Home Sick No More

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SPAN STYLE='font-size: 100%; color: #000066; font-weight: bold; '>Infirmary Within a Day-Care Center
Since 1986, says Johnson, the number of these facilities has jumped from a few dozen to a few hundred, but that doesn't begin to meet the need for this hybrid, which offers appropriate medical care in familiar surroundings. For example, children who get sick during their regular day at one of Johnson's three Rainbow Stations in Richmond, Va., can be moved to the adjacent Get Well Place, where they're sorted by symptom: the Sniffle Stop for respiratory ailments, Whoozy Station for tummy trouble, the Spot Stop for chicken pox and the Rest Stop for convalescing. The center also picks up older kids at school, free of charge. Fees are typical of centers nationwide: besides a one-time $20 registration fee, walk-ins (or their employers) pay $40 for a full day of care or $27 for a half-day, while Rainbow Station families pay $25 for a full day and $18 for a half.

Double-Duty Parents
Finally, telecommuting is often touted as an indirect benefit for parents of sick children. Says a New York City lawyer who occasionally works from home when one of his three kids is sick and his wife has to work: "It's a lousy way to spend a workday, but I'm glad I have a job that gives me the freedom to do it when it's essential." Several years ago, his employer started offering in-home care for sick kids, but he never signed up for the service, and he hopes he never has to.

Such ambivalence is painfully familiar to Amy Ladd, former director of a sick-child facility in Terre Haute, Ind., that closed because its sponsoring hospital needed to cut costs. "Everybody screams for sick-child care, but they absolutely won't touch it unless they have to--and then only if Grandma can't do it and Mommy and Daddy can't change their schedules and the baby-sitter is not available. Parents just prefer to stay home."

What's more, says Ladd, the benefit can be a double-edged sword. While employees are initially grateful, eventually they start to realize, "Wow, they'd do anything to keep me at work. They don't care if I have to leave my sick baby." When that resentment starts to build, says Ladd, "I tell folks to stay home."

Those contradictions will never be fully resolved, but in the meantime, parents can try an ounce of prevention. The first order of business: the chicken-pox vaccine. It's not 100% effective, but at the very least it shortens the illness, which can last a week or more. And even toddlers can learn good hygiene: besides cutting down on colds, your family may also dodge the flu, which strikes roughly half the school-age population in any given year. Clean hands and plenty of tissues have worked for our friend Elizabeth, who is rarely sick--despite what the school nurse thinks.