Super-mom of the Month, August 2009
Supermom Laura Rich:
I’m the single mother of 12 year old twin girls and a 10 year old boy. Other than some minor stress this weekend when my son changed the language on my iPod to German and my daughter went to lacrosse practice without her mouth guard, I can’t say they give me much trouble. I’d love to regal you with stories of a single mom dating on Match.com or try to impress you with the amount of chaos I endure single handedly on the home front, but I’m not really all that unusual or impressive.
More important are the 2000 kids that I take care as a pediatrician. Frequently now they’re coming with a new type of mother. She’s bright and takes her role as mother very seriously. She does not want to be told what to do with her children. She does her own research and makes her own decisions regarding her children’s health from the information she gathers. I respect this about these bright women.
Unfortunately these women fall in to a generation that has the Internet but has never been taught how to use it wisely. My 6th grade daughters are currently learning how to separate anecdotal evidence from scientific evidence. They’re learning that the experience of a few vocal individuals cannot be equated to the experience of thousands in scientific studies. But the mothers who bring their children to me were never taught this. It’s a generational difference. They may take anti-immunization advice from mothering blog sites and see it as more
worthwhile than CDC recommendations based on enormous safety studies over decades. Or they may try to treat ADHD with dietary change just because some other cool moms are doing it. There has never been any evidence that dietary adjustment has any effect on ADHD. Why are these smart moms making these kinds of decisions?
My only conclusion is that it must be an issue of power. These moms must feel that the medical profession has taken away their decision making and they want it back. It’s understandable. I just wish they could feel empowered by decisions that are more sound because they embrace science. Anecdotal evidence from blogs is a scary way to make major health decisions. Meningitis could leave a child mentally retarded or dead. Even “spacing out” the vaccines is leaving the child more vulnerable. It’s inferior protection. I can’t think of a single good reason to do it.
I worry about the unimmunized child who will get meningitis and I worry about the guilt that mother will live with. My worries over my own children are trivial. I can switch the language on my iPod back to English (I think) and I can rush my daughter’s mouth guard over to the lacrosse field, but I can never fix the brain damage on a child with meningitis. I can’t bring that baby back. I wish that we could have it all: mothers not bullied by the medical profession, smart decisions that embrace science, and moms whose worries can be as trivial as mine.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
This is by far…the very very best thing that I have read in a long time. As a Nursing student I applaud you Laura! I not only agree with everything that you have written but I resonate with it! I have many times been called “rigid” or a “control freak” just because I want research (the real stuff not some of the self serving studies out there) backed healthcare for my children.
I think that it is far too easy to blame immunizations on countless ailments. By blaming the shots, the parent is focused less on the powerless feeling of fate taking over and dealing a child Autism, ADHD or anything else. I feel that in doing so, they are missing out on so many opportunities to both parent and learn (not only about themselves but about their children as well). These are treatable conditions, and while yes, they can be challenging, they also come with some pretty great kids who offer so much joy to the people who love them. Sometimes in this society, we meet parents who cannot bear the thought of a “less than perfect child” What they could strive toward seeing is that the child IS perfect….just that they are so in their very own way! As parents we should always be focused on what is best for our kids and I do think that many of these Moms are focused on that…they just have to leave out the part where they take risks with their child’s health because they feel the need to make their own statement to the world.
I would rather have the tiny risk of some treatable illness, rather than the HUGE risk that I could lose a child unnecessarily, by subscribing to trendy advice from so called savvy Moms! Your commitment to your patients and to their families really comes through in your writing, I just wish that bashing folks in the medical community wasn’t such a popular sport! There are great Dr.’s out there (you are one of them) and there are ones that stink….this is true for any profession, it is our job as the grown ups to really think and ask ourselves honestly where we are coming from with something…intuition is everything, but sometimes it can be off due to many factors..balance is key!
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I do not really understand this. I am sure you are a super mom, but it seems condescending — like you say mothers who take control of their children’s health are great but then you say they are misinformed? So it is only good if they make their own decisions if those choices agree with the medical establishment?
August 4th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I don’t think that this is what Laura is saying at all Shanti….I do think that we all have opinions and ways to raise our children ( and all should be valued and respected), however from a Dr.s stand point (or a nurses or anyone else who is part of of a care team), when a child is lost or harmed because a parent has their own biased view of medicine, it leaves a hole in their heart. I am still in school and the very few patients that I have dealt with (mostly on an emergency basis because seriously I am still a student after all:), have lingered. The questions, the wondering how they are doing, if they had gotten better, overcome whatever it was put them in my care in the first place..all of it, stays with you. It is a blessing because it offers perspective, however, it can be sad, and hard to see.
