COVID and the Immune Systems of Parents of Young Children

As a parent of two young children I’ve noticed that I very rarely become ill with your typical seasonal bugs, including flu, even though my kids might be sick. In my 20’s, before children, I would get at least one very annoying bug a year–often more–that would put me in bed for at least a day or two. I’ve always been that way. I was that kid in my house in bed with the 104 degree fever at least once a winter. I have severe chicken pox with some gnarly scars to prove it, too. I almost lost a toe to infection from that.

But now that I have kids, the oldest of which is 10, the worst I ever seem to get is the sniffles–and I typically deal with that the better part of the winter. I understand that this is anecdotal, but I think it’s fairly common opinion that parents of young children (and also those who work in healthcare) typically have stronger immune systems–the reason being that they are constantly exposed to pathogens, leaving them with more ready and responsive immune systems.

There’s some talk now about how waning innate immune systems, which typically coincides with increasing age, might be the difference between the severity of illness seen in older COVID patients versus younger. I’ve wondered if parents of young children like myself might fare better with COVID because of their bolstered immune systems, but I haven’t been able to find any data on this. You’d think it would be an area of interest since people in this demographic are the backbone of the economy. There is of course the problem of causality with such a study, since parents of young children would themselves typically be younger than those with older children.

Anyway, I’m just curious as to whether anyone knows of any such data.