Let’s just assume…

There I was: in the pediatrician’s waiting room, carefully balancing Simon on my hip to give him the perfect vantage point  from which to view the clown fish. Out came the medical assistant who’d been tasked with viewing his chart.

“I just pulled up the schedule you and the doctor put together for Simon. It looks like he’s here today for an MMR and a polio shot. Does that sound right?” she asked pleasantly, handing me two of the requisite CDC information sheets on vaccination.

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“That’s it,” I answered. She told me that she would draw the shots, then come back and get us momentarily.

We went back to our fish viewing, oblivious to the startled young mother on the bench nearby. As I circled the tank, giving my boy a closer view of the peek-a-boo antics of Nemo and his buddies, she made her move.

“Are you really going to let them inject your baby with poison?” she inquired, eyes almost wild.

I didn’t know what to say. For a moment, I looked around to make sure that I was the target of the question.

Is she seriously asking me? Doesn’t she know that we only eat organic produce? Doesn’t she know that our shampoo is sourced from carrots? Can’t she tell that we cloth diaper, use elderberry syrup for coughs, cook our meals from scratch?

Of course, she was talking to me. What she saw in front of her was a Momma with a toddler son. Probably a newbie. The snippet she had overheard– my interaction with the medical assistant– had centered on vaccines. She doesn’t know!  And now it was up to her to educate me, on the spot, about the dangers to which I was exposing my innocent baby boy.

I didn’t owe her an explanation, of course. There was absolutely no reason for me to waste a single second of my life telling her that actually, I’m not a fan of many (most?) shots. I view the bulk of them as something of a necessary evil, and others as a waste of time for the average, run of the mill, middle class American family. And did I mention that one of my kids falls into the category of “vaccine injured”? Yes. As such, I’ve done tons of research into the topic and concocted an alternative schedule (with the help of our pediatrician) that even notes which manufacturers are on my “safe list.” I am not uninformed. Neither am I a complacent sheep being lulled into conformity. I am a strong advocate for private health, for informed consent, and for staking out your own boundary lines.

But I’m also moving to Nepal. And frankly, to eschew many of the shots I would consider “not all that vital” here in the US for a child growing up in a developing nation is well …. kind of dumb. The safe bubble of herd immunity has been burst for my family.

So, yeah, I’m injecting my toddler with poison. I’m praying a lot. And I’m trusting that, like every other detail on this bumpy road to service, God’s got this.

Which is what I told her.

She didn’t get it, of course. I didn’t fit into her mold of “If I give her (what I perceive as) the facts, she will thank me profusely and change her mind here on the spot.”

Which brought me to to this realization: mothers (and the world in general) would be so much better off if we could just, for one stinking minute, step off of the soapboxes of our own conviction and realize that the women around us who have chosen differently aren’t idiots, they’ve just come to different conclusions after looking under the same rocks.

Think about it. Say your neighbor works full-time. Her infant daughter is in daycare. Does this mean that she has just never really, truly never thought about the repercussions of employment outside the home, or the effects of multiple caregivers on little ones? Honey, I doubt it. She has seen the same studies you have. She has agonized over the results saying that kids in out of home care tend to be more violent, less attached, whatever. But in the end, she made the choice to work and utilize daycare because it was worth it to her. Something in there outweighed the benefits of staying home.

She is not a moron. She is someone who made a choice.

What about the Momma whose kids are enrolled in public school. Is it even possible that she’s not aware that peer pressure has negatives as well as positives? Do you think she somehow missed the news stories on rotten test scores, some truly bad teachers, and the litany of bullying, violence, et al? Not a chance. She knows the same stuff you do. But her heart was pulled to take that road in spite of the stuff that might make you cringe. And frankly, you rattling a laundry list of the sins of institutionalized education isn’t going to make a dent in the armor of her own conclusion.

So what then? We never try to share what we’ve learned, what we’ve been convicted of, what has been a blessing to us in our lives? Absolutely not.

What I’m saying is, there’s a time, and there’s a place. And both of those happen in relationship– not in a chance meeting where you hiss words like “poison” and expect to earn a convert. Even a brief, seed-sowing interaction in the he grocery store that leads someone to think, “Huh, those kids didn’t seem so strange after all,” happens in there context of a shared moment.

