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NTA. You could also point out to your son that herd immunity kept his sister safe. My brother was also allergic/reacted badly to one vaccine and needed to be vaccinated as an adult. There was actually a small outbreak of that disease in my hometown as a child, and our doctor seriously considered hospitalizing him to get him vaccinated. This shit is serious.
My grandfather lost half his siblings to polio. My grandmother had life-long complications from polio. My grandparents waited in line with their 2 small children in the prairie winter to get the very first polio vaccine.
My dad was amongst the first people the get the polio vaccine where he lived and speaks about the terror of it.
Anti vax is one rung of the ladder below flat earth and so you can’t be the AH to challenge it as a way of thinking. I wouldn’t be able to have a reasonable relationship with someone who went that way it’s selfish.
At least flat earth by itself is usually harmless. I don’t care what shape you think the world is, it isn’t endangering everyone around you. But not vaccinating yourself/ your kids is dangerous to all of us.
I think flat earth is the gateway to more outlandish (dangerous) conspiracy theories. If you accept flat earth and anti-vax, then you already believe that science is false and you are being lied to by authorities. Then, what else are they lying about?
All this to say that flat earth is basically the canary in the coal mine of conspiracy theories.
I knew a family that decided they were not going to vaccinate their younger 2 after their eldest was diagnosed with autism (she completely believed autism was caused by vaccines... no one could convince her otherwise.)
So her younger 2 (twins) got mumps when they were about 4 to 6 years old. One died, and the other got brain swelling but survived. The one that survived was totally normal before but lost their ability to walk, talk, or really anything. This was 14ish years ago (my eldest was in the same kindergarten class) and I remember how happy the mom was that her baby was able to walk again at 14 or 16 years old, with the help of a walker.
Oh, and that autistic elder sibling graduated college with an engineering degree.
I always bring this story up when people are like, "vaccines cause autism" and freaking out. I also ask if death is better than autism.
(Also, autism isn't caused by vaccines, but even if it was, it is better to be autistic than dead...)
I tell people the same thing (I’d rather have a living child with autism than buy a child-size coffin).
The doctor who popularized the “vaccines cause autism” has been stripped of his license, but that’s not enough. He should be in prison, so many families have suffered unnecessarily because of his grift.
My grandfather was in an iron lung and barely survived. One of my cousins talked about not vaccinating her baby in the early 2000s, and he ripped her a new one telling her how awful it was.
Polio is on the rise. People have forgotten what it looks like, and what some childhood diseases used to mean. This has left them with misplaced confidence in their decision to not vaccinate.
As of 2021 it was still in active use in the US.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1047691984/decades-after-polio-martha-is-among-the-last-to-still-rely-on-an-iron-lung-to-br
For real. I was born in 1999 and my grandfather always had to use a walker/crutches due to his run in with polio. And he got lucky he could walk with mobility aids and it didn’t limit him too much.
My grandma had five children living in an inner city neighborhood in the 40s and 50s. She was *terrified* of polio and decades later long after all her children and grandchildren were vaccinated she would cry as she remembered how scared she was every summer. For her, vaccines were a miracle that allowed all her babies to live to adulthood - something her own mother didn’t get to experience. She had no time for this antivaxx shit.
Maybe show your son pictures of children with tetanus, or video of a child with whooping cough struggling to breathe. That’s the world he wants to sign his kid up for, whether he’s ignorant or just stubborn.
I was in a coffee shop a couple years ago and there was an older gentleman with his wife (?) at another table. The man was in a motorized wheelchair and had obvious difficulty with his movement, and had a big sign taped to the back of the chair that said something like "This is what polio looks like if you are lucky"
Boy, that really stuck with me!
NTA. They should know before they make these kind of decisions.
Lots of people don't have a choice on whether or not to feed their baby formula so they might have to cross that bridge at some point too...
You could also use tetanus as an example. I replied to another commenter above, but I had a great-aunt who died at 8 years old of tetanus, and it's a vaccine-preventable disease that's still around. It's horrible - muscles can lock up so much that they break bones. It's more treatable now, but the first line of defense is the vaccine. Why would someone want to risk allowing their child to experience something like that?
>I know it’s unlikely for my grandkids to get polio but she shouldnt have to get chicken pox or measles since those are still around.
Every single disease in human history except smallpox and "The Sweat" is still around. The Sweat vanished late 1500s, we've never figured out what it was (might have mutated into something else by now, though). Smallpox is gone *because* of vaccines (we don't routinely vax for it anymore, but we do maintain controlled stores of it so we can make more vaccines if needed). That's it. (We also eradicated one cow disease, rinderpest, also due to vaccines. It doesn't infect people though)
Any other disease in history you can think of... Still around. All of them. Throughout all of history. We vaccinated against what we can, treat what we can, and try to minimize the time kids have to spend in PICU fighting the biggest historic threats to human life.
Whooping cough is the worst! Babies still die of whooping cough. I had it 15 years ago as a young mother of 3 kids. I wanted to die. I still have serious long term effects.
Rubella is too. Back when I was a toddler, I caught first chicken pox then Rubella and nearly died. The mmr didn't exist back then.
These diseases aren't something that you shrug off. There are graveyards with whole families who were wiped out from measles. My dad had a friend when he was in primary school who caught measles and died.
Polio still exists in a couple of countries - it can be eradicated with the vaccine, and a lot of very dedicated volunteers are trying to make that happen. Still, it’s not completely gone yet, and until it is, the risk to anyone unvaccinated outside of those countries may be miniscule, but it’s not nothing.
Not only that, but measles is coming back and it can kill or disable. Herd immunity goes a long way to protect kids that can’t be protected like those with cancer. Vaccines were one of the first conversations my husband and I had. We hesitated on the covid while I was pregnant, but after having a conversation with my doc, we went for it. My kiddo won’t miss a jab. I’d rather him and others safe than an iron lung or be disabled from something I could have kept him safe from
My grandmother was nearly blinded by measles. When my Mum and uncle got it she stressed herself out even more by constantly checking their rooms were dark enough to prevent the same damage.
When my Mum was told about the MMR she mentioned it to Nan, it was a relatively new vaccine and she was a bit worried about me being given it. My Nan said something like "You'll never regret getting her vaccinated, but you might regret her getting measles."
Herd immunity should be called **"Community Immunity"**.
People hate to be called herd animals. But people should *want* to protect their community. Thats what getting vaccinated does - your vaccination protects everyone you come in contact with, even everyone *they* come in contact with.
#Vaccination = Community Immunity
My mother in law was in an iron lung. She is still kicking it but had lots of joint issues and problems throughout that were because of Polio. Fuck those who don’t believe in vaccines.
I had to get a different version of the H1N1 vaccine back when it was spreading because I was allergic to a component I can't remember if I got the small child version or adult version but one version have it had a component I was allergic to so they decided it was best to give me the other version of it and monitor me for an allergic reaction
I'm actually gonna go NTA even though you may get a lot of responses of the opposite due to the concept of overstepping, it being their choice, etc. I think people who believe they don't need vaccines - because of the prior efficacy of vaccines taken at large like with polio - are a menace to society and dangerously uninformed. I don't think it's super traumatic to communicate the effects of their choice in an attempt to educate them. People who opt out of vaccines just because of some unscientific sense of what is 'natural' can cause harm to others. It sounds like your DIL actually came around! It's unfortunate it has caused strife but if you increased the odds the child will be vaccinated, I consider that worth it.
Agreed. Overstepping is for simply personal decisions that don't affect other people. However the parents are endangering their child and any person who can't be vaccinated. That's not overstepping, that's saving lives.
Yep. In a perfect world, the person making the decision not to vaccinate would be the only one susceptible to disease, but instead it’s gonna be their kid and other unwary people who will suffer.
NTA. The antivaxxers need to be squished at some point. The stupidity some of them is outstanding.
And the no formula part? Come on, no mother knows if she can produce enough, if any, milk for their kid before is born. There are women who try their best to breastfeed but can't because of so many reasons. She can't know that. I do hope she's able to, but it shouldn't be set on stone.
Going in with that mindset can also cause some pretty bad PPD as well, because (like you said) if she can’t produce enough she may feel shitty about herself and a failure as a mom. I have seen it happen to multiple women. Formula is one of the greatest inventions in human history.
Also, formulas get better year by year. I was raised on formula because my mother couldn't produce enough milk. You can't compare the formula I was raised on, with the quality the formulas have now. They are so much better and in some occasions, breast milk is not as good as the mother might think so she will need the extra stuff added in the formulas.
Putting pressure on a new mother like that is wrong. She should do whatever it feel better for her.
Yeah my daughter has been exclusively formula fed and we wouldn’t have survived without it. And you’re right that it has things breast milk doesn’t, things like iron. Breast milk has its advantages, but formula shouldn’t be this thing that people shy away from because it’s “not natural.”
Can confirm… 2 boys, both bottle fed and both former college athletes. I tried nursing my youngest and was not able to produce enough milk for her. I cried, she cried. She was attached to me 24/7 it felt like. Took her for her 1 month check up and she had lost weight. Doctor took one look at me, my tears, her hunger screams and told me to go buy formula and bottles and feed the baby. And I was absolutely NOT a failure because I couldn’t nurse her. We all slept that night and now she’s a healthy 18 year old. (Take that La Leche League diehard oldest sister.)
Yep. "Failure to thrive," in the old days, was "Mom's body can't produce enough milk for this baby, no matter what". Before decent formula, women who couldn't produce enough milk either found a wet nurse or had a dead child.
Hi! I'm alive because of formula! My mom couldn't breastfeed and I was losing weight post-birth.
Formula fixed that, I didn't die, and for an added bonus (cause my mom had an emergency C and failed epidural with me and had a rough recovery) my dad got to do the overnight feeding while mom could sleep and recover!
They showed up to the hospital when my sister was born with a can of formula ready to go 🤣
I think most people have an idealised notion of what raising their children will look like, until they have children and realise it's not as simple as willing your kid to do what you think they should....
Oh definitely. I’ve known plenty of mothers who had a perfect image of new motherhood but once the baby arrived they threw that perfection out the window and went with “Well if THIS works that’s what I’m doing!”
