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Sunday, April 10, 2005

Noseybodies, Crackpots

Traipsing up Hudson Street recently, I was pleased to see that Antarctica, a rather lonely-looking watering hole, had its chalkboard out. This is always a welcome sight because the Antarctica blackboard always has an ever changing amusement written legibly on it- some funny quotation or little factoid that if it manages to get lodged in one's memory is singularly useful at dinner parties when one is seated beside a dull stranger.

Knowing the kind of delight I usually take from Antarctica's missives, imagine my displeasure when I discovered nothing lively at all. Instead there was a shrill message (with website and book recommendation) about the evils of childhood vaccination. How unwelcome.

Felix was up to start his course of immunizations and this was exactly the sort of message I did not need to see. Guilt and angst are old acquaintances of mine, but since I became a mother, they have become sharper and more insistent, largely, I assume, because I am now making choices for someone else. (If there is virtue in responsibility, why does it make one feel so awful so often?) I have done all kinds of vaccination research, talked to doctors and friends and read any information I could find. In spite of everything suggesting that contemporary immunizations are not hazardous, I am nervous.

And I’m not alone. If anything was proved by the last presidential election, it is that- regardless of how much calm, reasoned information there is available- people tremble before any unfounded suggestion that something unwanted might happen. It does not matter how much real, hard, practical information I have, the hysteria and fear that I could Make a Terrible Mistake lingers. Creatures sit on each of my shoulders. The monster on my right advises me to make the sensible, informed choice, while the one on the left shrilly warns to take no chance, to avoid anything that might cause a problem.

These wrestling monsters leave me vulnerable to crackpots and noseybodies. I'm not interested in criticizing anyone else's choices, and I'm shocked at how difficult it is to make a move without someone trying to shake my tree. It was easier to maintain a sense of humor when I was pregnant. The fact that my doctor said I could eat sushi was wonderful, and I admit that I didn't mind at all raising an eyebrow or two as I gobbled raw fish in my eighth month. That thrill is gone now that Felix is in the world.

What's truly marvelous about the issue of immunizations is the way it crystallizes every kind of new-parent paranoia. To get the shots is to participate in a dangerous government-run program that exists primarily to support pharmaceutical giants. Extremists suggest the inoculations cast the shadow of autism over one's previously unblemished child. Any and all badness is the result of this one foolish decision that a gullible parent makes with the encouragement of the corrupt medical establishment.

Of course, to deny one's child routine immunizations is to leave the kid open to contracting diseases the horrors of which we don't really know because these vaccinations work. Many of these diseases kill infants and young children. Many would say that it is playing a kind of microbial roulette with your child's life, since some of the diseases in question, like whooping cough, are still out in the world and still potent. It is hard for your kid to attend school or camp without countless waivers and complications. Pediatricians often won't work with children whose parents refuse inoculations. One friend of mine has gone so far as to say she would be reluctant to let her children play with unvaccinated kids.

In this, as in all things, people make the choices they need to make for reasons even they might not be able to comprehend. But what is so hugely troubling is that the stakes are so high with every decision that comes my way now that I am a mother. Everything from inoculations to attachment parenting is a do or die crapshoot where one is guided by noseybodies who feel that to vary from their parenting decisions makes you a criminal and crackpots who want you to know that their opinions, however oddball, are the ones you need to take to heart. No middle ground is ever safe. No deviation from whatever program is in favor can be permitted.

This is something I hate about being a mother. Why must there be a politics to every move I make with Felix? I understand that this is all just a matter of degrees, and that I've always had to deal with the political in the personal. (A friend who used to make a 90-minute trip just to use a "green" drycleaner was a terrible scold when she felt I was not being careful enough about the environment. She has noted, however, that cloth diapers were no help to anyone unless you dried them in the sun.) But one seems so close to having someone ring up child protective services these days. And one doubts oneself so much. There is a real awfulness to the fact that the things my mother did almost without thinking- she truly believes that childhood inoculations were the right thing for me- are now so fraught with threat. I'm interested in guilt. I have a lot to say about it, but right now I wonder why I feel so deeply that no choice can ever be quite right.

For the record, Felix got his shots.

posted by Elise at 8:07 PM

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47 Comments:

bjb said...

thank you for this blog. it is good to know we're not alone. the whole dr. sears vs. dr. spock, nanny vs. daycare vs. 1 income, breastfeeding vs. formula, diaper cost and enviromental analysis, saving for college now vs. investing money in life now in hopes of higher yields later to pay for college...does it ever end? and why do I need to add vaccinations to this? As I struggle to move my baby from our bed to her crib at 7 months old, I need to worry about incorrect data once released about autism & vaccinations? I need to worry about egg allergies before she can even eat them? Please. As much as my baby instills the instinct in me to protect her with every molecule of my person, I'm too sleep deprived to worry about a fire without flames.

4/11/2005 2:25 PM

Anonymous said...

As a nanny, I feel the need to point out that the guilt/judgement/etc does not limit itself to mothers. In fact, in my experience, people watch what I do much more carefully, and seem much more ready to tell me what I "should" be doing, when they find out that I am the nanny rather than the mother.

I wonder if adoptive mothers feel that they are that much more in the spotlight in that kind of way?

4/12/2005 9:35 AM

Anonymous said...