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I was listening to the @notsmartblog podcast, about the anti-vax movement, and it made me think about how close I was to not vaccinating my kids. Literally a coin flip away. In retrospect, I feel lucky the coin landed the way it did...but it easily could have not. Thread:Permalink On twitter.com
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My daughters are 10 & 8. When they were little, my mom worked for a chiropractor. She's always had a serious distrust of the medical community, and the pseudoscience of chiropractic magnified it. She & her chiropractor boss tried hard to convince us not to vaccinate our kids.Permalink On twitter.com
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Coming from a chiropractor, this seemed like reputable information coming from a reputable source. On the one hand, we had our expert pediatrician telling us to vaccinate; on the other, we had an expert chiropractor telling us not to vaccinate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Permalink On twitter.com
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In hindsight, this is probably the issue that convinced me that chiropractic is fraudulent. But at the time, I wasn't sure what to think. I remember several conversations with my wife where we said to each other "I have literally no idea what to do."Permalink On twitter.com
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We wanted nothing more than to make the right decision for our kids, but both sides had convincing arguments. Today, the public outlook is largely in favor of vaccination, and the overwhelming sentiment is that anti-vax is poppycock. 11 years ago, this was totally not the case.Permalink On twitter.com
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I don't know how we decided to vaccinate our kids. It could have literally been a coin flip. It seemed at the time like a pretty arbitrary decision. Today it feels obviously like we made the right decision, and I'm really glad we did.Permalink On twitter.com
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But I can't help wondering what would have happened if the coin landed on tails instead. Knowing what I know today about the backfire effect, and confirmation bias, I expect that had we decided not to vaccinate, we _easily_ could have become anti-vaxxers.Permalink On twitter.com
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Rule #1 about being a parent, IMO, is not to judge other parents. Because this shit is hard, and we are all just trying to get through each day & make the right decisions for our kids' future.Permalink On twitter.com
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But sometimes we make decisions that are effectively arbitrary. And then we dig in our heels, and our brains do everything we can to convince ourselves that we made the correct arbitrary decision. Even when there is tons of information indicating otherwise.Permalink On twitter.com
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But it all began with us trying to make the best decision we could, with the information we had. Influenced by our community, our experts, our family and our friends. Every single one of us is trying to make the best choice.Permalink On twitter.com
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Sometimes we make the right decision. Sometimes we make the wrong decision. Sometimes we just make a decision that's different from that of others.Permalink On twitter.com
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Some days we run out of spoons (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion), and we hand our kid an ipad because we just don't have the strength anymore.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's easy to judge if you _aren't_ a parent; but if you _are_ a parent, you definitely should know better. You easily could be them. You easily could have made the choices they did. You know what it's like to run out of spoons, or run on 3 hours of sleep. It's hard.Permalink On twitter.com
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My biggest point: this sense of empathy should include folks who didn't vaccinate. My wife and I were literally a coin flip away from being on the wrong side of that decision. You could have been too.Permalink On twitter.com
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Get high and mighty about how "OMFG it's so OBVIOUS that not vaccinating your kids is selfish and wrong and I would never have done that!!!" And it absolutely _is_ those things.Permalink On twitter.com
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But also, you _could_ have done that. You _could_ have made that same decision. You _could_ have had one bad influence when you were deciding. An "expert" that pushed their "expert" opinion. And then you would have dug in your heels & believed anything that confirmed your choice.Permalink On twitter.com
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Getting mad at folks who chose not to vaccinate is only going to backfire & convince them to dig in their heels further. Maybe what they need instead is someone to tell them:Permalink On twitter.com
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It's okay to change your mind. You made that choice years ago based on the information you had, and you did it for your kids. Maybe you are starting to feel it was the wrong choice, but your _identity_ is in the choice you made, and no one wants to challenge their _identity_.Permalink On twitter.com
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But you *can* change your mind. And your identity *isn't* the decisions you made ten years ago.Permalink On twitter.com
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(Feel free to apply that ^^^ to anything, not just a choice to not vaccinate your kids)Permalink On twitter.com
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Blah blah blah, I love you all, let's all hug and be best friends. (But only after we get your kids vaccinated, okay?) /finPermalink On twitter.com
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Dangit! Missed opportunity to label this thread an #UnpopularOpinion, because I think it might legitimately be one.On twitter.com
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