No-vax

[Guest Anonymous]

I think the "no shoes in the house" people think the "shoes in the house" people are filthy. Or something. I have no opinion.

[Maul the Koala]

There have got to be more.

Sorry to Wolfie for the thread hijack!

I'm not heading over to mothering.com to find out!

[NurseNell]

Don't forget breastfeeding, peanut butter and whether or not you should remove your shoes when you enter someone's home!

Peanut butter? Never in 20 years online have I seen anything about peanut butter.

Nell

[Austin]

Peanut butter? Never in 20 years online have I seen anything about peanut butter.

Nell

OMG, Nell, you must go to the old board and read the peanut butter thread. It will keep you busy for at least an hour or two. I'm still blown away by it a bit, and I didn't even have a horse in the race really. Not that that's ever stopped me :D

[Guest Anonymous]

Peanut butter? Never in 20 years online have I seen anything about peanut butter.

Nell

You'll never be able to say that again. Here you go - 25 pages of wanking over peanut butter.

http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/6281/N ... ing?page=1

**Edited because I didn't put the link in.

[Austin]

Child-free restaurants and/or supermarkets!

How to deal with bratty or overtired children in supermarkets when they are not your own (or they are your own)

[NurseNell]

OMG, Nell, you must go to the old board and read the peanut butter thread. It will keep you busy for at least an hour or two. I'm still blown away by it a bit, and I didn't even have a horse in the race really. Not that that's ever stopped me :D

Where's the old board? I live on peanut butter.

Nell

[Austin]

Nell, I think Lissar provided a link a few posts up. Enjoy! :lol:

How about pacifiers?

[NurseNell]

You'll never be able to say that again. Here you go - 25 pages of wanking over peanut butter.

Ah, I see, read just the first few posts. I've spent the last 20 years as a school nurse and have had to deal with this. In our district we aren't peanut free. In my school I designated one table as peanut free, and that worked, haven't had to use an epi-pen yet.

Nell

[Wolfie]

Goodness knows I don't want to start any enormous fights, but I've seen the wearing shoes in the house thing mentioned a couple of times, and no matter which way I turn my head and squint, I fail to see how this could cause any sort of passionate debate. Perhaps someone could give me a very quick summary of what exactly this argument is about?

I'm not entirely sure about the no wearing shoes, but my mom acts like she's mortally offended if I ask her to take her shoes off after tromping around my yard and coming into my house. (red clay, chickens, wild animal poop....) I do not see the big deal about taking your shoes off. She takes her shoes off as soon as she's in her own house, and my sister and I agree that I keep mine cleaner! (My sister's and mine are about equal in cleanliness)

My mom has no problems taking shoes off at my brother's house, because his wife is from a culture where it is the norm. WTF?

No problem on the threadjacking- I just found it really interesting to see the stats, and hear that herd immunity was being lost, especially with the epidemics that are popping up in different areas from the lack of vaccinations.

[Guest Anonymous]

I've seen fights over families who use welfare even if it's a temporary thing when they've fallen on hard times.

Totally threadjacking you here, is that a CORGI in your user icon? I personally own 1 1/2 (one's a mix) of the stubby legged freaks my self. Oh did I mean freaks? i meant Benevolent Dictators. Right. Sure I did.

[emmyfair]

*backs away slowly*

[demgirl]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....!!!!

Wait, I can condense this argument: 1/2 of you are right and 1/2 of you I am never speaking to again and you're going on my Foe list.

[Patsy]

I've only been around for two of the vaccination threads (maybe more if some of them were only blips on the radar) and I didn't think they were that antagonistic overall :/ Can't say I can really be bothered to say my piece again, though.

As it relates to fundyism, I'm stupidly surprised that some fundy bloggers who give the impression of intelligence are still anti-vax. A bit like how for some people, thinking "Hmm, I'm not sure the pros outweigh the cons, what with the actually proven possible side-effects" suddenly takes them to believing every bit of bullshit posted on anti-vax websites ("They don't work anyway! They're a new world order conspiracy! They cause autism! You can cure autism by removing metal from the braaaain!"), and how those websites often have main posters on them who endorse every slightly anti-vax thing they come across. How this relates to the fundamentalism: I can see how an intelligent person would blind themself to the obvious truth re: evolution, because they feel, with the culture around them that comes with their particularly religious beliefs, that they must believe in new earth creationism. But then it suddenly leads to saying "all the science is wrong"? That, I find interesting. I think it's a culture thing.