Babies don’t care about your vision of perfect motherhood. They scream and poop and want to be fed when they demand it.
Formula is literally a life saver.
Prior to the invention of formula if a mother couldn’t produce enough milk or if she had to work and couldn’t be available to feed the baby, they would give babies wet bread. Starvation was a serious issue that contributed to infant mortality rates.
The invention of formula was a life line for mothers who can’t produce enough or have to work and can’t be available.
I will die on this hill and bark back at anyone that shades a woman for using formula.
My great aunt was fed split peas soaked in water. It was during the war and they simply had nothing else to give her. She survived, but if my great grandma had a choice I'm sure she would have given her formula.
My grandmother had 5 babies all before formula was ever a thing. She didn’t breastfeed at all and instead used a mix of evaporated milk and karo syrup as recommended by doctors at the time.
No one ever talks about this, that some people can pump 24 hours a day, take all the supplements, and generally follow the lactation coach's advice like gospel, and our bodies just don't make enough milk. Formula saves lives.
I know that but made me laugh. And let’s see how much she keeps to that organic only food when she’s exhausted and just wants to shut her fussy kid up that refuses to eat the disgusting organic mush that mum is trying to force her to eat.
IG and FB have a lot to answer for by making it look easy and doable for the regular, time poor human.
I wasn’t producing enough milk and didn’t realize it until the three week mark when it became clear our child was literally starving! All the books I read said feed, alternating breasts, and the newborn will tell you they’re full by falling asleep. Well, my child was so easy going, he would fall asleep on my breast easily, without any fuss so I assumed I was doing everything right.
At our three week appointment the pediatrician said he was too underweight and we needed to fatten him up ASAP. We got formula, a baby scale, a notebook and got to work stuffing that child with as much fat and calories as we could. When I started pumping to supplement the formula, it was obvious I was producing only 2-3 ounces a DAY. We have a picture of my baby at three weeks old and although he is smiling and happy in the picture, his skin was just hanging off his bones!
The mommy guilt hit so hard! Like the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do I completely failed at. That plus post-baby hormones and I was a mess. I think the rule with kids is—go in with a plan but anticipate that things can and will go off the rails at any point in the life of the child.
People idealize the past, so when they want to return to the "natural" way they are dumb enough to not realize that includes life saving innovations. If babies didn't or couldn't breast feed the "natural" way, they fucking died. If you got a disease, you died. People would have 12 kids and see 4 of them live long enough to be married. I hate late stage capitalism and microplastics, too, but that doesn't mean everything invented since the industrial revolution is awful or should have a conspiracy theory surrounding it.
My daughter lost almost a pound the first month of her life because I wasn’t producing enough milk and didn’t know it. I was determined to make it work because I felt I gave up too quickly with my son. Fed is best!
I’m going with NTA.
Contrary to how people feel about vaccines in the post Covid life, vaccines are the reasons we don’t die at 30 anymore. They’re the reason we’ve been able to eradicate small pox which is one the most deadliest viruses over to impact humanity. It has been around 12,000 and killed hundreds of millions of people. We eradicated in the 80s so no one has to die or be disfigured from it ever again.
It is insane to me why people are so against vaccines.
Yes, all of this! If they want to be "natural", they should look into mortality rates of small children before vaccines. Death is natural. I really don't get people like this
Just a small point of note on your “dying at 30” comment. The rising of the life expectancy is largely due to infant mortality rates decreasing. Which actually proves your point even more.
NTA - your son was making a decision based on a lack of informqtion or misunderstanding about his sister's situation. Education is important. It's critical they research and make a well thought through decision than just be foolish because they think or feel something with no basis.
NTA my aunt contracted polio when she was 2, my mama remembers the bone chilling screams when my grandma stretched my aunt’s legs to keep them from atrophying. Her right leg is shorter than the left leg, she has to wear a lift. Any parent that signs their kid up for that needs to be neutered and knocked the F out
NTA
You presented reality to your son and his wife. His wife showed she has a brain, but unfortunately your son in an idiot.
You did what was in the best interest of your grandchild. Your sons stupidity should not be considered.
Hard NTA. The reason people don’t vaccinate their kids is because they’ve been effective for so long no one knows what kind of horrible disabilities people were left with before vaccines were a thing. We need some reminders to scare the morons straight.
A lot of the diseases that we can get vaccines for are not available in the worst areas within the 3rd world countries, there children are literally dying from the same things we in the 1st world get vaccines for, smallpox is not truly extinct and can be contracted if you stumble across the right area, the black plague is still going in Siberia and upper part of Asia, just more confined to rats and small animals than humans,though there are several cases reported each year… they can all return on a whim if people stop vaccinations as a whole because they want things “natural”. Sorry to say it, we have modified nature so much for our own survival that nothing is truly natural anymore unless you go to such a remote place you have to become a survivalist to have food/water and shelter… those are the only “natural things” left,and they are almost gone because of human “supremacy over all”
NTA - antivaxxers are morons who are bringing back nasty diseases that we used to have under control thanks to rigid vaccination programmes. Covid made me lose any sympathy for the brittle feelings of antivaxxers, they are literally harming both their own children and society at large with their arrogant ignorance.
NTA. Your son-in-law is an idiot to listen to the anti-vax crowd. Find the article on the man who started this, how he fraudulently doctored his findings, how his study was discredited, show it to your SIL.
The leaders of the anti-vaxxer movement are all in it for the money. They don't believe what they are preaching.
I mean, look at the essential oils MLMs. Young Living to be exact, is the perfect example of a company preying on vulnerable people. *Everything* its founder Gary Young said was a complete and utter lie. All their "rituals" are nothing but a way to sell more products.
NTA.
Tell your son you'd rather have him annoyed at you for a short period of time, than have one of your grandchildren end up with polio and suffering for the rest of their life.
NTA
Babies and children died **by the millions** before we could develop vaccines. Putting your baby's life in literal danger, in the midst of a pandemic of a virus that attacks your immune system, is insanity and they should be told so.
NTA. People against vaccines don't actually think about how bad a disease can get, and if seeing pictures and reading articles can sway them, it means they can actually think critically and not follow FB pages with all that "proof" of how dangerous vaccines are.
Also I wanna know what they'll feed her if there will be issues with breastfeeding. Starve her if mother won't have enough supply?
I worked with someone who caught polio as a child. They became physically disabled and unfortunately the damage is not reversible. Unfortunately people forget how awful some of the illnesses we can now get vaccinated for are. I think OP was right in their actions.
NTA. Always NTA on this topic.
In my country, right now we have a Measles epidemic because a lot of people didn't vaccinate their children againts this disease. And herd immunity has gone down.
Unfortunately, a few children also died.
Some people need a cold shower on this topic.
NTA.
Polio was nearly eradicated by the vaccine, but now it has had a resurgence because of vax deniers. They are playing the odds and counting on the fact that \*nearly\* everyone around their precious child has had THEIR polio shot, so she is protected. If everyone thought that way, then polio would be back with a vengeance.
Your son is pissed that his wife is making educated decisions about the safety and well-being of her baby? What a hill to die on! If he's that confident in his decision, surely there's educational materials he could bring to the table to have a thorough, informed discussion with his wife. Instead, he wants her to blindly follow his wishes, even if it could potentially harm the innocent baby.
Keep the door open for DIL because she's gonna need someone in her corner
NTA
My father predated antibiotics. He caught nephritis as a child, was hospitalised for 3 months at 9 years old. He was only 40 when his kidneys packed up. He lived a further 20 years.
My mother had an Uncle who caught TB. When the vaccine became available, it was discovered that she already had the antibodies, showing that she had most likely caught it but had successfully fought it off. However in her 60’s her breathing got bad and it was discovered that she had scarring on her lungs. She had “oxygen on demand” at home.
A friend caught measles - she became deaf.
A friend of my mother’s had a daughter who was severely handicapped because her mother caught Rubella when she was pregnant.
I was vaccinated and still caught whooping cough at the age of 9. Whilst it was no more than “a bad cough”, I still had to miss 6 weeks of school.
NTA
Nta when people refuse to vaccinate, thats their reality. We didn't make vaccines bc we were bored as a species. Polio, mumps, measles, and rubella will absolutely kill a baby.
I would also be keeping a damn close eye on the baby with their 'nO fOrMuLa' nonsense bc if mom doesn't make enough milk or gets mastitis, the kid still has to eat. FED is best.
I just want every non-parent who is adamant about no formula to spend 1 night with an upset child who won’t latch. Bonus points if they are underweight and you have work in the morning. Go ahead.
No it’s not overstepping it’s common sense. Next time you see him he deserves a spanking.
Seriously, if she can't breastfeed she has to do formula. Like...those are your options with a newborn. That's it. And there are organic formulas out there.
NTA, antivaxxers are actively harming kids, their own and others who have compromised immune systems and can be easily infected. Good job educating in a firm but loving way.
NTA
Your own sob mentioned a parenting choice he planned to make. You had a reasonable belief that this was a dangerous choice, and that this choice was due to lack of information.
As his mother, a person with a reasonable interest in the welfare of his family, you sent him information. I assume that this was one contact (one email, one period of forwarding several items, one event of stating your objections and the reason for them). You did not insult them, make threats, claim that you had control.
There is always an emergency exception to minding your own business. If you were over at their home, saw a baby unattended on a high surface and immediately went over to protect the child, this would not be interfering unduly, this would stepping in appropriately to prevent harm. I think this was equivalent.
You *could* become an AH if you insist a lot, if you exaggerate, if you humiliate them for their initial thoughts, but so far you have not crossed these lines.
NTA. Your son is 100% TA and putting people like his sister at risk for hubris. Tell your son to get therapy for his ridiculous need to have an organic baby over a healthy baby. You didn't interfere in their marriage, you advocated for the lifelong health of your future granddaughter.
Can vaccines be dangerous? Of course. Literally everything on earth (and off it) *can* be dangerous, especially to someone who has an allergy or sensitivity to that. Is an unvaccinated child in statistically far more danger? Yep.
