Let me start off by saying this: I hope A LOT of people share this post and A LOT of people read it. I am not going to respond to comments. Period. These are my feelings and personal experiences. Therefore, I will not argue with people about these things.
I am a mommy. I have two awesome little boys. They were breastfed and formula fed. Sometimes they cry themselves to sleep and sometimes the cuddle up next to me and I put them to sleep. They are VACCINATED (GASP!!). Ryker eats hot dogs and candy and chips. Heck, he has even had pop before. I even threatened to put him on a leash earlier this evening. (Let me just say, he ran away at church and we didn't know where he was.)
I am a nurse. I am educated. I am informed. I am competent. I don't appreciate being called names because I choose to vaccinate my kids. (For example, those who line up to vaccinate their children are like cows being led to slaughter. REALLY?) I don't appreciate being made to feel like I'm less of a mom because I wasn't able to exclusively breastfeed my boys.
I am exhausted. I am so tired of reading articles on Facebook. I am tired of the so called "mommy wars". I'm tired of hearing about how vaccines cause autism. If that were true, I would rather my child be autistic than stricken with polio or lying in a hospital bed dying from whooping cough. There are far worse things.
Don't you people get tired of fighting all the time? I worked in hospice for 4 years of my life. (Best job I ever had) I have watched people die. I have talked to people who knew that their time was limited. And would you believe that they never once told me that they wished they had or hadn't vaccinated their children. They never once told me that they wish their children were exclusively breastfed. They never once told me...insert crazy mom argument here...
PLEASE have your opinions and raise your children the way that is best for you. But if I see one more comment/article/status about these things and I feel the least bit judged, I might go insane. I will probably hide the post or remove you from my friend list, because I AM DONE feeling bad for the way that I parent. I AM DONE judging other people for the things they do. I AM DONE forcing myself to go back through and read comments that I know will just infuriate me. I want to be a happy mommy and I don't want to worry about what other people think.
I just heard Ryker tell me "I love you to infinity and beyond, Mommy!" And I know he does. He trusts me more than anyone in the world. I owe it to him to do what's best. And I will do what's best.
Not knowing where you child is is one of the worst feelings I've ever had. We lost Karalyn at Disney World for what was probably only a few seconds, a minute tops, but it felt like such a long time. Standing in the middle of all of those people and kids, turning a slow circle, scanning for your child. I'm so sorry you went through this. I get so tired of being judged by my family for choosing not to circumcise my boys. Isn't it funny how we don't walk into someones home and tell them how ugly their decorating is, but we feel no qualms about telling them they shouldn't have vaccinated their kids? And how much more strongly do we feel about our kids than we do about our decorating? Let's quit putting each other down because of things we disagree on and start lifting each other up. Parenting is hard, we need all the support we can get. I can tell by the happiness of Ryker and Madox that you are doing a wonderful job.
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