No one changes his or her convictions based on the scare tactics of a zealot. If that method worked, you’d know at least a handful of folks who came to Christ thanks to the crazy-haired guy on wearing the sandwich board with the come to Jesus message on the street corner. Instead …. yeah, I didn’t think so.

So, let’s just assume, from now on, when we run across one another, that we aren’t tasked with the job of educating everyone we meet with the truths we’ve uncovered? That we’ve prayerfully considered the path our feet are on? That we’re Mommas who really, really just want to honor our Savior and raise our babies? That we’re  doing the best we can?

Imagine what that would do for your relationships, for your testimony, for your walk of faith. Be gentle. Be kind. And be the welcoming smile, not the warning flag, in another Momma’s day.

 

I link up posts with these wonderful hosts: Diamonds in the RoughLife in a BreakdownSunday Best ShowcaseTeach Beside MeFinishing StrongMama Moment MondayThe Modest MomMama Moments MondaysMonday’s Musings,Making Your Home Sing MondayPlaydates at the WellspringA Pinch of JoyTitus 2sdayTitus 2 TuesdayGrowing Homemakers, Babies & BeyondTeaching What is GoodMissional CallEssential ThingsCreate With JoyHope in Every SeasonFor the Kids Fridays,  Preschool CreationsPin Me PartyLearn & LinkFrugal Homeschool FridaySHINE.

8 thoughts on “Let’s just assume…

  1. I love these three quotes. :)

    Which brought me to to this realization: mothers (and the world in general) would be so much better off if we could just, for one stinking minute, step off of the soapboxes of our own conviction and realize that the women around us who have chosen differently aren’t idiots, they’ve just come to different conclusions after looking under the same rocks.

    She is not a moron. She is someone who made a choice.

    No one changes his or her convictions based on the scare tactics of a zealot.

  2. Everyone has their own path to take and own decisions to make regarding their children. I remember before my daughter was born a woman became very upset when she asked me if I was going to have my baby without pain meds. I said I was going to use pain meds. She got red in the face. I ended up using them after 36 hours of labor and had not dilated more than 3 centimeters. The doctor was going to do a C section, but after the epidural, I had my baby 15 minutes later. Anyway, I don’t regret my decision. I know others would disagree with me, but I don’t criticize other women’s choices regarding their children because of how I was criticized.

    • After 4 unmedicated births, my last was a c-section, Mary. It’s shocking to me how few people ever ask for details about his birth story. It’s almost as if it didn’t happen, because it wasn’t “natural.” What? Of course it was natural. A baby was born! LOL

    • A friend gave me a book to read while I was pregnant, about Giving
      Birth God’s Way. (I don’t know the title of the book :-( )
      During my first pregnancy, I read through this book which told me
      that pain during labour was a curse of sin, and Jesus came to redeem
      us from the curse of sin, so… If I Was A Real Christian, I Should Be Able
      To Go Through Labour Without Pain, and Without Needed Pain Meds….
      After labouring for 36 hours, I was in so much pain, I couldn’t even think
      properly anymore :-(
      I had the epidural, went to sleep, woke up 3 hours later, and gave birth.
      AMAZING.
      I didn’t need pain meds with my other 3 labours, but… I Am So Glad God
      Gave Us Dr’s Who Have These Options To Help Us Go Through This Precious
      Time

  3. Heather

    I am very interested in any information you can pass on to us about safe list of manufacturers of vaccines, as well as safer schedule. I have a Grandson who has Leukemia, and as such they are pushing for baby sister to get all vaccines, so she will not get things and pass it on to him, where as he has not received the vaccines.

    I had a child who stopped walking and talking for 2 months after receiving a vaccine, and the doctor said that it had no correlation with the vaccine.

  4. What a great reminder that we are all just doing the best we can. We simply cannot make snap judgments about one another. We never know where the other person is coming from. The Bible reminds us to speak the truth in love. Like you stated, that words best in a relationship. Thanks for the great post. I’m so happy to have found your – just subscribed.

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