My youngest child has food allergies.  That is still plural, as in more than one food allergy, although it used to be a much greater plural.  I had food allergies as well up until sometime early-mid last year.  Because my child has severe food allergies AND asthma, he gets to go see the allergist, in order to get epi-pens prescribed, and in order to have the 504 plan signed off on for school.  See, if you are disabled, then you need a doctor’s note to get accommodations in public school.  Food allergies and asthma are both disabilities which impact the necessary life activity of breathing if life-saving medication is not immediately available and somebody able to administer it is not present.

Public schools are “supposed” to be free.  They’re not, of course.  Not even for the able-bodied.  You must bring your own growing list of school supplies.  There are music and athletics fees.  There are lunches and snacks to be packed.  Furthermore, if you happen to be a double income with two and a half children attending schools, you have to have childcare for the days in which the teachers decide to train themselves how to better warehouse their future felons.  That’s a teacher joke.  One of my friends used to call the “Future Farmers of America” program the Future Felons of America.  This was before somebody had coined the phrase school-to-prison pipeline.

For a kid with food allergies, school is anything but free, unless you decided not to tell the school about your child’s food allergies in the first place.  There are only two settings: 1) You don’t tell the school, and your child goes to school without any epi-pens available or teacher notification, which could honestly save you hundreds of dollars, or 2) You fill out the appropriate form, get an allergist appointment in addition to the regular pediatrician appointment, pay the $350 office visit co-pay, plus $150 testing fees, and then pay a couple hundred for TWO sets of epi-pens.  One to be locked up in the nurse’s office, unreachable in case the nurse is only there 2 days a week or the school is in lockdown, or doesn’t follow the actual allergy plan, and one to have at home, and if you are extremely lucky, you can bring it with you on the bus for when somebody decides to eat PB&J for breakfast and poke your kid’s eyes out.  It is that expensive WITH insurance, because, hello, those high-deductible insurance plans were the only reasonable ones left on the list of available options from the employed person in the family.

Now, IF you didn’t go to public school, it would cost less.  Let’s say that you decided to homeschool.  Plenty of reasons for that, I don’t need to go into for the purpose here.  As a homeschooler, you don’t need an extra set of epi-pens and inhalers and spacer locked up in the nurse’s office.  You also don’t necessarily need to go to the allergist every single year.  You could, instead, get your epi-pen prescription through your pediatrician at the annual checkup, which IF it is coded correctly should not cost you a visit co-pay.

There are other things which need doctor’s notes at public school.  Let’s say, for example, that your child gets migraines.  Runs in the family.  Well, your child can NOT just take Ibuprofen to school with them and pop some pills when they need them.  At least not until late middle school when all the other post-puberty females are doing it one to three days per month, with their teachers looking the other way because it is still illegal.  Oh no.  They need a school form, filled out by a doctor, stating that they are allowed to take ibuprofen in school for a headache.  Plus an entire bottle kept under lock and key in the nurse’s office.  Without that form, and that doctor’s office co-pay, your child will just have to suffer, and may vomit, in which case they’ll have to be sent home and stay home an extra day.

Because you took advantage of this “free” thing, you now have to pay for it in other ways.  Because you have a driver’s license, you are required to show up for jury duty.  Because you have a social security number, you must pay income and property taxes.  Because you own a car, you must have the emissions inspected in order to keep the license tabs up to date.  Because you receive mail, you must have a mailbox which complies with the specifications laid out by the post office.  Because you live in the city, you must remove the noxious weeds from your property or it will be done for you at your expense.  Is there anything which is truly free?  Is the air I breathe free?  Well, no, I pay property taxes in order for somebody to organize and keep the chemical factory from expelling hazardous chemicals into the air I breathe.  It is all interconnected.  In for a penny, in for a pound.