in support of that little girl who was unlucky enough to be born with what amounts to a disability - peanut allergies are nothing to mess around with. They are dangerous and limiting and scary.

And I'm just left wondering about those picketing parents...if any of THEM had a child with an allergy like this, would they stop at anything to keep that child safe? Probably not. I think this is a situation where stepping into the other parents' shoes would hopefully make the picketers stop, look around, and realize they're being idiots.

Yes, I just called them idiots. There's no other word for it. Do what you can to help your neighbors, people! Help keep kids safe.