How do you write an entire post about whether or not to keep a sort-of sick kid home from school without acknowledging that, for many families, keeping a kid home is not even an option?

We have been extremely fortunate in this regard. My wife and I both work from home and our jobs are such that when our kids were little, one or the other of us was usually able to take the day if we kept them home sick from school. Now they are old enough that a relaxing of screentime rules is usually sufficient to keep them occupied over the course of a sick day and we are both mostly able to get our work done.

That is not the case for probably the majority of families. It is baffling to me that—no matter how well-intentioned—health professionals and the media talk about this stuff in the abstract.