Vaccines: Even Smart People Wonder

The reason I ask questions. <3

I know that vaccines are a very hot topic right now. There are loud voices screaming at us from both sides of the fence, and now we are screaming at each other. But the the thing that is most upsetting to me is this ugly trend to vilify parents who question the safety of vaccines, choose to delay vaccines or opt out of them all together.

As a parent who is taking a little extra time to think about this, I don't really appreciate being cast as ignorant, gullible, or a danger to society.

The Parents Who Question are NOT Stupid

I don't really care about your science stacking up against mine, or the bright colors on your very persuasive graphic. I am no scientist and your fancy words make me go cross-eyed. But what I do care about is how those vaccines are working out for you.

Personally, they've worked out fine for me and my big family. I was vaccinated, and there weren't any adverse reactions. This is true for most of the people that I know - probably 99% of them. But more and more I'm hearing about other kinds of experiences - those that are experiencing some of the more severe  vaccine side effects the CDC warns us about.

Recently, someone posted a popular pro-vaccine graphic and asked why some people choose not to vaccinate.

These were some of the responses from people who didn't make their decision based on science - good or bad - but because of personal, scary experiences with vaccines (I removed names):

• My cousin and nephew had allergic reactions to vaccines. ... My son got his first MMR at 2 years old and a dTAP at 3 years old. At his 5 year old check up we gave him a few routine vaccines. He stopped breathing, throat swelled up, had a fever for 5 days, his legs hurt and shook. He started having neurological problems and was diagnosed with autism within 3 months.

• After 2 of my kids had adverse reactions that were less than minor, I started researching hours on end and now know at least 6 other families with severe vaccine injury including death...

• One of my twins almost died at 15 months due to the MMR. 

• I first had all up until 2, second child, started researching and felt prompted to not do it. Went ahead and did it, because who am i to challenge my dr!! Well, my dear little 2 mo. old seized in my arms within 30 min. of the shots. Called right away and nurses said there was no correlation. Never went back. Last year, my son had a seizure and as they were going through the medical history, i mentioned the one after the shots and for the first time, a dr. validated that that seizure was definitely brought on by a vaccine reaction! ...

• When #2 had a sudden personality change at 18 months after receiving scheduled vaccines, we said no more. 

• My son received ELEVEN vaccinations in one visit when he was 2 yrs old and another 9 when he was 5. Passed out over and over and was lethargic the rest of the day then showed every sign on Asperges within 2 weeks. My daughter was unresponsive on the hospital floor for almost 10 minutes after HPV shot. 

• We did vaccinate until my son had a terrible reaction to one and we were told he was not a good candidate and that we should at the very least delay if not discontinue altogether. We were also told that if our other children have similar body types they should not be vaccinated.

• My husband knows a family who watched their two otherwise perfectly normal, healthy kids turn autistic WITHIN THE HOUR of their shots. 

• We have three immediate relatives on my husband's side who have had severe vaccine injuries (blood sepsis, and my mother in law swelled up for several years in a horrible rash shortly after she received her adolescent vaccines; all documented by medical records as injuries from vaccines) as well as egg allergies. 

Now, I'm not trying to make a case for not getting vaccinated here. But I am trying to bring a little balance to the discussion. These anecdotes are enough to give me pause - as they should be! Because unless you can 100% guarantee that vaccines are going to be safe and effective, then it doesn't matter if someone can prove they are 90% of the time. That still leaves a 10% chance that my kid could be the exception.

I Know it's Easy to Scream

Now, I totally understand why this is an impassioned public dialogue, and I even understand why you might think the other person is stupid for either choosing or NOT choosing to vaccinate. As someone who's looked at both sides, I really do. Some of you feel that getting vaccines puts your child at risk, and your decision to do it isn't anyone else's business. Others feel it's everyone's business because if you don't vaccinate, then you're a risk to the rest of us.*

Collectively, we're afraid to get vaccines, and we're afraid not to.

There's fear on both sides. This is why I think we really need to stop with the bullying. Being a parent is hard enough without the added fear of being spit on for having a different opinion. Let's step back and give people room to ask questions and do their own research without the name calling. And if someone doesn't want to "take one for the team," then remember that we are not statistics; we are people. The right answer for you - or even the majority - may very literally be the wrong answer for someone else.



