Are perfect attendance awards stupid?

Harper is home sick today from Kindergarten.  This is her first ever missed day of school. She had a good run . . .  for a month. Looks like she won’t be the Cal Ripken of Royerton elementary.

Anyhow, all of this got me thinking about awards for perfect attendance. 

A perfect attendance award means:

a) a kid or employee was never sick;

or

b) they were sick, likely multiple times, and exposed the other students and their co-workers to their germs.

Never being sick is highly unlikely so that means awarding perfect attendance is encouraging the spread of germs in schools and the work place. And that seems kind of stupid, doesn’t it?

I could be wrong. In high school, before I had sinus surgery, I missed a lot of school. So much, in fact, that I got a letter from the school. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Right now Harper is on the couch watching cartoons experiencing her first sick day. I’m kind of jealous. There’s something really awesome about stretching out on the couch watching cartoons while all of your classmates are in class. It almost makes that sore throat or repeated trips to the bathroom worth it.

I remember a sick day where I was home alone and spent all day sitting in the bean bag playing Bulls vs. Lakers on Sega Genesis while listening to AC/DC’s Back in Black album. That was a pretty sweet day.