In my own parenting (this is just my choice and I am not trying to be condescending) I strive for balance. There can be a nice meeting in the middle with both Eastern and Western medicine. I don’t see why there needs to be so much ambivilance toward one or the other. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Many mothers ARE misinformed, that is a fact, and while living and learning is what makes life, well life, the fact is that sometimes children are caught in the crossfire of Mom and Dad’s learning curve. I will never profess to be a perfect parent and some of the choices that I have made as a Mom in hindsight make me say to myself “WTH were you thinking”? Luckily for me it was all small stuff…I don’t know what I would do if it had turned out to be otherwise.
Lets face it…many have a problem with the medical establishment because they feel that instead of being proactive they deal with illness in a reactive way, well after a person is in an active disease state. Immunizations are proactive..they prevent horrible childhood illnesses that have been all but irradicated. I respect all mothers and their choices, but feel strongly about my own choice as well. As parent’s we are all on the same page here….we want the best possible care for people who are our world. That comes with facing ourselves and doing what we feel is best for our little people.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:57 am
It is unfortunate that “professionals” in the medical field think that educated informed moms are ill informed just because they don’t believe in their “choice” because it does not align with their beliefs. Statistics lie, pharmaceutical companies have agendas that are not in the best interest of people in general, especially children. I myself have first hand experience of very damaging vaccine damage when I was 36 years old. I received the Hep A and B vaccine before a trip to India and within a week, I could no longer walk, (I was in bed for 3 weeks), I was slurring my speech, had numbness and tingling, lost half my hair and was very discombobulated and scared about what was happening to me. The medical “professionals” would not admit it could possibly be the vaccines and thus they had no ability to help me to get better and detoxify if they wouldn’t take responsibility for what happened – I healed myself with an extensive organic green juice fast and super foods along with natural products that helped remove the toxins in the vaccines from my body. Within a few days of this self care I was walking again and starting to feel better. It was a long year journey back to health and I was thankfully able to have a healthy daughter two years later at the age of 38. It is completely ignorant of the “doctors” to not believe what I have just said. (I went to 10 “doctors” and they all could not help me. It happened to me and I was the only one that had my best interest in mind to such a degree that I was able to be open to natural ways of healing and not ONLY to their learned ways of healing which is such a small percentage of the ways of healing of the world. The “doctors” wanted to put me on anti-anxiety medication because of the panic I was under for being in the damaged physical and mental state that was caused by them! Come on people – get a clue!!! So when a “doctor” has the audacity to tell me I am putting my daughter at risk for not vaccinating her I feel pity for them not being “smart” enough to “hear” my story and the reasons why not vaccinating is the only choice for me and my family.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Suzanne!
That is a terrible story…the fact of the matter is that no one listened to you, the crime is in that alone. I cringed as I read about the things that your poor body went through and how your mind was frightened as a result… As I had stated above, I am a Nursing student, and believe that there should be balance…I can’t tell you how many times I have been questioned, misdiagnosed, made to feel crazy because I knew that there was something there beyond what the “lab values” said….you just have to keep plugging along and realize that not every person who works in the medical field will treat you poorly.. You seem to have just had a bunch of them do so at the most challenging time of your life which to me is so sad, and boy have I been there! All that any patient ever wants is to be heard and maybe yes, more of the people who are supposed to care for us should open their ears, and close the egos…your post is a reminder to me that there is never a rush so immediate that I will stop “hearing”, and that involves listening with my ears, my heart and my eyes.
I can feel the anger in your post and that also makes me sad…to me, it is such a bummer having to feel like I have to defend a field that I know I will love (whenI finish school once and for all:), because some half butted care provider colored the perceptions of a patient that they wrote off.
It is so important to respect the views of other parents out there case closed! We all matter! I do think that when you are choosing either to vaccinate or not, you have to do your homework free from past experience and emotion. Any time you make any big decision you have to weigh all sides honestly…so when you come to your conclusions you feel comfortable with your choices, no matter what they are. If someone feels that you are putting your daughter at risk by not vaccinating her, fine that is for them (and really..she is not their daughter)…you have to let them know that you are willing to accept that risk because of the decision that you have made for your family. I chose to vaccinate my children and was on the other side of the fence…someone said to me “are you crazy…don’t you know about the “risks” of vaccines? I said that this was the decision that I had made for my family and that I had to accept the risks based on that…no anger, no questions..comfort because I felt solid in my decision…we all love and want what is best for our kids..no one way is THE way. I think that the soomer people realize this the more peace they will have in their hearts!