* If you choose not to vaccinate your children, please take the initiative to educate yourself on how to avoid illness. You can't spread it if you don't get it. You may also want to consider homeopathic alternatives.

Is There Such a Thing as a Transgender Toddler?

I'm not sure how many of you have read or heard about this five-year-old child in the media that was a girl,and is now recognized as a boy by her parents. I know that there are some social groups that are claiming this as their issue, but as a parent, I am claiming it as mine. This is child abuse.

Now, before you go and scream “bigot,” let me tell you why. At five years old, I don't think it's appropriate for her parents to reassign her identity. Even if they felt their daughter truly was a transgender, it's not their place to announce this to the world and help her transition into being a boy. They've singlehandedly carved out her social position and identity for the rest of her life. Isn't that what we get to do as teenagers and young adults?

A five year old should not be committed to something like that. It's like allowing her take out a loan on the house she's going to live in when she grows up, after deciding for herself what house that's going to be. Let's face it – at five years old she can't understand the financial agreement she's committing to, and her choice in houses is guaranteed to change. Honestly, I wouldn't even trust a five year old to decide on what they should eat for dinner, much less the social identity they want to maintain for the rest of their life.

Similarly, there's no way this little girl can understand or grasp what being openly transgender is going to mean for her in the years to come. She is not mature enough to make a decision with ALL THE FACTS. Deciding she's a boy at age two is impossible. She doesn't understand what “being a boy” is really all about. It also means being a teenage boy, and being a man. She can't grasp the responsibility that comes with that.

As I was watching this video of this little girl swimming in boy trunks and couple-dancing with little girls, all I could think was, “What about in the next 10 years when you start to grow boobs and decide who you're attracted to?” There are so many more formative years after the age of five – why do you have to put her in a box so young? What if this five year old goes on to change her mind? That she's really a girl after all? And she could – she has that right. Socially, she could decide that (if indeed she really does feel she's a boy) she'd rather just embrace her girl parts and be the girl that everyone else perceives her to be.

If given her privacy and the space to claim her public identity alone, she still may have claimed her female identity. What if she'd grown up and still identified with being a boy, but was attracted to boys? She could have very easily – and very understandably – decided to solely identify herself as a girl to the rest of the world. Her sexual preferences could have outweighed any other motive. Or maybe she'd simply decide that she doesn't want to fight the battle over which locker room she should be changing in, or on which sports team she should be allowed to play, or any number of issues that hinge on whether you have a boy's or a girl's anatomy (which, by the way, goes so far beyond whether you have a vagina or a penis).

But now, there's not really an opportunity for her to do that. At this point, if she's attracted to boys, her only option is just to come out of the closet and decide that she must also be gay, since she is attracted to boys, even though she has a girl's anatomy, so boys that are attracted to her are actually straight....Wow, is your head spinning yet? I can barely wrap my mind around these scenarios at 32. How can we expect a five year old to take all of these possibilities in stride when making a decision of this magnitude?

Why would parents do this? Well, the video that I saw talked about how the parents were trying to embrace and accept their child, citing that many transgenders try to end their life because of not being accepted. Well, congratulations parents – you just made this child's road 10 times harder! Not only could she potentially be dealing with gender identity, but now she will be the bullseye of political and social commentators for the rest of her life. As if puberty isn't confusing enough. Sorry sweetie - now you're a poster child for a whole movement, and you don't even know what “a poster child” means. Heck, I'm not even sure if you can tie your shoes or spell your full name.

This is so far outside the LGTB issue. To prove it, I'll even take the position that this child really is a transgender. If the parents wanted to be supportive and open to all possibilities, then why not just promote that environment at home? If the parents wanted to accept her for who she was, “no strings attached” as they put it, they could have done so without involving the rest of the world. They could have responded in so many other ways that still would have been supportive to the possibility that she really is transgender.

This was not an A or B scenario. There was a C, D, E, F and G option that wouldn't have brought this girl so fully into the spotlight, and so entirely into a social and political fight that she can't even decide she wants to be a part of yet – one she doesn't even know exists. But instead, they have unilaterally committed their child to this identity without the consent of her rational, mature weigh-in that won't actually come around for many years to come.

They're not freeing this child from a social role or proverbial box – they're committing her to one. If this was a teenage child, or a grown woman, this would be a LGTB issue. But the fact that this little girl is barely out of diapers makes this an entirely different discussion. And quite frankly, I'm horrified that it even has to be had.