Mother Power

My 4 year old son turns his trusting face up to me and asks, "Mom, am I smart and handsome?" For a brief moment, I catch my breath with the weight of this moment, the building of my son's identity. I don't want to get this answer wrong. The different studies and childrearing books I have read stream through my mind, a parenting ticker with multiple opposing views, at stake are my son's future happiness, self-esteem, chances of ever finishing college or marrying up.

"Don't hesitate, don't blow it!" I scream at myself. "Tell him he's smart if he works hard and never gives up in school, he's handsome if he works out and gets good at a sport but is confident enough not to care if everyone notices. Tell him that the Tiger Mother would already consider him a 4 year old failure for not playing any instruments. Or tell him he is the smartest and handsomest just for being alive and being my kid, setting him on a path to wind up as a 30 year old druggie living in my spare bedroom." There has to be an in between, a way to raise an independent child while also slathering him with all the love I feel for him.

I take a deep breath and tell him that I think he is the smartest and handsomest 4 year old that I know. This is true. He smiles for a second, then runs back to play, whatever little emotional crisis he was having has passed quickly, and he is once more the confident and rowdy little guy that I love. I can't help but marvel that my good opinion of him is all it took to restore confidence and security. What power we mothers have. May we wield it carefully and with love.

Originally posted in 2012

An open letter to Anti-Vaxers

An open letter to all my Anti-Vax friends: 

I would like to officially accept your heartfelt thanks for the fact that your kids are moderately safe because I and a strong majority of the educated, rational people in our country have vaccinated our children. 

You are welcome. 

See, I grew up in a third world country and watched a childhood friend's legs wither and twist with polio. I have watched babies grow weak and sick with measles and whooping cough, and two kids on my childhood street died from preventable diseases, one painfully coughing blood from rubella, and one favorite playmate who died extremely painfully screaming into the night with rabies (after being nipped by a cute little puppy.) I remember both of their names, and I clearly remember the look on their mother's faces as we mourned and buried tiny caskets. 

Yes, many children cry when they get vaccines. They also cry when we buckle them into car seats and when we make them wear life vests (those dang seatbelt and life vest on manufactures are making SO much money... there has got to be a government scam there!!!!!) 

So, I realize that you have no idea how lucky you are that "evil pharma companies" and the "gob'ment" are trying to keep you from experiencing the horror and sadness of losing a child to an easily prevented disease. You are blessed and lucky to raise your child in a first world country where the super nasty diseases are no longer the things that parent's nightmares are made of. You have no idea the tears and desperation that led our country to make eradicating these diseases a primary concern. 

You are being a good parent and are trying to protect your child as best as you can, but you are wrong. 

I can keep my kids safe and even yours when we are together, but I can't keep your kids safe when they are out in the everyday world or having a fun vacation at Disneyland and get exposed to truly scary diseases. I care about your kids, and I worry about the actual danger of your kids suffering terribly, not about the straw man arguments that have been posed by non-expert attention seekers and have proven false over and over. 

Stop reading fear-mongering blogs written by the internet equivalent of sidewalk preachers with badly spelled cardboard signs. Stop retweeting and sharing ignorant pictures and cute little celebrity quotes. Grow up and be an informed parent. Realize that when your child touches a cart at Target then puts their fingers in their cute little natural and unvaccinated mouth, they have been potentially exposed to germs from anywhere in the world. 

I hope to never attend another funeral for a child who died a horrific death from a preventable disease. I hope to never attend a funeral for a first world country child who died because of their parent's adherence to an ideological movement that flies in the face of all proven science and rationality. 

Don't dangle your child over the edge of a volcano to prove the existence of an imaginary angry god. They may fall in. 

After all, you couldn't even read this post if you didn't trust scientists to provide technology that has changed all of our lives for the better.

Protect your kids from the real danger and trust in the experts. Get your kids vaccinated.

About the author: I am a special education teacher and have spent more than 10 years working with children and families dealing with disabilities. I have no medical degree, but I do have two Bachelor's degrees from an exclusive private university, a teaching certificate with an autism specialist certificate and I am one class away from my master's degree. My years of education, experience, research, and expertise have taught me: vaccines DO NOT cause autism. However, when my children got their MMR shots, I was worried. I was afraid. Shame on the anti-vax movement for using fear to push an agenda that hurts children. Parents who do not vaccinate allow their children to be exposed to a myriad of dangers that FAR outweigh the slight chance of a vaccine complication. My three children are fine, and I am so thankful to be able to safely protect them from the horrors of diseases that have taken so many children away from their parents.