Carolyn Jones gave her child some Tylenol and sent her to preschool:
Inevitably, her teacher phoned me a few hours later to announce that my daughter was ill. Of course on the drive home, with my sick tot wilting into her car seat, I felt the wracking guilt that’s the special preserve of mothers. Yet something else bothered me too. Not only had I behaved with a selfishness that I love to condemn in others, but something about the teacher’s look twisted a stake through my cowardly heart. Had the teacher known that I’d been semi-bluffing?
“Of course she did,” said my friend who teaches preschool, “Even when parents give their child meds before drop-off, I can tell from the kid’s eyes that they’re ill.” Oops!
Jones tries to get some teachers to dish at Time.com.