+
upworthy
popular

Mom's viral post about keeping sick kids home is one that all parents need to hear and heed

Her post has been shared more than 174,000 times.

sick kids, kids stay home, parenting advice

Samantha Moriá Reynolds's advice on sick children.

It's cold and flu seasons, folks. During this time of year, we're all on a mission to avoid the demon viruses that threaten to invade our bodies and wage Armageddon on our immune systems.





But no matter how much vitamin C we consume or how diligently we wash our hands, we still have to rely on others to be smart about exposing people to their sick germs.

And that goes doubly for kids, who inexplicably do things like lick their own palms and rub communal crayons under their noses.

That's why a mom's recent Facebook post about keeping kids home when they have a fever has been shared more than 170,000 times. Samantha Moriá Reynolds shared a photo of a thermometer with a temperature of 101.4 with the following message:

This morning, Sam woke up and noticed her son wasn't feeling well.
Sam took her son's temperature, and wow! A fever.
Sam gave her son Tylenol and then...
Sam did NOT send her son to school.
Even after the fever went down a couple hours later, Sam did NOT send her son to school.
Sam missed work knowing that the well-being of her son and the kids who attend his school is more important than work missed.

Sam's son was invited to THREE birthday parties over the weekend. Sam's son has been so excited to go, but he will unfortunately also have to miss them because Sam's son is SICK. Sam knows passing along a sickness would not be a great birthday gift regardless of how bummed her son may be.

Sam knows her son is still contagious until he is fever-free, WITHOUT medication, for 24 hours. If Sam's son is running a fever at 7am on Sunday, Sam's son will also not be attending school on Monday.

Be. Like. Sam.

Some parents will give their kids fever-reducing medication, the fever will go down, the kid will feel a bit better, and off they go to school. But fever meds like Tylenol don't do anything to kill the virus that's infecting the kid's body. They just mask the symptoms of the illness and provide some relief to a miserable kiddo. If a fever goes down with medication, the child is still sick and still contagious.

The same goes for adults who try to tough it out by popping a Dayquil before heading off to work. If you want to infect your coworkers and make them hate you, keep doing that.

Granted, some parents may have a hard time finding childcare or taking time off work, and there's a lot to be said for employers being understanding and granting leave to care for sick children. Our whole society needs to work together on this front to make sure people don't feel like they have no choice but to send a sick kid to school. But that starts with parents insisting that their feverish kids stay home from school until they are no longer a threat to other people's health and well-being.

The coronavirus outbreak keeps making headlines and the mounting death numbers from it are making people nervous, but the truth is that the plain old flu already kills thousands of Americans every single year. This season, more than 8,000 people have already died from flu and flu complications, and we're still in the thick of the season.

The best way to keep illness from spreading is to stay away from other people when you are sick and to keep sick kids home until they are fever-free for 24 hours.

Be like Sam. Keep sick kids home. It takes a village to keep us all healthy.


This article originally appeared on 01.30.20

All images provided by CARE & Cargill

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers

True

Cocoa, the key ingredient found in your favorite chocolate bar, has been a highly revered food product throughout human history. It’s been used for religious ceremonies in Peru, royal feasts in England and France, traded as currency for the ancient Mayans. And considering that many of us enjoy chocolate on a regular basis (mochas and candy bars, anyone?) it seems like that love is still going strong even today.

And if you are someone who looks forward to that sweet chocolate pick-me-up on a regular basis, you likely have the women of West Africa to thank.

Women like Barbara Sika Larweh, a mother of six who works as a cocoa farmer in Larwehkrom, a community located within the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana.

care, cargillMama Cash now empowers other women to gain independence

Nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where Barbara and other mothers make up over half of the labor force. These female cocoa farmers shoulder the same physical burden as their male counterparts—all while also running households and paying for their children to go to school. And yet, they typically don’t receive equal income. Nor do they have access to the resources that could help them achieve financial independence.

Thankfully, positive changes are taking place. Barbara’s story exemplifies the impact of programs offered by CARE and Cargill, such as Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), which are small groups that offer low-interest loans to individuals living in poverty, helping them to build savings without going into devastating debt.

Through these initiatives, women, like Barbara, are equipped with vital knowledge like financial literacy to improve household incomes, sustainable agriculture practices that improve yields, and nutrition education to diversify their family’s diets.

“They came and trained me on the VSLA. I dedicated myself and volunteered so that I would be able to train my people, too,” Barbara explains.

Within the first year of using the programs, Barbara and the people she trained profited—earning her the nickname of “Mama Cash.”

This is no isolated event. In cocoa-growing communities supported by CARE and Cargill programming between 2019-2022, the number of households living below the national poverty line decreased by nearly 32% in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana - as a direct result of increasing and diversifying income through using these programs.

Like Barbara, who today is an executive member of the Community Development Committee, more than 2.4 million women have used their success as entrepreneurs to transform into leaders and decision-makers within their communities. Whether it’s giving most of their earnings back to their families, reducing child labor, or exponentially increasing overall farm yields, the rippling effect is profound.

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers. The joint initiatives have fostered progress on complex global issues related to social justice, such as gender equality, climate change, and food security. By improving access to quality nutrition, water, and hygiene, the joint programs have positively influenced the cocoa communities’ well-being.

Suddenly there’s a lot more to think about the next time you eat a candy bar.

Find out more about the important partnership between CARE and Cargill here.

A dog keeps a watchful eye over a a spot on the lawn.

A TikTok user named Trisha became alarmed after her senior dog, Jackie, seemed particularly captivated by a specific patch on the yard. The spot on the lawn was also of keen interest to the neighbor's dog, who was poking his nose through the fence, trying to get a closer look.

