Why? I asked myself this question several times the other night when I finally watched the most recent episode (Episode 319 "Spring Broken) of the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters." Why include that line? What did it REALLY do to help the storyline? Not much. But it DID condone lying, being deceptive and putting other people in danger ..... great attributes to teach our children.
What am I talking about? If you didn't catch it, in the beginning of the show the harried, overworked single mother Sarah was making lunch for her kids and told her daughter Paige (who is around 13 years old) that she ran out of turkey, so instead she was giving them peanut butter sandwiches. Paige responds with "MOM! We are a peanut-free school!" And Sarah tells her, "Just tell them it's soy butter."
Nice.
Seriously. WHY?
As I suspected, other viewers picked up on how stupid this was and are talking about it on the ABC message board and so are some columnists.
It is so surprising to me that this liberal show would include this exchange. It's not like peanut allergies aren't well known these days (case in point -- the recent news story on the potential peanut allergy cure). So what dumb-ass wrote this ?!? Oh, I guess it was Brian Studler (according to the B&S writers blog). Well, he is not much a of "stud" to me; he is an idiot. (And evidently, not much of a writer since he couldn't write his own blog entry! Okay, I digress.)
I am fortunate, my boys can be around peanuts, they just can't ingest them, so this faux soy butter sandwich would not be an issue for them. But regardless of if your kids have peanut allergies, we all should find this dialogue shameful because it teaches the child that she is above the rules, should lie to get what she needs, and to not show sympathy and compassion for those with allergies.
Okay, I think I got it all out. Getting down off soapbox now. Thanks for listening.
2 comments:
I saw the show and thought the same thing! It only promoted thoughtlessness and carelessness, and they really should have known better than that. Obviously, they have never seen a child suffer from a life threatening reaction to know just how serious this is. The flippant nature of that comment really bothered me too.
By the way, your blog has been a real encouragement to me. You have great ideas, and it is really nice to know there are others out there with children with food allergies. My daughter is allergic to wheat, milk, and nuts.
Hi Anne,
I heard about this as well and watched the episode afterwards. It was definitely a miss for the writers.
On another note, I'm with Oliver's Labels. I'd like to know if you would like to receive samples of our full color, durable and beatiful Allergy Labels and Tags. Please email me if you are interested as back-to-school season is upon us and these colorful, easily noticeable labels and tags will definitely come in handy.
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