I took my son in for his 9 month checkup yesterday. And predictably, I was getting lectured by the pediatrician on a host of things about raising my son. While I was polite and held my tongue, she was incredibly condescending about being a parent, acting as if my wife and I don’t know how to handle a baby.
For starters, she assumed that my son goes to daycare when I mentioned that he had a cold recently and that we think his mucus may have slid into his lungs. While he thankfully had no infection in his lungs, it was annoying that she was making that assumption, rather than simply asking us if he goes to daycare. No, unlike your worthless husband, I’m actually able to work a job that pays me enough so that my wife does not have to work. That and we are willing to live with less.
While a minor annoyance, when we mentioned that he’s started crawling, she went into lecture mode about covering electrical outlets and securing cabinets. Because I have no interest in the safety of my child and I’m an ignorant yahoo, right?
To top that off, when asking about his sleeping habits, we mentioned that he sometimes wakes up at night and we usually feed him and put him back to bed. She also told us to make sure we simply put him in bed at night. Because all of these things have to do with the health of the baby, right?
Look, we will handle my son’s sleeping habits as we see fit. Of course we want him to sleep through the night. And if I want my son to fall asleep while laying on my lap, who are you to tell me not to? I guess I’m not supposed to have a close relationship with my child then.
And finally, we get to the vaccinations. Now, my wife and I decided early on that we would not vaccinate our child until he was at least one year old. This is largely because he was not going to be in daycare and because we believed that the current vaccine schedule has more to do with crony capitalism than the health of my child.
Look, when it comes to vaccinations, I am not willing to subject my child to what amounts to repeated infections of multiple viruses when he is still very young and can’t even move around yet. Furthermore, I am sick of hearing about how I am putting my child in danger because I don’t vaccinate him. When you look at the long list of possible side effects of vaccines, you can easily argue that I an endangering my son by vaccinating him.
I wish I could say that she is just repeating misinformation based on good intentions. But she is not. Many people across the nation assume that parents do not know how to raise children, for whatever reason, and think that they have the right to tell others how to do it.
I am sick of the moral busybodies who have such authority and see fit to lecture me on how to run my life and how I should manage my son’s life. It pisses me off to no end.
I guess I’ll have to try and find a new doctor for my son now. I just hope the new one isn’t as much of a fascist as the current ones are.