When Trisha went out to inspect the mysterious patch of grass, she realized the dogs were watching over a snug little burrow, home to a clutch of adorable baby bunnies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Community

Facebook group rallies to reunite members with long lost childhood items

Total strangers helped this woman find her favorite childhood toy

True

Many of us associate connection with social media: connection to the world, to friends and family, and perhaps even to others who share their ideas and hobbies.

Sometimes, that connection can restore old relationships or begin new ones. For Mavis Moon, however, social media is what helped reunite her with a long-lost family member: a blue, stuffed toy dog.

Moon was raised by her grandfather, who struggled with chronic health problems. One day when they were home alone, he suffered a massive heart attack. She immediately dialed 9-1-1, and when the emergency responders who arrived on the scene recognized how traumatized she was after witnessing the event, they consoled her with a blue stuffed dog. Her grandfather eventually recovered, and from that day forward she was never without her dog. He became a member of the family.

The stuffed animal brought her security and comfort. It was such an integral part of her life that her grandfather would carry it around when she couldn’t—he could always be counted on to be in the stands at her basketball games, holding up the dog to cheer for her. That stuffed animal went everywhere she went for years, until one devastating day when she lost him at a local fair.

Keep ReadingShow less
Science

Hawk drops snake on Texas woman, then tries to take it back in real-life horror story

File this under "things you didn't want to know were possible."

NPS/Kurt Moses (Public Domain)

Snakes are prey for hawks, but humans aren't usually involved in the hunt.

You know how sometimes you read a story that seems like it couldn't possibly be true, and when you find out it is, you think, "Yeah, I didn't actually need to know that could happen"?

This is one of those stories. And I'm only a little bit sorry for sharing it because it's also one of those stories where every detail gets more and more incredible (or in this case, worse and so much worse). I mean, it's a real-life story that starts with a snake falling out of the sky, for crying out loud. Cue the horror soundtrack.

Peggy Jones, 64, told Fox 26 Houston that she was driving her riding lawnmower in the yard of her home in Silsbee, Texas, when out of nowhere, a snake landed on her from above. Before she could even wrap her mind around what was happening, the snake coiled itself around her arm and began to strike at her face, repeatedly hitting her glasses.

That would be more than enough all by itself, but that's not where this horror story ends. The hawk that had presumably dropped the snake really wanted it back.

Keep ReadingShow less

Woman shares video of what domestic abuse can look like.

Being in an abusive relationship isn't typically something people flaunt around social media or their personal lives. Abuse can be difficult to recognize sometimes, even when you're the one being abused, especially if the abuse isn't physical. Emotional and verbal abuse behind closed doors while the abuser behaves differently in public can make you feel like your own perception can't be trusted.

Lindsay Goodman reposted a video from January 2022, where she reveals the behind-the-scenes of a birthday surprise from her abusive ex-partner. Goodman's birthday is August 10, and she has been reposting the video on her birthday every year to show her growth since leaving her partner.

Without the text overlay explaining what was going on, the birthday surprise seemed like an extremely sweet gesture filmed from the ex-partner's perspective. The original video has over 2.2 million likes and more than 13.4K comments on TikTok.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

After a tragic birth story out of Atlanta, an OBGYN breaks down 'maneuvers of last resort'

"A shoulder dystocia, if you don't know, is an obstetric emergency."

OB-GYN breaks down shoulder dystocia after tragedy in Atlanta.

TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains graphic details of childbirth trauma and infant loss.

A couple in Atlanta, Georgia, experienced a devastating loss that by all stretches of the imagination seems impossible. Unfortunately, the unimaginable is one of the rarest of rare birth complications that resulted in the loss of their newborn son.

Jessica Ross and her partner, Treveon Taylor, were excitedly awaiting the delivery of their first child when during the pushing stage of labor, baby Treveon Taylor Jr.'s shoulder got stuck. According to the Cleveland Clinic, shoulder dystocia is when one or both of the baby's shoulders get stuck behind a bone in the pelvis, which doesn't allow the baby to exit the birth canal.

Ross found herself in this very situation, which eventually resulted in an emergency situation in which the doctor had to dislodge the baby from the pelvis and perform a Cesarean section. It is suspected that the force with which the baby was dislodged caused the infant's decapitation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

'We're naming a child, not a dog': Man fights with wife over naming baby 'Zoomer'

Has the unusual baby name trend gone too far or is he stuck in the past?

A couple arguing over what to name their baby

Over the past decade or so, there has been a trend of parents choosing to give their children unique names. “We are deep in an era of naming individuality, where parents assume that having a [name] sound distinctive and unique is a virtue,” Laura Wattenberg, the founder of the naming-trends site Namerology, told The Atlantic.

There are multiple reasons for this change in American culture. One is that people have fewer children, so their uniqueness has become more important for parents. Another is that baby name data has pushed parents to go to further lengths to come up with names that won’t make them the third John or second Maria in a classroom.

The internet has also played a role in the change. People with unique names stand out online. Good luck if you’re looking on Facebook for a former classmate named Matt Smith.

Keep ReadingShow less

Upworthy's weekly roundup of joy

In a world of negative headlines, misinformation, and the various pitfalls of social media, it's easy to get down on the internet. Most people surveyed say they'd like to return to pre-online days when life seemed simpler, and we weren't bombarded with information and distractions all day long.

But the internet has also allowed us to connect, create and learn in ways that were previously unfathomable. We can talk face-to-face with loved ones from across the planet in real time. We can send photos, videos and art to one another in the blink of an eye. We can share things that made us laugh with countless others to bring an immediate smile to their faces, wherever they are on the planet.

Here at Upworthy, we're all about bringing out the best of humanity, which includes sharing gems of joy that remind us of the good in people and our world. We hope this week's roundup makes you smile as well!

Keep ReadingShow less