Bring Back The Nit Nurse

This week my household has enjoyed a singularly itchy encounter with nits, care of my boy’s infant school. The poor lad’s scalp has been a moveable feast for a whole army of little head lice and their chomping offspring.

We have staunchly countered their invasion with copious administrations of hair conditioner and that old standby the nit comb. To be sure we remove every colony of the nit nation Karen and I have also submitted ourselves to regular nit grooming.

I’m proud to say that not only was I nit free but my hair is now lovely and glossy and has a sheen not unlike satin seen by moonlight.

Now, as problems go nit picking (ho ho) is a pretty small one and easily dealt with though it is a mite (pun!) inconvenient to have to submit to the nit removal regime every night.

All of this could have been avoided or the chances of it at least lessened, however, if the school employed that hardy bastion of anti-nit warfare, the Nit Nurse. We used to have regular visits from this rubber gloved lady of lice destruction when I was at school and all occurrences of nits were nicely contained and quickly dealt with as a consequence.

My boy’s school however does not utilize the Nit Nurse – maybe this is a national policy, who knows? – as they feel it draws negative attention to the condition and stigmatizes those who develop it. What rot. So instead of nit outbreaks being stamped upon quickly and efficiently they are left until the whole class gets infected. Marvelous. That’s one way of “leveling the playing field” I guess. Now no-one need feel picked on just because they’ve got nits… cos everybody’s got ‘em.

I can’t help feeling that this is a sad case of political correctness over commonsense. It’s also surely just a marketing problem. Sell the Nit Nurse to people in a positive light and you remove the stigma along with the nits. Simple.

And what stigma is there anyway? My boy has been very proud of his head-based nit farm and has eagerly been telling everybody about it.

Well, those who have stood still long enough...