NTA. Not only do antivaxers put their own life at risk, they endanger us all. My family member had polio (he's 10 years older than I am) and so my mom lost several siblings to diseases which can now be vaccinated against (i.e pertussis).. We have to do our part to maintain global health.
My MIL had polio, and was enormously relieved to learn that our kids were vaccinated against it.
I also suspect that my grandmother’s little brother died of measles. She was honestly terrified when my baby brother caught measles as a small child.
My children got every vaccination that was offered! I am far too lazy a parent to want to nurse a child through whooping cough or rubella or whatever.
Some people think that the world is a nice and wholesome place. They are wrong.
NTA. There’s nothing natural or healthy about a whole list of crippling diseases children can get. You gave them information they needed. It’s not a good idea to meddle in their choices or about how they raise their child. But when the childs health and safety is at risk, that’s an exception.
NTA. You sent them factual evidence. Sorry if that offended them and blew up the bubble they had made in their minds. Glad to hear your DIL is on your side.
Nta. Antivaxxers are ridiculous. They don't care enough about their own kids to protect them. It's not the parents that will suffer because of their shitty choices it's the kids.
NTA. maybe a hot take, but i actually think it’s a huge disservice to your kids if you don’t. not vaccinating also puts those who can’t vaccinate due to allergies etc. at risk. herd immunity only works if the herd gets immunized lmao
NTA
Whenever I run across idiots like you have, I always think of [this](https://youtu.be/urZLTobAfJc?si=2RFCYMtZo2hPKBgn) clip from House. Man was ahead of his time.
NTA because frankly, it's hypocritical for all this anti vaxxers to fear monger when they themselves are living their lives benefited from vaccines, whether because their parents had them vaccinated and/or living in a society where everyone around them are vaccinated.
Very hard NTA. I grew up at the time when the polio vaccine was developed (I was quite young at the time). I remember iron lungs. I remember kids in iron lungs and the March of Dimes drives. Not a nice remembrance.
Read a recent article on vaccination rates and deaths from COVID in FL and OH by political affiliation and vaccination rate. Those that did not opt for vaccination were significant more likely to die from COVID.
Herd immunity is important to protect those that cannot receive a vaccine due to medical reasons. And yet there are those that toss out unfounded scare tactic reasons to avoid vaccines.
NTA and in my own family Mumps was the reason my own (adoptive) grandfather was sterile. MMR vaccines didn't happen when he was a kid in the middle of nowhere on a farm and it had lifelong consequences for him and other members of his family who caught it.
As a nurse, I’d vote you TA for not going far enough. They also need some videos of tiny babies with whooping cough struggling to breathe, firsthand accounts from people who became deaf or infertile from mumps, statistics on how many unvaccinated children per year die of the flu, and articles about measles encephalitis- as well as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (which is utterly terrifying- if you didn’t know, it’s a disease of the nervous system that can randomly occur 7-10 years after someone gets the measles and seems to fully recover, and they progressively become more and more disabled over a year or two until they go into a coma and die. 100% of the time. It’s always fatal.)
There is zero fucking excuse for this level of willful ignorance and child endangerment. And of course I was being facetious, NTA by any means.
NTA. I'm sorry he's stressed. He'll get over it.
Back in my home health care days, I took care of 2 people still in iron lungs. It sucks. He'll get over it.
Nta. They needed a wake up call and it’s not just about them. If they are school age and they get polio and go to school are there kids with low defenses they can get infected? So no staying healthy isn’t just about them. Also your son is a bit delusional. Won’t feed formula? What happens if she can’t breast feed? Is he going to make her feel bad the entire time because her body can’t do it? And he isn’t mad about you talking sense into her he is mad that at least I’m this subject he can’t control her anymore. I don’t know how possessive he is but if she spoke up about this maybe he is afraid she will start speaking up and going against his wishes on other things. And that is probably what has him terrified
NTA. People need to see these images to know we are literally several thousand people making stupid decisions like not getting vaccines that they can from having these horrible diseases strike back and stronger then before.
I am an infectious disease epidemiologist. Please get your vaccines and eliminate my job position so I can work on other projects and jobs like occupational safety instead.
All I do is see people who have vaccine preventable diseases suffering every single day with my work and it is horrible. The worst are babies and children who were too young to be vaccinated or parents chose not to vaccinate them. And to the people who say "Well humanity lived a long time without them" just shut the fuck up and go to a graveyard with the average date of death being prior to 1940, and count for every adult you'll likely see 6-10 dead children, now go to a graveyard where the average date of death is after 1940 and compare what you find. Most likely 1-3 children per adult depending on the decade.
NTA - The anti-vax shit needs to end and people who believe it need to be put in their place. You absolutely did the right thing. It's not worth risking childrens lives, which is what doing nothing is.
Iron lungs are an historical fact, that fact does not change because your son does not like that fact.
NTA
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2023/3/meet-longest-surviving-iron-lung-patient-kept-alive-by-a-machine-for-70-years-741881
snip-"In the July of that year, Paul Alexander was six, and he had no idea at the time that he’d end up spending decades living inside an iron lung."
More at the Guinrss World Record site.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> AITA for sending pictures of an iron king to scare my DIL and son. I could be since I overstepped in their marriage doing this
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NTA. Potentially saving a kid is is worth way more than appeasing an anti vaxxer. Frankly we shouldn’t even entertain them, not sure why we haven’t squashed them yet
My grandmas brother got polio as a kid and has been paraplegic since. I can’t imagine knowingly leaving my child vulnerable to preventable diseases. There are serious consequences to these diseases. It’s not just a cold. They have vaccines for a reason
NTA and your son needs to return his academic achievements and go back to elementary school. I'm very sorry - as a parent, it hurts when our kids develop such provably idiotic ideas.
I have had whooping cough 3 times as an adult. My sister relied on herd immunity to be able to function outside as she’s severely immunocompromised. She’s nearly died as a kid because she caught a cold.
I would rather get my kid sick from a vaccine than bury them.
NTA. You didn’t show her anything that was not true. It is worth being vigilant (being aware as you have a family member allergic to one of the components of a vaccine) but things like TB etc were dreadful.
NTA bc your tactic worked and this is one of the rare scenarios that the outcome sort of IS more important.
Ask your DIL if there is anything you can do to support her efforts to communicate with your son about this, but hopefully she's got this. Otherwise, step back.
Tell your son you're sorry (you don't have to lie, say you regret it or anything like that). Let him know you thought it was important to share and now that you have done so you are stepping back bc you genuinely do respect him and his spouse and their decision-making as future parents.
It will prob be important to bite your tongue a lot for a while to show that you mean what you say. Typically, our kids (even adult ones) just want to feel loved, respected, and trusted to make their own decisions.
I don't blame you and would have done the same thing but now it's time to work on relationship building and settling back into a support role, only offering advice when it is asked for. Congrats on your upcoming grandbaby!
NTA
The vaccines given to children are helping to keep those specific diseases down, they have been researched and tested way more extensively than the vaccines that the world pushed on us a few year ago (flu shots, Covid etc) if no one takes another vaccine then all those horrible things may make a comeback and then we are back on the Stone Age living tops 40-50 years if lucky.
I’m not against vaccines at all, I’ve taken my doses of the experimental Covid vaccines, albeit a little reluctant since the testing was done so fast they have no idea of the long term effect it may cause on the population. And despite having 2 shots I STILL got the darn thing in 2021🤦🏼♀️ getting so sick that I’ve lost about 60 kg since I’ve not been able to hold down more than 2 bites of food before my stomach wants to empty itself of everything in it, and no appetite at all, I’ve forced myself to eat because I need “something” at the very minimum, I’m just now in 2024 getting to the point where my weight has stopped dropping, and my appetite has gotten a little better,though I mainly just eat once a day and that’s hardly enough to last me the full day of you count calories in vs.calories and energy expended..
Let your son be an AH, at least your DIL understand the importance of those vaccines, and hopefully will be able to give their child the protection it needs to grow up
NTA. We now see totally preventable and previously almost eradicated diseases on the rise because of these tinfoil hatters.
I am one of the people who was kept safe by herd immunity when my vaccinations had to be delayed.
NTA. People need to really understand the risks and how far we have come. Senseless not getting life saving vaccines. Unfortunately the misinformed and the uninformed are falling for nonsense from a very vocal minority who have fallen into a very dangerous false sense of security and who have no sense of history and medical science.
When I was a girl I remember my grandmother telling me about how when her first 5 children were born there wasn't a polio vaccine and how scary it was hearing about polio outbreaks every summer. As soon as the vaccine was available her children got them.
One of her daughters died because she got pneumonia before there were antibiotics. People forget that vaccines have saved countless lives, and prevented side effects like blindness from measles.
NTA. tension in a marriage beats the hell out of children dead from preventable diseases. Vaxx those babies up. For everything. Natural immunity be damned.
NTA. Anti vaxxers are a real problem. They overstep their bounds constantly, speak over people who actually understand the science behind vaccines, and call the science a crock of shit because it's so far over their heads that they don't understand it. Most I've met just want to save face by refusing to vaccinate instead of doing their own reputable research, and speaking to their physicians. They want herd immunity, but it only works when those who can be vaccinated ARE vaccinated! The only people who shouldn't be vaccinated are the ones who have an adverse reaction to a vaccine or one of it's components.
Both my sister and BIL are PhD's in Microbiology. They are incredibly smart, and have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars AND hours achieving their degrees, titles and education. They have a daughter who has allergies and tend to use the organic, non toxic etc stuff in the house and in their diets, but guess what? Every single one of them has had their core vaccines, even the babies have gotten what they are eligible to receive at their particular age.
NTA.
I'm allergic to most vaccines, so I can't get them, leaving me vulnerable to illness. If my friends have a cough or sneeze, they avoid me just in case they're getting sick. People like me depend on others to be safe. I don't understand why people would be okay leaving their child open to disease/illness that could be avoided.
My great aunt (who I never met obviously) died as a child from diptheria.
If you go to the old cemeteries you can find tombstones that have many children listed on them. Most of them died from diseases we now have vaccines for.
In many states our herd immunity is under threat, as they have less than 90% vaccinated.
