Child Vaccinations

Ok, chill out for a second and let me explain. 

I understand. 

There is a big debate on the ethics, health benefits and the choice of parents to vaccinate their children. There are many many arguments made for both sides. I understand some made on the side of not vaccinating children. Parents have gotten their children vaccinated that have resulted in horrible side effect* (*Vaccines never have nor ever will cause autism.... and honestly would you rather have a child who is alive that need extra care or a child 6 feet underground because of a deadly disease?) From personal experience I agree with not vaccinating your children with certain vaccines because of the known side effects. When I was around the age of 4 I was given the yearly flu shot. Not long after, I broke out. Not just like acne break out or around the punctured area of my arm. No, I had big, semi-painful red rash all over my body. It was very splotchy and it covered from my face to my back, all down my arms, down to my toes. My mom took me to the doctor and he said that it was a reaction to the vaccine because I am allergic to it. He recommended me not receive it anymore and I have not had it since (14+ years). So I understand parents being worried about the side effects of a vaccine. That is completely reasonable and also very responsible of parents. 

So? Just do some research. Instead of saying no to all vaccines because they have side effects, keep in mind that everything has side effects. Over the counter medication, birth, raising children, getting a job, etc. Nothing in life is ever going to be simple. So, if your pediatrician suggests a vaccine, do some research. Why would your child need this vaccine? How susceptible is your child without it? Does it have anything your child is allergic to? What are the side effects? 

Just make sure you know what you are going to put into your child and why. The why is the ringer here. Is the disease potentially fatal, can it result in future damage to your child (i.e. chicken pox can lead to the shingles virus which is exponentially worse than small annoying itchy bumps on your 3-year-old) or is it just a simple annoyance like the flu?

Now. I am not saying that you need to vaccinate your child with all the vaccines available. Just do your research. You read books, took classes, and talked with experts (your own parents) about how to raise a child so why wouldn't you do some real research on vaccines instead of just listening to the easily spreadable and most likely fake propaganda that is spread through social media by those who have no idea what they are actually talking about. 

With all that being said, here is why I am on the side of vaccinating my children. 

Now, keep in mind I haven't been eligible to vote for a long time, I am still quite young and still learning a lot of things about the world. I am not married at this current date (2017) and I am not a mother either. The only experience I have had in "raising" a child is babysitter my siblings and other's children. So, not a lot of experience. But I know that as a mother I will care about my child's well being with all the fiber of my being. So if there are deadly diseases my children are susceptible to, I will take every step to protect my children from them.    

But... I understand that it is a parents choice on how to raise a child and it is not my place to judge others parenting styles and abilities. So if you don't what to vaccinate your children because of (x) reasons, that is your choice. And many of those that argue on the side of not vaccinating use a very common, social media, argument that goes like this, "If your child is vaccinated, why do you care that mine is not. Your child won't get the disease from mine because they are vaccinated. Right?" 

True. I will not argue with that logic. But that logic has many holes... those holes being other children. You are right. If my 3-grade child is vaccinated then they cannot get whooping cough from your 3-grade child. Now whooping cough is a very horrible disease. I wouldn't want any child to have that let alone my own. But people only look at those addressed in that simple hole filled argument. Your child and my child. No one ever thinks about the reality of children. 

Think about this. Your 1-grade son named Willaim was not vaccinated from whooping cough and thus contracts it. Now, at the age of 6 or 7, William's immune system is strong enough to fight this disease and survive. William is best friends with my daughter Emily. Emily is vaccinated so William cannot possibly give Emily whooping cough. Yay, hurray, problem solved right? Wrong. Because Emily is not my old child. Just a few days before William get sick with pertussis I gave birth to my other child Jack. William has a runny nose and a cough, (typical symptoms of a cold, but he doesn't just have a cold). William goes to school with his "cold" and plays with my daughter Emily at recess. They play ring around the Rosies, patty cake with those songs about lemonade, and all the other fun games that children play where they make physical contact. And as much as we would love our kids to be vigilant at washing their hands before meals, after they use the bathroom, and after they have coughed into their hand, let's be honest, they don't. Most kids at that age don't thinking about how germs travel like we do as educated parents. 

So William coughs into hands while running on the play ground then touches Emily's hand while playing patty cake, Emily doesn't wash her hands all day, thus eats a hamburger for lunch with her hands, touches her clothes, etc. Now, as established, Emily will not get sick because of this. Great. But then Emily comes home to Mommy and Jack, her newborn baby brother. Now Jack, as a new born, cannot get the vaccine for whooping cough, and if he were to get the disease his immune system isn't strong enough to fight it. So Emily kisses Jack, she holds him, and lets him suck on her fingers (the germs are on both her hands and her clothes) and now Emily has passed on those germs from your sick child William to my new born son Jack. Now my new born baby has the very high, almost guaranteed, risk of dying because you chose not to vaccinate your child from whooping cough. If you don't believe that my new born could die from this disease because you have no idea what it is, just watch this video explaining it. 

