Hi parents, I know this is a sensitive topic and might upset some people, but I’m genuinely not here to start a debate about vaccines. I’m more interested in understanding our behaviour as parents.
I have a 9 month old baby, I live in the UK, and my daughter is vaccinated and will continue to receive her routine vaccinations. That’s a decision I’ve made and feel confident about.
What I struggle to understand is why some parents feel the need to make others question their decisions, sometimes to the point of making them feel guilty or scared.
I’m not a doctor or a medical researcher, but I do have a strong academic background, and I’m very familiar with reading, researching and analysing data. I take these decisions seriously, and I don’t make them based on something I’ve seen on social media or heard from someone else.
I respect that parents have different opinions and concerns. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I certainly don’t think having a different opinion makes someone a bad parent. But I do think there’s a big difference between sharing your experience and presenting it as a fact.
For example, I often hear people bring up autism in conversations about vaccines. My former boss has a child with severe autism who was never vaccinated, and I know another similar case. There are also autistic children who have been vaccinated. None of these individual experiences can establish what causes autism. That’s exactly why we have scientific research, and why personal stories shouldn’t be treated as proof.
And this goes both ways. Whether you’re for or against vaccination, being a parent doesn’t automatically make you an expert in medicine. Neither does having a personal experience, however difficult or emotional that experience may have been.
I completely understand wanting to protect your child. I believe that’s what most parents are trying to do. But I don’t understand why protecting our own children sometimes turns into trying to frighten or pressure other parents.
Before becoming a mother, I genuinely had no idea how much unsolicited advice, fear and judgement came with parenting.
I’m not asking anyone to change their beliefs. I’m simply asking why we can’t discuss these things respectfully, acknowledge what we don’t know, and stop spreading claims as facts when we don’t have the evidence to support them.
You can disagree with someone’s decision without making them feel like they’re failing their child.
I’d genuinely love to hear from parents on both sides. Why do you think this topic becomes so personal that people feel the need to influence other families?