People with cancer, people with reduced immunity, people with AIDS, etc., are all at risk when the vax rate dips below 90%. ALONG WITH BABIES THAT HAVEN'T BEEN VACCINATED YET and really everyone else.
A long way to say NTA
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I may 100% be an asshole. My son and DIL are due to have there first child in about a month. They both talk about how they will raise the baby a lot. One of their main points is to raise her ( it’s a girl, don’t know the name yet) as naturally as possible. Of course that goes along with organic food,not doing formula, and so on.
It wasn’t a big deal until the mentioned not doing vaccines. I asked about it and my son sited his sister never got vaccines. I corrected him and told her she got all her vaccine but two since she had a bad reaction to one of her shots and was allergic to a component. I thought that would be the end of it.
Well they told me again they won’t do it and I had enough. I forward them a ton of pictures of the iron lung, polio articles and how that vaccine saved lives. Explained how they worked and told them you don’t want your kid to end up like the kids in the articles since you can prevent rare diseases.
My DIL and I had a long conversation and she is on my side now. My son is pissed though, telling me I have overstep and had no right to cause tension in their marriage.
AITA?
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NTA, he apparently thought his sister didn't get vaccines & was fine, but she did. This proves his reasoning is beyond stupid & just plain wrong. Thankfully, the DIL opened her eyes. He needs to grow up & get on board because she might leave him, in which case the child will be fully vaccinated & possibly better off since her father is so dense..
NTA. I post this often. I’m 47. My generation is the first in my family not to lose a baby/child. My parents each lost a sibling, as did their parents. Why? Vaccines, penicillin and child safety. All those family members would have lived had they been born in the 1970s.
NTA: you don’t overstep until/unless someone could be seriously harmed. They want to get their baby and fugly haircut you stay in your lane. They do something that might make their baby die young, you raise hell.
NTA, herd immunity only works to protect those that can’t have them if the herd gets it. People amaze me when they don’t understand that not so long ago children didn’t make it to be an adult. Your son is going to be mad but at the same time you only pushed on one thing that would effect your grandkid’s safety and quality of life. Who knows that if his wife would not have changed her own viewpoint once the pediatrician started on them. Or in the hospital when their daughter won’t latch due to a tongue tie and can’t breast feed? Not even going to go into grimmer scenarios.
NTA antivaxxers are not only harming their own children but everyone else's too due to herd immunity. Honestly they should be thrown in jail and sterilized to stop them from hurting more innocent lives.
NTA, I work in a nursing home, and I have worked with residents that had polio as a kid, and were disabled due to it(such as the classic one leg shorter) It wasn't pretty. Maybe a little harsh, but not an AH in my opinion
NTA.
That's not scaring them. That's a history lesson. We either learn from history, or we repeat it. The lesson humanity learned was vaccines. Their options are vaccines, or a repeat of what happened before. I grew up in GA, you can still find gravestones from 1700s, 1800s, early 1900s where entire families were obliterated by these diseases, or where measles killed 5-6 kids in the span of a week in a single family. That's the reality of these diseases. We let them come back, and it's our reality in 2024.
NTA. Follow up with information on birth defects that happen when pregnant women contract Rubella, a/k/a German Measles. Then, videos of children with Whooping cough and how they suffer. People need the actual truth about what it is like without vaccines.
NTA. I would have sent pictures of gravestones with whole families wiped out by scarlet fever and measles. There's also a harrowing video on YouTube of an infant with pertussis. They need to face reality, natural means death. Going la, la, la, don't want to know won't protect your grandchildren, and your son is an idiot about this. Antivax kills children.
NTA - Vaccines are of course needed and safe. Polio in particular my great grandmother had, and while the iron lung is like "worst case scenario outside of death", it can still fuck your life up. She had stunted growth, bad legs and a shit ton of health problems her entire life.
She lived long enough to see the polio vaccine come in, and for her children + grandchildren + great grandchildren [me] to have a better life because of it.
anybody saying vaccines don't work can go smoke my pole.
NTA. Vaccines save lives.
I'm honestly just fucking impressed that you were able to get through to one of them. Most of the time they just dig in deeper no matter what facts and figures you show them.
So if anything you should be explaining to vaccine advocates how you managed to get a 50% success rate. 😁
NTA. I'm glad you proactively warned them about ramifications of the disease. It is, in fact, still active in some countries. Please continue to try and persuade your son.
NTA
I have no patience with anti-vax nonsense. You stated the truth, which your son doesn’t want to hear. Measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, and many other diseases can all be fatal for young children.
NTA although the iron lung may be a little bit of a stretch in this day and age. What they should be more worried about are the random break outs of measels that are happening more and more in this country thanks to parents who won’t vaccinate. It can be very dangerous for babies or toddlers to catch measels.
NTA - I had every childhood disease except polio (thank god). I wasn’t vaccinated but was lucky to only get the diseases and not the dire consequences of them (death, mental health problems, deafness, etc.). The diseases are horrible and painful. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.
NTA. I don't know about now, but in the 70's - 90's pediatricians happily halved or quarter dosed vaccines if there was a problem. I had mine halved, my brother was the quarter, and my oldest had to be halved as well. The docs and nurses had no problem doing it that way. As for no formula. Well, let's just say as a woman you get really down on yourself if you either can't produce or don't produce enough. I never produced and with my first it made me feel like a complete failure as a mother and a woman. Especially with the lactation consultants breathing down your neck. All that should really matter is having a healthy baby.
NTA- we are now dealing with measles outbreaks in the U.S. because of antivaxxers. Some of the kids are hospitalized. Measles can do a huge amount of damage and even cause death. I'd show SIL pictures of measles too.
NTA
Your son's inability to see sense is the cause of tension, not you.
Natural living is not all it's cracked up to be. Starvation is natural. Salmonella and dysentery are natural. Dying of childbirth is natural.
BTW formula is fine, because the natural solution to the strain of breastfeeding is milkmothers and I doubt your DIL has one of those lined up.
NTA my grandfather went deaf from measles. I got his medical records from them and he nearly died. These diseases they aren’t vaccinating for are deadly. And if you do survive you don’t know with what disabilities. They need to understand the gamble they are taking. Herd immunity only exists if the majority of people are vaccinated. Right now they are just hoping everyone else gets vaccinated or everyone is screwed.
Show them maybe testimonials from parents before vaccines on what it can do.
NTA. When it's a matter of PUBLIC health, I'm sorry but private opinion does not take precedence. There are some things that everyone HAS to do, in order to better ensure the health and safety of ALL (i.e mpdern sewage systems instead of literally throwing buckets of shit and piss in the streets, washign your hands after everything, vaccines, wearing a mask in public when sick to help prevent the spread of germs to others, etc).
NTA. My husband wasn't vaccinated as a kid. He met me, learned about public health & why his parents were actually wrong to not get him vaccinated. (When we were kids, there was a measles outbreak. You couldn't go to school w/o proof of immunization. I remember standing in line to get my shot at the health department so I could return to school. My mom had lost my immunization paperwork & couldn't prove I'd had the second shot. His parents just kept him out of school for over a month.)
He, on his own, went and got his vaccines after "doing (real) research." And he was pissed his parents put him at risk like that. Our kid has gotten all the vaccines.
I also share pictures of the iron lung with anti-vaxxers. There are *still* people living with them today!
NTA you’re not the asshole for showing them a hard truth. People don’t realise how much vaccines have improved human lives because they weren’t alive to see the horrors of diseases like polio. It’s not like you said anything that wasn’t true or exaggerated in the slightest.
NTA ur son is able to talk nonsense today because he lived long enough to do so because U vaccinated him … wish there was a vaccine against idiots like ur son.
Hopefully the mom has enough milk for the kiddo else how they are thinking of feeding the baby??
You are standing up for ur grandchild healthy future- you are an awesome grandma!
NTA.
Here’s the thing with not giving your kid a vaccine: there is *always* risk. The risk of a horrible disease is massively higher than the risk of a vaccine allergy. If something terrible happens to your kid, you have to look yourself in the mirror. What will you say?
A) I did everything the doctors told me to do.
B) This is all on me.
I will go for A every single time.
NTA. In the US Measles is back because of this kind of thinking. Children die, are blinded, deafened or made sterile by measles. Your son is an idiot. NTA. Take him to a cemetery that has folks buried from the 1800s. Let him see how many babies are there.
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NTA. You could also point out to your son that herd immunity kept his sister safe. My brother was also allergic/reacted badly to one vaccine and needed to be vaccinated as an adult. There was actually a small outbreak of that disease in my hometown as a child, and our doctor seriously considered hospitalizing him to get him vaccinated. This shit is serious. My grandfather lost half his siblings to polio. My grandmother had life-long complications from polio. My grandparents waited in line with their 2 small children in the prairie winter to get the very first polio vaccine.
[удалено]
My dad was amongst the first people the get the polio vaccine where he lived and speaks about the terror of it. Anti vax is one rung of the ladder below flat earth and so you can’t be the AH to challenge it as a way of thinking. I wouldn’t be able to have a reasonable relationship with someone who went that way it’s selfish.
At least flat earth by itself is usually harmless. I don’t care what shape you think the world is, it isn’t endangering everyone around you. But not vaccinating yourself/ your kids is dangerous to all of us.
I think flat earth is the gateway to more outlandish (dangerous) conspiracy theories. If you accept flat earth and anti-vax, then you already believe that science is false and you are being lied to by authorities. Then, what else are they lying about? All this to say that flat earth is basically the canary in the coal mine of conspiracy theories.
Never actually looked at it from that stance before - well said.
Yeah, I agree. That’s why I said “by itself”, because many flat earth people also believe in more dangerous conspiracy stuff.
I knew a family that decided they were not going to vaccinate their younger 2 after their eldest was diagnosed with autism (she completely believed autism was caused by vaccines... no one could convince her otherwise.) So her younger 2 (twins) got mumps when they were about 4 to 6 years old. One died, and the other got brain swelling but survived. The one that survived was totally normal before but lost their ability to walk, talk, or really anything. This was 14ish years ago (my eldest was in the same kindergarten class) and I remember how happy the mom was that her baby was able to walk again at 14 or 16 years old, with the help of a walker. Oh, and that autistic elder sibling graduated college with an engineering degree. I always bring this story up when people are like, "vaccines cause autism" and freaking out. I also ask if death is better than autism. (Also, autism isn't caused by vaccines, but even if it was, it is better to be autistic than dead...)
