I do not watch ABC's Brothers and Sisters and now I know I'll never want to. Allergy Moms linked to Terri Mauro's Special Needs Blog post about Sunday night's Brother's and Sister's episode. In the very first scene, only seconds into the show, one of the character's (Sarah) daughter walks in the kitchen and asks her Mom what she's making her for lunch. Sarah answered peanut butter and jelly. With that the daughter, Paige reminds her Mom that her school is peanut-free. In response Sarah tells her daughter to tell her teacher that it is soy butter.

You can watch the episode here. The moment in question is really in the first few seconds of the show.

This is really disturbing to me. I do not, nor have I ever support food bans. But that aside, this line in the show is very damaging. As an allergy parent, I work really hard, as I know my fellow food allergy moms do too in getting the word out about the seriousness of food allergies. Things like this undermine us and hurt our children. I can't fathom what the point was of this line. I will admit I did not watch the entire show, but I did read that the topic never came up again in the rest of the show - no lesson learned. So what was the point? Why even put that in there unless the point was to undermine our cause and make us look ridiculous? What kind of lesson is in there when we teach our children to lie, specially at the expense of another? I also wonder, is it really worth it? Even putting aside the danger you are placing the allergic child in, why would you put your own, non-allergic child in the position to feel responsible for making her classmate or friend sick or worse?

People never cease to amaze me.