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/newborn-dies-whooping-cough/story?id=15067360

Ok, so using whooping cough as an example in this scenario is a bit extreme. But replace this with any other disease that is preventable by a simple vaccine and is a danger to new borns and this situation remains the same. This is how easily germs spread. The events of this scenario are 100% plausible and are happening in today's socitey. The germs from your unvaccinated children are passed to other's children and are then brought home.

Now it may sound like I am blaming this all on parents that don't vaccinate, which is part of the problem, but I am not doing so to be judging or to put myself on a pedestal of my hypothetical better parenting. I am just trying to get people to realize that there are more people in the equation than just your unvaccinated child and my vaccinated child. And that was all just a hypothetical situation based on facts that young children are not as sanitary as parents wish and how easily germs spread. 

My Biggest Argument.

For myself personally, here is my biggest reason as to why I believe that parents should not only be educated about vaccines but also should actively vaccinate their children.

At this point in my life (2017) I am in a serious relationship with someone I intend to marry when the time comes that we are ready to take that next step. So I think about our future together. I think about our jobs, where we are going to live (city, state) and how many kids we are going to have, our future children's names (our first born son will be named Toby Eric, no exceptions!!!!!). But I also think about the more practical aspects as well, like the medical ones. My boyfriend has an auto-immune disorder. Long story short, he cannot produce working antibodies. He cannot fight off diseases as easily as the rest of us can, he gets sick quite often, he coughs so much there are times I don't notice it anymore, and if he gets a small paper cut it will almost always get infected and take longer to heal. He also has other medical problems along with the immune deficiency. 

So, because my boyfriend doesn't produce antibodies, vaccines are useless. As I hope you are aware, vaccines are a sample of the disease that is combined with chemicals that prevent the disease from fully infecting the recipient. Now, the body's white blood cells and antibodies use this sample of the disease to learn how to fight it. It is a test run, a boot camp if you will, of the possible war it will fight when the body is infected with the real disease. This "boot camp" provides knowledge your body needs to know how to fight the war and WIN! Without antibodies to fight the "disease battle" daily, how could the body learn to fight disease from vaccines. 

So, with vaccines basically useless, my boyfriend cannot get vaccinated. It is not that he chooses not to, it's just pointless to do so. So now, if your whooping cough infected son William was to come over on a play date with my future son Toby and end up also come into contact with my future husband (who has no immune system) then my husband will be infected with this now horribly painful disease that could also lead to other diseases like pneumonia. Again, using whooping cough is extreme but just replace it with any other disease and it is still dangerous and harmful to my boyfriend, or future husband in this scenario.    

Even more so, my son Toby could have the same immune deficiency as his father. If you were to look up the deficiency that my boyfriend has, you will learn that it is basically not genetic. It cannot be passed down to our children. So now you can argue that our children will not have the same problems their father has. But my boyfriend has 3 siblings, all brothers, and they all have the same auto-immune disorder, and their father also has this disorder. It is not "technically" genetic but for this family, it is. They are some weird genetic anomaly. So, with this knowledge, explain to me the chances our children will have of also having this same immune problem. If all our children do, which is very likely, then not only do I have to worry about diseases I can spread to them, but also what the children at school can spread.

What is the main point?

Think about all those involved... which is everyone. Anyone and everyone you and your children have any contact with, and who those people have contact with, etc. etc. Everyone, from newborns to elderly, has the potential to be infected by this disease spread by your child because they were not vaccinated. And what about all those that have immune disorders, or have gone through surgeries, or have siblings and family members that have immune disorders or gone through surgeries and are more susceptible to diseases. You don't know who is and who isn't. You cannot assume that everyone can be vaccinated. Those fellow classmates of your children may be allergic to vaccines like I was with the flu vaccine or that their bodies don't fight diseases as well as they should, or at all. 

Please. Keep in mind that it isn't just your child that is impacted by your choice to vaccinate them or not. It is every child, from new borns, to cancerous, to immune deficient. Just because it is our choice doesn't mean the consequences, good and bad, fall solely only us. It impacts all those around us. The world doesn't revolve around you. It doesn't revolve around me. WE REVOLVE AROUND THE SUN WHILE STANDING ON THE EARTH INTERACTING WITH ONE ANOTHER. We impact other's lives, in both good ways and bad, whether we mean to or not. We do not get to choose the consequences that befall our choices, but we can choose which paths to take, and learn ahead of time the consequences that can befall those choices. 

Just be educated. The biggest issue with society today is we have stopped learning. We have stopped challenging our minds in college, we have stopped learning about the past, and, most importantly, we have stopped learning from each other. We have stopped listening and trying to understand other's points of view, even though they differ from ours. We have stopped learning about who our neighbors are, stopped learning about the different cultures of our own society. We have simply stopped learning and started focusing inward on ourselves. This isn't just the modern generation. Everyone that is alive right now, from the baby boomers to the silent generation and including millennials. We don't care about learning about others, we only care about what happens to ourselves. 

Just remeber that you are only 1 person in an equation that is over 7 billion people long.