I've got an acquaintance who has gone full anti-vaxx with her 20 month old little girl, posting proudly about this "healthy" decision on Facebook and advocating strongly for her approach. Others have posted arguments for and against this, and as someone who strongly believes in vaccination I'm tempted to chime in as well, just to ask "Why would you let your kid getting a disease you didn't have because you were vaccinated?"
But seeing as we're not really friend-friends, I don't have kids of my own, and she seems to have all the answers she wants to hear, I'm hesitant before putting my foot in my mouth and going full on confrontation mode - and most likely losing a Facebook friend (or more, depends how it goes). It's her kid after all so she can do what she likes, who am I to say otherwise?
On the flip side staying silent feels wrong too. What would you do?
To be honest, I'd stay silent. But that's mostly because I'm a coward and dislike creating drama. A better man would at least try and convince her otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, most anti-anti-vaxx sources/people are very condescending, including the article you linked. It's all, "you anti-vaxx people are really dumb". I can easily see how they would put the back up of an anti-vaxx person and cause them to double down.
Perhaps something like, "maybe these new-fangled vaccines are suspect, but what about tried-and-true ones, which have been around for decades? Like the ones we or our parents got when we were children? Perhaps a child getting chickenpox isn't that bad, but what about the dread diseases like smallpox, diptheria, measles, and polio, which actually killed or maimed millions?"
Perhaps that might get her to at least consider the most important vaccines for the deadliest diseases. Give her a path out by sacrificing the chickenpox vaccine or similar.
Thanks Rohan, in the end I just "liked" some of the pro-vaxx posts in that thread. I lost the fire I had for this when I read about a death of another friend just recently. Cancer sucks.
DeleteNo, you know what - I'm gonna go for it. You took the time to write out that good reply, so I'm gonna make the effort too!
DeleteFire's back. Lol :P