The smaller and insignificant the issue, the more ferocious and convoluted the fight.
The Good Cop/Bad Cop routine is the oldest one in the book, and one of the most effective. It also requires a high degree of collusion between the parents. Collusion is secret agreement, often for neafrious or illegal activity. Think of it as the parents being insider traders, with the kid in the role of the SEC.
Parents, watch your progeny on the pitch, but be careful. You're only really allowed to secretly wish them success on the field of battle. Publicly, of course, it's just about playing the game. But isn't it more fun to actually, you know, win?
... says it all. This wasn't something that was supposed to be part of the deal, it was something abstract and far away and curable by a variety of health and beauty products. At the same time, there's been an inkling of what is coming from all of the ads on TV featuring products with terrible side effects. Bleeding ears are apparently a small price to pay for eliminating a ferret allergy.
Kids - at daycare, the playground, in the lair of the rodent, at the pediatric dentist's office, wherever - are Cadillacs for microbes. Germs pimp the ride with the kids and travel in style on the best gravy train ever. The common rhinovirus never met a kid it didn't like.