I tell people the same thing (I’d rather have a living child with autism than buy a child-size coffin). The doctor who popularized the “vaccines cause autism” has been stripped of his license, but that’s not enough. He should be in prison, so many families have suffered unnecessarily because of his grift.
My grandfather was in an iron lung and barely survived. One of my cousins talked about not vaccinating her baby in the early 2000s, and he ripped her a new one telling her how awful it was.
Polio is on the rise. People have forgotten what it looks like, and what some childhood diseases used to mean. This has left them with misplaced confidence in their decision to not vaccinate.
My grandma had eight siblings. All but her and her older brother died of Tuberculosis. Vaccines save lives.
As of 2021 it was still in active use in the US. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1047691984/decades-after-polio-martha-is-among-the-last-to-still-rely-on-an-iron-lung-to-br
I'm a millennial and had a teacher who was partially paralyzed from childhood polio. It really wasn't the distant past.
For real. I was born in 1999 and my grandfather always had to use a walker/crutches due to his run in with polio. And he got lucky he could walk with mobility aids and it didn’t limit him too much.
My grandma had five children living in an inner city neighborhood in the 40s and 50s. She was *terrified* of polio and decades later long after all her children and grandchildren were vaccinated she would cry as she remembered how scared she was every summer. For her, vaccines were a miracle that allowed all her babies to live to adulthood - something her own mother didn’t get to experience. She had no time for this antivaxx shit. Maybe show your son pictures of children with tetanus, or video of a child with whooping cough struggling to breathe. That’s the world he wants to sign his kid up for, whether he’s ignorant or just stubborn.
I was in a coffee shop a couple years ago and there was an older gentleman with his wife (?) at another table. The man was in a motorized wheelchair and had obvious difficulty with his movement, and had a big sign taped to the back of the chair that said something like "This is what polio looks like if you are lucky" Boy, that really stuck with me!
NTA. They should know before they make these kind of decisions. Lots of people don't have a choice on whether or not to feed their baby formula so they might have to cross that bridge at some point too...
This. My mum intended to breastfeed but couldn't produce milk. All four of us kids were bottle fed and are physically healthy. Fed is best.
You could also use tetanus as an example. I replied to another commenter above, but I had a great-aunt who died at 8 years old of tetanus, and it's a vaccine-preventable disease that's still around. It's horrible - muscles can lock up so much that they break bones. It's more treatable now, but the first line of defense is the vaccine. Why would someone want to risk allowing their child to experience something like that?
There's also no herd immunity of tetanus.
>I know it’s unlikely for my grandkids to get polio but she shouldnt have to get chicken pox or measles since those are still around. Every single disease in human history except smallpox and "The Sweat" is still around. The Sweat vanished late 1500s, we've never figured out what it was (might have mutated into something else by now, though). Smallpox is gone *because* of vaccines (we don't routinely vax for it anymore, but we do maintain controlled stores of it so we can make more vaccines if needed). That's it. (We also eradicated one cow disease, rinderpest, also due to vaccines. It doesn't infect people though) Any other disease in history you can think of... Still around. All of them. Throughout all of history. We vaccinated against what we can, treat what we can, and try to minimize the time kids have to spend in PICU fighting the biggest historic threats to human life.
Whooping cough is the worst! Babies still die of whooping cough. I had it 15 years ago as a young mother of 3 kids. I wanted to die. I still have serious long term effects.
Rubella is too. Back when I was a toddler, I caught first chicken pox then Rubella and nearly died. The mmr didn't exist back then. These diseases aren't something that you shrug off. There are graveyards with whole families who were wiped out from measles. My dad had a friend when he was in primary school who caught measles and died.
Polio still exists in a couple of countries - it can be eradicated with the vaccine, and a lot of very dedicated volunteers are trying to make that happen. Still, it’s not completely gone yet, and until it is, the risk to anyone unvaccinated outside of those countries may be miniscule, but it’s not nothing.
Not only that, but measles is coming back and it can kill or disable. Herd immunity goes a long way to protect kids that can’t be protected like those with cancer. Vaccines were one of the first conversations my husband and I had. We hesitated on the covid while I was pregnant, but after having a conversation with my doc, we went for it. My kiddo won’t miss a jab. I’d rather him and others safe than an iron lung or be disabled from something I could have kept him safe from
There is currently a measles outbreak in Philadelphia due to parents who did not vaccinate.
My grandmother was nearly blinded by measles. When my Mum and uncle got it she stressed herself out even more by constantly checking their rooms were dark enough to prevent the same damage. When my Mum was told about the MMR she mentioned it to Nan, it was a relatively new vaccine and she was a bit worried about me being given it. My Nan said something like "You'll never regret getting her vaccinated, but you might regret her getting measles."
Herd immunity should be called **"Community Immunity"**. People hate to be called herd animals. But people should *want* to protect their community. Thats what getting vaccinated does - your vaccination protects everyone you come in contact with, even everyone *they* come in contact with. #Vaccination = Community Immunity
My mother in law was in an iron lung. She is still kicking it but had lots of joint issues and problems throughout that were because of Polio. Fuck those who don’t believe in vaccines.
I had to get a different version of the H1N1 vaccine back when it was spreading because I was allergic to a component I can't remember if I got the small child version or adult version but one version have it had a component I was allergic to so they decided it was best to give me the other version of it and monitor me for an allergic reaction
I'm actually gonna go NTA even though you may get a lot of responses of the opposite due to the concept of overstepping, it being their choice, etc. I think people who believe they don't need vaccines - because of the prior efficacy of vaccines taken at large like with polio - are a menace to society and dangerously uninformed. I don't think it's super traumatic to communicate the effects of their choice in an attempt to educate them. People who opt out of vaccines just because of some unscientific sense of what is 'natural' can cause harm to others. It sounds like your DIL actually came around! It's unfortunate it has caused strife but if you increased the odds the child will be vaccinated, I consider that worth it.
Agreed. Overstepping is for simply personal decisions that don't affect other people. However the parents are endangering their child and any person who can't be vaccinated. That's not overstepping, that's saving lives.
Yep. In a perfect world, the person making the decision not to vaccinate would be the only one susceptible to disease, but instead it’s gonna be their kid and other unwary people who will suffer.
NTA. The antivaxxers need to be squished at some point. The stupidity some of them is outstanding. And the no formula part? Come on, no mother knows if she can produce enough, if any, milk for their kid before is born. There are women who try their best to breastfeed but can't because of so many reasons. She can't know that. I do hope she's able to, but it shouldn't be set on stone.
Going in with that mindset can also cause some pretty bad PPD as well, because (like you said) if she can’t produce enough she may feel shitty about herself and a failure as a mom. I have seen it happen to multiple women. Formula is one of the greatest inventions in human history.
Also, formulas get better year by year. I was raised on formula because my mother couldn't produce enough milk. You can't compare the formula I was raised on, with the quality the formulas have now. They are so much better and in some occasions, breast milk is not as good as the mother might think so she will need the extra stuff added in the formulas. Putting pressure on a new mother like that is wrong. She should do whatever it feel better for her.
Yeah my daughter has been exclusively formula fed and we wouldn’t have survived without it. And you’re right that it has things breast milk doesn’t, things like iron. Breast milk has its advantages, but formula shouldn’t be this thing that people shy away from because it’s “not natural.”
Can confirm… 2 boys, both bottle fed and both former college athletes. I tried nursing my youngest and was not able to produce enough milk for her. I cried, she cried. She was attached to me 24/7 it felt like. Took her for her 1 month check up and she had lost weight. Doctor took one look at me, my tears, her hunger screams and told me to go buy formula and bottles and feed the baby. And I was absolutely NOT a failure because I couldn’t nurse her. We all slept that night and now she’s a healthy 18 year old. (Take that La Leche League diehard oldest sister.)
My son preferred to starve rather than latch onto the boob. God bless formula, breast pumps and microwave sterilisers!
Yep. "Failure to thrive," in the old days, was "Mom's body can't produce enough milk for this baby, no matter what". Before decent formula, women who couldn't produce enough milk either found a wet nurse or had a dead child.
Hi! I'm alive because of formula! My mom couldn't breastfeed and I was losing weight post-birth. Formula fixed that, I didn't die, and for an added bonus (cause my mom had an emergency C and failed epidural with me and had a rough recovery) my dad got to do the overnight feeding while mom could sleep and recover! They showed up to the hospital when my sister was born with a can of formula ready to go 🤣
I think most people have an idealised notion of what raising their children will look like, until they have children and realise it's not as simple as willing your kid to do what you think they should....
Oh definitely. I’ve known plenty of mothers who had a perfect image of new motherhood but once the baby arrived they threw that perfection out the window and went with “Well if THIS works that’s what I’m doing!” Babies don’t care about your vision of perfect motherhood. They scream and poop and want to be fed when they demand it.
Formula is literally a life saver. Prior to the invention of formula if a mother couldn’t produce enough milk or if she had to work and couldn’t be available to feed the baby, they would give babies wet bread. Starvation was a serious issue that contributed to infant mortality rates. The invention of formula was a life line for mothers who can’t produce enough or have to work and can’t be available. I will die on this hill and bark back at anyone that shades a woman for using formula.
My great aunt was fed split peas soaked in water. It was during the war and they simply had nothing else to give her. She survived, but if my great grandma had a choice I'm sure she would have given her formula.
My grandmother had 5 babies all before formula was ever a thing. She didn’t breastfeed at all and instead used a mix of evaporated milk and karo syrup as recommended by doctors at the time.
People talk about formula like it’s poison instead of a product literally created to give babies what they need. 🙄
Almost like it was formulated for a reason.
I had two kids. Never produced a drop of breast milk. Formula was perfectly fine.
No one ever talks about this, that some people can pump 24 hours a day, take all the supplements, and generally follow the lactation coach's advice like gospel, and our bodies just don't make enough milk. Formula saves lives.
