As Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton demonstrated when she nearly collapsed from the effects of walking pneumonia early this week, the benefits of running for elected office may include many things, but sick days are not among them.
This is perhaps unavoidable in light of the fact that the job of actually being an elected official doesn’t allow for much rest and recuperation, either — see, for instance, John F. Kennedy plowing ahead despitecrippling back pain and Addison’s disease, which he wanted to conceal from the public; and George H.W. Bush ignoring a doctor’s advice in 1992 to stay in bed rather than attend a state dinner in Japan, with the result being that he vomited on the Japanese prime minister. “The president is human,” Bush’s physician told reporters at the time. “He gets sick.”
Going to work sick is not just a function of political work, however, or even of merely being human — it is a profoundly American behavior. The American notion of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps explains part of our willingness to work through illness, but it doesn’t necessarily explain why we’re comfortable with allowing some people a chance to stay home and recover while denying others.
Read more: Washington Post
Washington Work and Family Coalition 