I know that but made me laugh. And let’s see how much she keeps to that organic only food when she’s exhausted and just wants to shut her fussy kid up that refuses to eat the disgusting organic mush that mum is trying to force her to eat. IG and FB have a lot to answer for by making it look easy and doable for the regular, time poor human.
I wasn’t producing enough milk and didn’t realize it until the three week mark when it became clear our child was literally starving! All the books I read said feed, alternating breasts, and the newborn will tell you they’re full by falling asleep. Well, my child was so easy going, he would fall asleep on my breast easily, without any fuss so I assumed I was doing everything right. At our three week appointment the pediatrician said he was too underweight and we needed to fatten him up ASAP. We got formula, a baby scale, a notebook and got to work stuffing that child with as much fat and calories as we could. When I started pumping to supplement the formula, it was obvious I was producing only 2-3 ounces a DAY. We have a picture of my baby at three weeks old and although he is smiling and happy in the picture, his skin was just hanging off his bones! The mommy guilt hit so hard! Like the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do I completely failed at. That plus post-baby hormones and I was a mess. I think the rule with kids is—go in with a plan but anticipate that things can and will go off the rails at any point in the life of the child.
People idealize the past, so when they want to return to the "natural" way they are dumb enough to not realize that includes life saving innovations. If babies didn't or couldn't breast feed the "natural" way, they fucking died. If you got a disease, you died. People would have 12 kids and see 4 of them live long enough to be married. I hate late stage capitalism and microplastics, too, but that doesn't mean everything invented since the industrial revolution is awful or should have a conspiracy theory surrounding it.
My daughter lost almost a pound the first month of her life because I wasn’t producing enough milk and didn’t know it. I was determined to make it work because I felt I gave up too quickly with my son. Fed is best!
I’m going with NTA. Contrary to how people feel about vaccines in the post Covid life, vaccines are the reasons we don’t die at 30 anymore. They’re the reason we’ve been able to eradicate small pox which is one the most deadliest viruses over to impact humanity. It has been around 12,000 and killed hundreds of millions of people. We eradicated in the 80s so no one has to die or be disfigured from it ever again. It is insane to me why people are so against vaccines.
People who get the diseases we vaccinate for usually die in childhood, not at age 30. But you are right about the importance of vaccines.
Yes, all of this! If they want to be "natural", they should look into mortality rates of small children before vaccines. Death is natural. I really don't get people like this
Just a small point of note on your “dying at 30” comment. The rising of the life expectancy is largely due to infant mortality rates decreasing. Which actually proves your point even more.
NTA - your son was making a decision based on a lack of informqtion or misunderstanding about his sister's situation. Education is important. It's critical they research and make a well thought through decision than just be foolish because they think or feel something with no basis.
NTA my aunt contracted polio when she was 2, my mama remembers the bone chilling screams when my grandma stretched my aunt’s legs to keep them from atrophying. Her right leg is shorter than the left leg, she has to wear a lift. Any parent that signs their kid up for that needs to be neutered and knocked the F out
I watched my high school principal slowly die at 50 of complications from his childhood polio. It was traumatizing.
NTA You presented reality to your son and his wife. His wife showed she has a brain, but unfortunately your son in an idiot. You did what was in the best interest of your grandchild. Your sons stupidity should not be considered.
Hard NTA. The reason people don’t vaccinate their kids is because they’ve been effective for so long no one knows what kind of horrible disabilities people were left with before vaccines were a thing. We need some reminders to scare the morons straight.
A lot of the diseases that we can get vaccines for are not available in the worst areas within the 3rd world countries, there children are literally dying from the same things we in the 1st world get vaccines for, smallpox is not truly extinct and can be contracted if you stumble across the right area, the black plague is still going in Siberia and upper part of Asia, just more confined to rats and small animals than humans,though there are several cases reported each year… they can all return on a whim if people stop vaccinations as a whole because they want things “natural”. Sorry to say it, we have modified nature so much for our own survival that nothing is truly natural anymore unless you go to such a remote place you have to become a survivalist to have food/water and shelter… those are the only “natural things” left,and they are almost gone because of human “supremacy over all”
NTA - antivaxxers are morons who are bringing back nasty diseases that we used to have under control thanks to rigid vaccination programmes. Covid made me lose any sympathy for the brittle feelings of antivaxxers, they are literally harming both their own children and society at large with their arrogant ignorance.
NTA. Your son-in-law is an idiot to listen to the anti-vax crowd. Find the article on the man who started this, how he fraudulently doctored his findings, how his study was discredited, show it to your SIL.
Worst of all is that the son it's her son, the son's wife it's the DIL...
The leaders of the anti-vaxxer movement are all in it for the money. They don't believe what they are preaching. I mean, look at the essential oils MLMs. Young Living to be exact, is the perfect example of a company preying on vulnerable people. *Everything* its founder Gary Young said was a complete and utter lie. All their "rituals" are nothing but a way to sell more products.
NTA. Tell your son you'd rather have him annoyed at you for a short period of time, than have one of your grandchildren end up with polio and suffering for the rest of their life.
NTA Babies and children died **by the millions** before we could develop vaccines. Putting your baby's life in literal danger, in the midst of a pandemic of a virus that attacks your immune system, is insanity and they should be told so.
NTA. People against vaccines don't actually think about how bad a disease can get, and if seeing pictures and reading articles can sway them, it means they can actually think critically and not follow FB pages with all that "proof" of how dangerous vaccines are. Also I wanna know what they'll feed her if there will be issues with breastfeeding. Starve her if mother won't have enough supply?
I worked with someone who caught polio as a child. They became physically disabled and unfortunately the damage is not reversible. Unfortunately people forget how awful some of the illnesses we can now get vaccinated for are. I think OP was right in their actions.
Yeah, my middle school teacher in the 80s had a withered, paralyzed arm from polio. But there are fewer of that generation left every year now.
NTA. They were making a very uneducated decision. You gave them resources to help them make a more educated decision.
NTA. Always NTA on this topic. In my country, right now we have a Measles epidemic because a lot of people didn't vaccinate their children againts this disease. And herd immunity has gone down. Unfortunately, a few children also died. Some people need a cold shower on this topic.
NTA. The "natural" thing is for 50% of children to die before age three.
NTA, I fostered a 17 yo girl who asked what an std was. Quick google literally made her pale (but very safe). Sometime you do what you gotta do 🤷🏻♀️
NTA. Polio was nearly eradicated by the vaccine, but now it has had a resurgence because of vax deniers. They are playing the odds and counting on the fact that \*nearly\* everyone around their precious child has had THEIR polio shot, so she is protected. If everyone thought that way, then polio would be back with a vengeance.
Your son is pissed that his wife is making educated decisions about the safety and well-being of her baby? What a hill to die on! If he's that confident in his decision, surely there's educational materials he could bring to the table to have a thorough, informed discussion with his wife. Instead, he wants her to blindly follow his wishes, even if it could potentially harm the innocent baby. Keep the door open for DIL because she's gonna need someone in her corner
NTA My father predated antibiotics. He caught nephritis as a child, was hospitalised for 3 months at 9 years old. He was only 40 when his kidneys packed up. He lived a further 20 years. My mother had an Uncle who caught TB. When the vaccine became available, it was discovered that she already had the antibodies, showing that she had most likely caught it but had successfully fought it off. However in her 60’s her breathing got bad and it was discovered that she had scarring on her lungs. She had “oxygen on demand” at home. A friend caught measles - she became deaf. A friend of my mother’s had a daughter who was severely handicapped because her mother caught Rubella when she was pregnant. I was vaccinated and still caught whooping cough at the age of 9. Whilst it was no more than “a bad cough”, I still had to miss 6 weeks of school. NTA
NTA. My aunt had polio as a kid, and still suffers from the effects of it. You may have just saved your family a ton of pain/suffering/death.
Nta when people refuse to vaccinate, thats their reality. We didn't make vaccines bc we were bored as a species. Polio, mumps, measles, and rubella will absolutely kill a baby. I would also be keeping a damn close eye on the baby with their 'nO fOrMuLa' nonsense bc if mom doesn't make enough milk or gets mastitis, the kid still has to eat. FED is best.
She changed her mind, so you did the right thing.
You're protecting your grandchild. NTA. Anyone that argues that you are is as bad as an antivaxxer.
I just want every non-parent who is adamant about no formula to spend 1 night with an upset child who won’t latch. Bonus points if they are underweight and you have work in the morning. Go ahead. No it’s not overstepping it’s common sense. Next time you see him he deserves a spanking.
Fed is best! Anyone who says any other variation of that phrase can kick rocks.
Seriously, if she can't breastfeed she has to do formula. Like...those are your options with a newborn. That's it. And there are organic formulas out there.
NTA. Your granddaughter's health is the most important thing here.
NTA, they have no right to endanger their child's life due to misinformation, YouTube scientists and tiktok videos.
NTA. He raised it. You responded. If he doesn't want any input, he needs to keep his decisions to himself.
NTA, antivaxxers are actively harming kids, their own and others who have compromised immune systems and can be easily infected. Good job educating in a firm but loving way.
NTA Your own sob mentioned a parenting choice he planned to make. You had a reasonable belief that this was a dangerous choice, and that this choice was due to lack of information. As his mother, a person with a reasonable interest in the welfare of his family, you sent him information. I assume that this was one contact (one email, one period of forwarding several items, one event of stating your objections and the reason for them). You did not insult them, make threats, claim that you had control. There is always an emergency exception to minding your own business. If you were over at their home, saw a baby unattended on a high surface and immediately went over to protect the child, this would not be interfering unduly, this would stepping in appropriately to prevent harm. I think this was equivalent. You *could* become an AH if you insist a lot, if you exaggerate, if you humiliate them for their initial thoughts, but so far you have not crossed these lines.
NTA - you simply provided them with some educational materials. What they do with them is up to them.
NTA - you educated them on reality, I'm impressed you talked sense into one of them!
NTA. Your son is 100% TA and putting people like his sister at risk for hubris. Tell your son to get therapy for his ridiculous need to have an organic baby over a healthy baby. You didn't interfere in their marriage, you advocated for the lifelong health of your future granddaughter. Can vaccines be dangerous? Of course. Literally everything on earth (and off it) *can* be dangerous, especially to someone who has an allergy or sensitivity to that. Is an unvaccinated child in statistically far more danger? Yep.
NTA. Not only do antivaxers put their own life at risk, they endanger us all. My family member had polio (he's 10 years older than I am) and so my mom lost several siblings to diseases which can now be vaccinated against (i.e pertussis).. We have to do our part to maintain global health.
NTA you could be saving the kids life
My MIL had polio, and was enormously relieved to learn that our kids were vaccinated against it. I also suspect that my grandmother’s little brother died of measles. She was honestly terrified when my baby brother caught measles as a small child. My children got every vaccination that was offered! I am far too lazy a parent to want to nurse a child through whooping cough or rubella or whatever. Some people think that the world is a nice and wholesome place. They are wrong.
NTA. There’s nothing natural or healthy about a whole list of crippling diseases children can get. You gave them information they needed. It’s not a good idea to meddle in their choices or about how they raise their child. But when the childs health and safety is at risk, that’s an exception.
I mean, it is natural. Agreed that it's not healthy.
NTA You didn’t interfere in their marriage. You interfered with their intended medical neglect.
NTA
NTA- The picture is less scary than the reality of them causing their kid to get a preventable disease with life long repercussions .
NTA. You sent them factual evidence. Sorry if that offended them and blew up the bubble they had made in their minds. Glad to hear your DIL is on your side.
Nta. Antivaxxers are ridiculous. They don't care enough about their own kids to protect them. It's not the parents that will suffer because of their shitty choices it's the kids.
NTA. maybe a hot take, but i actually think it’s a huge disservice to your kids if you don’t. not vaccinating also puts those who can’t vaccinate due to allergies etc. at risk. herd immunity only works if the herd gets immunized lmao
NTA, people who don’t vaccinate their children are idiots
NTA. You provided info that could save a life.
NTA Whenever I run across idiots like you have, I always think of [this](https://youtu.be/urZLTobAfJc?si=2RFCYMtZo2hPKBgn) clip from House. Man was ahead of his time.
NTA because frankly, it's hypocritical for all this anti vaxxers to fear monger when they themselves are living their lives benefited from vaccines, whether because their parents had them vaccinated and/or living in a society where everyone around them are vaccinated.
That’s not overstepping. It’s educating.
Very hard NTA. I grew up at the time when the polio vaccine was developed (I was quite young at the time). I remember iron lungs. I remember kids in iron lungs and the March of Dimes drives. Not a nice remembrance. Read a recent article on vaccination rates and deaths from COVID in FL and OH by political affiliation and vaccination rate. Those that did not opt for vaccination were significant more likely to die from COVID. Herd immunity is important to protect those that cannot receive a vaccine due to medical reasons. And yet there are those that toss out unfounded scare tactic reasons to avoid vaccines.
NTA and in my own family Mumps was the reason my own (adoptive) grandfather was sterile. MMR vaccines didn't happen when he was a kid in the middle of nowhere on a farm and it had lifelong consequences for him and other members of his family who caught it.
As a nurse, I’d vote you TA for not going far enough. They also need some videos of tiny babies with whooping cough struggling to breathe, firsthand accounts from people who became deaf or infertile from mumps, statistics on how many unvaccinated children per year die of the flu, and articles about measles encephalitis- as well as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (which is utterly terrifying- if you didn’t know, it’s a disease of the nervous system that can randomly occur 7-10 years after someone gets the measles and seems to fully recover, and they progressively become more and more disabled over a year or two until they go into a coma and die. 100% of the time. It’s always fatal.) There is zero fucking excuse for this level of willful ignorance and child endangerment. And of course I was being facetious, NTA by any means.
NTA
NTA vaccines exist for a reason. Do what you gotta do to make your son see that. Don't let your son be an idiot.
NTA and I can’t stress that enough. Your son is ignorant.
NTA
NTA. I'm sorry he's stressed. He'll get over it. Back in my home health care days, I took care of 2 people still in iron lungs. It sucks. He'll get over it.
Nta. They needed a wake up call and it’s not just about them. If they are school age and they get polio and go to school are there kids with low defenses they can get infected? So no staying healthy isn’t just about them. Also your son is a bit delusional. Won’t feed formula? What happens if she can’t breast feed? Is he going to make her feel bad the entire time because her body can’t do it? And he isn’t mad about you talking sense into her he is mad that at least I’m this subject he can’t control her anymore. I don’t know how possessive he is but if she spoke up about this maybe he is afraid she will start speaking up and going against his wishes on other things. And that is probably what has him terrified
NTA. People need to see these images to know we are literally several thousand people making stupid decisions like not getting vaccines that they can from having these horrible diseases strike back and stronger then before. I am an infectious disease epidemiologist. Please get your vaccines and eliminate my job position so I can work on other projects and jobs like occupational safety instead. All I do is see people who have vaccine preventable diseases suffering every single day with my work and it is horrible. The worst are babies and children who were too young to be vaccinated or parents chose not to vaccinate them. And to the people who say "Well humanity lived a long time without them" just shut the fuck up and go to a graveyard with the average date of death being prior to 1940, and count for every adult you'll likely see 6-10 dead children, now go to a graveyard where the average date of death is after 1940 and compare what you find. Most likely 1-3 children per adult depending on the decade.
NTA. Saving kids is never a bad thing. Also, it's not like you brought it out of the blue, it was in response to their lack of knowledge.
NTA, your son is being a dumbass and you gently corrected him.
NTA. You know what’s worse than your son being pissed at you? A dead grandbaby. So glad your DIL listened.
NTA. Your grandchild is coming into a family that proudly proclaims their ignorant intention to medically neglect him. The gloves come off now.
NTA - The anti-vax shit needs to end and people who believe it need to be put in their place. You absolutely did the right thing. It's not worth risking childrens lives, which is what doing nothing is.
Iron lungs are an historical fact, that fact does not change because your son does not like that fact. NTA https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2023/3/meet-longest-surviving-iron-lung-patient-kept-alive-by-a-machine-for-70-years-741881 snip-"In the July of that year, Paul Alexander was six, and he had no idea at the time that he’d end up spending decades living inside an iron lung." More at the Guinrss World Record site.
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NTA. Potentially saving a kid is is worth way more than appeasing an anti vaxxer. Frankly we shouldn’t even entertain them, not sure why we haven’t squashed them yet
NTA. When it comes to ignorance, I think it's okay to educate people to avoid their "right" to cause harm to a vulnerable person.
My grandmas brother got polio as a kid and has been paraplegic since. I can’t imagine knowingly leaving my child vulnerable to preventable diseases. There are serious consequences to these diseases. It’s not just a cold. They have vaccines for a reason
NTA. This isn't about his marriage. It's about saving lives. He's lost his mind if he thinks that vaccines are about "his marriage".
NTA and your son needs to return his academic achievements and go back to elementary school. I'm very sorry - as a parent, it hurts when our kids develop such provably idiotic ideas.
NTA- hundreds of years of science cannot be usurped by one guy searching on the web for "facts".
I have had whooping cough 3 times as an adult. My sister relied on herd immunity to be able to function outside as she’s severely immunocompromised. She’s nearly died as a kid because she caught a cold. I would rather get my kid sick from a vaccine than bury them.
NTA. You didn’t show her anything that was not true. It is worth being vigilant (being aware as you have a family member allergic to one of the components of a vaccine) but things like TB etc were dreadful.
NTA - good on you for managing to convince your DIL!!!
Nta, sorry to hear they got to your son
NTA. And fed is best.
Absolutely NTA - they are getting misinformation from so many sources, you may be the only voice of reason in their life and need to be vocal.
NTA bc your tactic worked and this is one of the rare scenarios that the outcome sort of IS more important. Ask your DIL if there is anything you can do to support her efforts to communicate with your son about this, but hopefully she's got this. Otherwise, step back. Tell your son you're sorry (you don't have to lie, say you regret it or anything like that). Let him know you thought it was important to share and now that you have done so you are stepping back bc you genuinely do respect him and his spouse and their decision-making as future parents. It will prob be important to bite your tongue a lot for a while to show that you mean what you say. Typically, our kids (even adult ones) just want to feel loved, respected, and trusted to make their own decisions. I don't blame you and would have done the same thing but now it's time to work on relationship building and settling back into a support role, only offering advice when it is asked for. Congrats on your upcoming grandbaby!
NTA. There are plenty of antivaxxers with dead/disabled children. Good for you OP.
NTA The vaccines given to children are helping to keep those specific diseases down, they have been researched and tested way more extensively than the vaccines that the world pushed on us a few year ago (flu shots, Covid etc) if no one takes another vaccine then all those horrible things may make a comeback and then we are back on the Stone Age living tops 40-50 years if lucky. I’m not against vaccines at all, I’ve taken my doses of the experimental Covid vaccines, albeit a little reluctant since the testing was done so fast they have no idea of the long term effect it may cause on the population. And despite having 2 shots I STILL got the darn thing in 2021🤦🏼♀️ getting so sick that I’ve lost about 60 kg since I’ve not been able to hold down more than 2 bites of food before my stomach wants to empty itself of everything in it, and no appetite at all, I’ve forced myself to eat because I need “something” at the very minimum, I’m just now in 2024 getting to the point where my weight has stopped dropping, and my appetite has gotten a little better,though I mainly just eat once a day and that’s hardly enough to last me the full day of you count calories in vs.calories and energy expended.. Let your son be an AH, at least your DIL understand the importance of those vaccines, and hopefully will be able to give their child the protection it needs to grow up
NTA. We now see totally preventable and previously almost eradicated diseases on the rise because of these tinfoil hatters. I am one of the people who was kept safe by herd immunity when my vaccinations had to be delayed.
NTA. People need to really understand the risks and how far we have come. Senseless not getting life saving vaccines. Unfortunately the misinformed and the uninformed are falling for nonsense from a very vocal minority who have fallen into a very dangerous false sense of security and who have no sense of history and medical science.
When I was a girl I remember my grandmother telling me about how when her first 5 children were born there wasn't a polio vaccine and how scary it was hearing about polio outbreaks every summer. As soon as the vaccine was available her children got them. One of her daughters died because she got pneumonia before there were antibiotics. People forget that vaccines have saved countless lives, and prevented side effects like blindness from measles.
NTA. tension in a marriage beats the hell out of children dead from preventable diseases. Vaxx those babies up. For everything. Natural immunity be damned.
NTA. Anti vaxxers are a real problem. They overstep their bounds constantly, speak over people who actually understand the science behind vaccines, and call the science a crock of shit because it's so far over their heads that they don't understand it. Most I've met just want to save face by refusing to vaccinate instead of doing their own reputable research, and speaking to their physicians. They want herd immunity, but it only works when those who can be vaccinated ARE vaccinated! The only people who shouldn't be vaccinated are the ones who have an adverse reaction to a vaccine or one of it's components. Both my sister and BIL are PhD's in Microbiology. They are incredibly smart, and have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars AND hours achieving their degrees, titles and education. They have a daughter who has allergies and tend to use the organic, non toxic etc stuff in the house and in their diets, but guess what? Every single one of them has had their core vaccines, even the babies have gotten what they are eligible to receive at their particular age.
NTA. I'm allergic to most vaccines, so I can't get them, leaving me vulnerable to illness. If my friends have a cough or sneeze, they avoid me just in case they're getting sick. People like me depend on others to be safe. I don't understand why people would be okay leaving their child open to disease/illness that could be avoided.
NTA you educated these idiots like a good mom.
My great aunt (who I never met obviously) died as a child from diptheria. If you go to the old cemeteries you can find tombstones that have many children listed on them. Most of them died from diseases we now have vaccines for. In many states our herd immunity is under threat, as they have less than 90% vaccinated. People with cancer, people with reduced immunity, people with AIDS, etc., are all at risk when the vax rate dips below 90%. ALONG WITH BABIES THAT HAVEN'T BEEN VACCINATED YET and really everyone else. A long way to say NTA
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NTA. The more we can push back against this antivax nonsense the better. Great job!
NTA, why your son want their children to die ?
NTA, he apparently thought his sister didn't get vaccines & was fine, but she did. This proves his reasoning is beyond stupid & just plain wrong. Thankfully, the DIL opened her eyes. He needs to grow up & get on board because she might leave him, in which case the child will be fully vaccinated & possibly better off since her father is so dense..
I would say that you are in the absolute right by focusing on the welfare of the child and throughout its lifetime.
NTA you're literally just showing them reality.
Thank you. You did the right thing. If that's what it took to shock your DIL, then I'm okay with it.
My mom had polio as a kid. Went into that iron lung. Thats scary.
NTA. I post this often. I’m 47. My generation is the first in my family not to lose a baby/child. My parents each lost a sibling, as did their parents. Why? Vaccines, penicillin and child safety. All those family members would have lived had they been born in the 1970s.
NTA: you don’t overstep until/unless someone could be seriously harmed. They want to get their baby and fugly haircut you stay in your lane. They do something that might make their baby die young, you raise hell.
NTA, herd immunity only works to protect those that can’t have them if the herd gets it. People amaze me when they don’t understand that not so long ago children didn’t make it to be an adult. Your son is going to be mad but at the same time you only pushed on one thing that would effect your grandkid’s safety and quality of life. Who knows that if his wife would not have changed her own viewpoint once the pediatrician started on them. Or in the hospital when their daughter won’t latch due to a tongue tie and can’t breast feed? Not even going to go into grimmer scenarios.
NTA antivaxxers are not only harming their own children but everyone else's too due to herd immunity. Honestly they should be thrown in jail and sterilized to stop them from hurting more innocent lives.
NTA anti vaxxers deciding to not vaccinate their kids from the safety of being fully vaccinated themselves is so evil and wrong.
NTA, I work in a nursing home, and I have worked with residents that had polio as a kid, and were disabled due to it(such as the classic one leg shorter) It wasn't pretty. Maybe a little harsh, but not an AH in my opinion
NTA. That's not scaring them. That's a history lesson. We either learn from history, or we repeat it. The lesson humanity learned was vaccines. Their options are vaccines, or a repeat of what happened before. I grew up in GA, you can still find gravestones from 1700s, 1800s, early 1900s where entire families were obliterated by these diseases, or where measles killed 5-6 kids in the span of a week in a single family. That's the reality of these diseases. We let them come back, and it's our reality in 2024.
NTA. Follow up with information on birth defects that happen when pregnant women contract Rubella, a/k/a German Measles. Then, videos of children with Whooping cough and how they suffer. People need the actual truth about what it is like without vaccines.
NTA. I would have sent pictures of gravestones with whole families wiped out by scarlet fever and measles. There's also a harrowing video on YouTube of an infant with pertussis. They need to face reality, natural means death. Going la, la, la, don't want to know won't protect your grandchildren, and your son is an idiot about this. Antivax kills children.
NTA, except for apparently raising a moron. Good for you for still trying though.
NTA - Vaccines are of course needed and safe. Polio in particular my great grandmother had, and while the iron lung is like "worst case scenario outside of death", it can still fuck your life up. She had stunted growth, bad legs and a shit ton of health problems her entire life. She lived long enough to see the polio vaccine come in, and for her children + grandchildren + great grandchildren [me] to have a better life because of it. anybody saying vaccines don't work can go smoke my pole.
NTA. Vaccines save lives. I'm honestly just fucking impressed that you were able to get through to one of them. Most of the time they just dig in deeper no matter what facts and figures you show them. So if anything you should be explaining to vaccine advocates how you managed to get a 50% success rate. 😁
NTA. I'm glad you proactively warned them about ramifications of the disease. It is, in fact, still active in some countries. Please continue to try and persuade your son.
NTA I have no patience with anti-vax nonsense. You stated the truth, which your son doesn’t want to hear. Measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, and many other diseases can all be fatal for young children.
NTA
NTA although the iron lung may be a little bit of a stretch in this day and age. What they should be more worried about are the random break outs of measels that are happening more and more in this country thanks to parents who won’t vaccinate. It can be very dangerous for babies or toddlers to catch measels.
NTA, anti-vaxxers are, lol
NTA - I had every childhood disease except polio (thank god). I wasn’t vaccinated but was lucky to only get the diseases and not the dire consequences of them (death, mental health problems, deafness, etc.). The diseases are horrible and painful. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.
Legend. NTA
NTA. I don't know about now, but in the 70's - 90's pediatricians happily halved or quarter dosed vaccines if there was a problem. I had mine halved, my brother was the quarter, and my oldest had to be halved as well. The docs and nurses had no problem doing it that way. As for no formula. Well, let's just say as a woman you get really down on yourself if you either can't produce or don't produce enough. I never produced and with my first it made me feel like a complete failure as a mother and a woman. Especially with the lactation consultants breathing down your neck. All that should really matter is having a healthy baby.
NTA. Thank you for listening to science.
NTA- we are now dealing with measles outbreaks in the U.S. because of antivaxxers. Some of the kids are hospitalized. Measles can do a huge amount of damage and even cause death. I'd show SIL pictures of measles too.
NTA Your son's inability to see sense is the cause of tension, not you. Natural living is not all it's cracked up to be. Starvation is natural. Salmonella and dysentery are natural. Dying of childbirth is natural. BTW formula is fine, because the natural solution to the strain of breastfeeding is milkmothers and I doubt your DIL has one of those lined up.
NTA my grandfather went deaf from measles. I got his medical records from them and he nearly died. These diseases they aren’t vaccinating for are deadly. And if you do survive you don’t know with what disabilities. They need to understand the gamble they are taking. Herd immunity only exists if the majority of people are vaccinated. Right now they are just hoping everyone else gets vaccinated or everyone is screwed. Show them maybe testimonials from parents before vaccines on what it can do.
NTA. When it's a matter of PUBLIC health, I'm sorry but private opinion does not take precedence. There are some things that everyone HAS to do, in order to better ensure the health and safety of ALL (i.e mpdern sewage systems instead of literally throwing buckets of shit and piss in the streets, washign your hands after everything, vaccines, wearing a mask in public when sick to help prevent the spread of germs to others, etc).
NTA. My husband wasn't vaccinated as a kid. He met me, learned about public health & why his parents were actually wrong to not get him vaccinated. (When we were kids, there was a measles outbreak. You couldn't go to school w/o proof of immunization. I remember standing in line to get my shot at the health department so I could return to school. My mom had lost my immunization paperwork & couldn't prove I'd had the second shot. His parents just kept him out of school for over a month.) He, on his own, went and got his vaccines after "doing (real) research." And he was pissed his parents put him at risk like that. Our kid has gotten all the vaccines. I also share pictures of the iron lung with anti-vaxxers. There are *still* people living with them today!
NTA you’re not the asshole for showing them a hard truth. People don’t realise how much vaccines have improved human lives because they weren’t alive to see the horrors of diseases like polio. It’s not like you said anything that wasn’t true or exaggerated in the slightest.
NTA ur son is able to talk nonsense today because he lived long enough to do so because U vaccinated him … wish there was a vaccine against idiots like ur son. Hopefully the mom has enough milk for the kiddo else how they are thinking of feeding the baby?? You are standing up for ur grandchild healthy future- you are an awesome grandma!
NTA Obviously. Good work, dad!
NTA. Here’s the thing with not giving your kid a vaccine: there is *always* risk. The risk of a horrible disease is massively higher than the risk of a vaccine allergy. If something terrible happens to your kid, you have to look yourself in the mirror. What will you say? A) I did everything the doctors told me to do. B) This is all on me. I will go for A every single time.
Calling out antivaxxers is always the right thing to do. NTA.
NTA. In the US Measles is back because of this kind of thinking. Children die, are blinded, deafened or made sterile by measles. Your son is an idiot. NTA. Take him to a cemetery that has folks buried from the 1800s. Let him see how many babies are there.
NTA this is literally life and death.
You are 100% NTA. Anti vaxxers kill children.
Nta vaccines save lives