For instance: imagine someone raised Jehovah's Witness who has left the church but still believes that blood transfusions don't work, have a much higher rate of disease transmission, are coerced, etc, etc. You might be able to see why they'd believe all those extra things, but it's not so easy for them to just hear "You need to divorce all the bad things you heard from those around you, because they had a special reason to believe it, and took on those beliefs because they wanted back-up for their religious refusal of blood transfusions." They're still going to have thought those arguments were genuinely convincing.

[Snarkysnark]

This is really interesting to me because my family attended a Christian Science church when I was growing up, and people assume we weren't vaccinated, but we were. Our congregation was super laissez-faire about the whole thing and lots of parents didn't want to pick a fight with the school district, so their kids got vaccinations. There's a lot of misinformation out there about CS, though.

I've gone the other direction in a big way (science degree, married a doctor), and now I think dwindling herd immunity is a scary thing indeed.

ETA: I don't think CS would be considered "fundie" like most of the people we talk about here, though.

[NurseNell]

ETA: I don't think CS would be considered "fundie" like most of the people we talk about here, though.

Have you read fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science by Lucia Greenhouse? It is an excellent book. Her parents were both converts to CS, and interestingly her mother's father was a M.D.

Nell

[maybeizfundie]

I think there are a few good reasons for some individuals (or whole families) not to vaccinate. Certain allergies, reactions, and illnesses, etc. Even the CDC lists these things as reasons not to vax, or to find alternative vaccinations.

What I detest are the hyper-emotional arguments, the "injecting your child with poison" arguments, and the "doctors are moneygrubbing villains" arguments.

We vaccinate.

[notsocommon]

Goodness knows I don't want to start any enormous fights, but I've seen the wearing shoes in the house thing mentioned a couple of times, and no matter which way I turn my head and squint, I fail to see how this could cause any sort of passionate debate. Perhaps someone could give me a very quick summary of what exactly this argument is about?

~Some people work VERY HARD at puttng outfits together so tey can look FAAAAABBBBLLOOUUSSSSS!!!! Taking shoes off totaly ruins the look.

~How DARE you value your carpet/floor over MEEEE!!!!11!!

~I have magical shoes that never track anyting in, because they only walk on sidewalks....or something.

~Others I can't recall at the moment.

Yes, they were dead serious.

[Witsec5]

I wish I was a no shoes in the house kind of person. That would mean I would be more careful with my things. Everything I own eventually gets ruined, especially with kids. I end up taking my shoes off once I'm in the house because my feet hurt if for no other reason.

If someone asks me to take their shoes off before entering their house, I do.

[FlorenceHamilton]

There is no doubt that vaccination is a socialist prectice. Sometimes, socialism is necessary. It in not a dirty word. Generally, I am a Capitalist. However, I care enough about the other people in my world to get that jab to protect myself and the non-immune people around me from devastating diseases.

I will immunize my healthy kid so that the kid who had a splenectomy won't die of a disease that my child can fight off without the shot. But not everybody in my area was that community oriented. She died at 18 because someone did not get vaccinated and she caught an illness that she was unable to fight.

Vaccinations not only protect us, but they also protect the people around us. There is a small risk that our body will have a negative reaction to the vaccine. Some people would rather that OTHER people take on that small risk. If a non immunized person is in an area where most folks are immunized, they also have some protection. Many of the anti-vax people benefit from this.

However, because there are more people opting out of vaccination, there is less of this "herd" immunity. We are seeing a rise in preventable desease. People have died and there will be more. It will be a graphic way to prove that caccination is a better choice. I am sorry that it has to be that way.

[LIzzieB]

I would love to have a no-shoes house. After holidaying in Japan and staying in a few traditional inns, I got used to the idea of taking my shoes off and saw the benefit of not tracking dirt in the house. Unfortunately, hubby doesn't like walking around without shoes and I just couldn't convince him to trade shoes for slippers or socks at the front door.

Our front door just goes straight into living room without an entryway or foyer, and knowing us, we would just end up with a mountain of shoes to trip over anyway.

Back to the OP topic, the idea that vaccinations cause autism has been thoroughly debunked (can't find the link now, but do a search) and it worries me that people are still using this as a reason. I think it would be really tragic to lose a child to a vaccination complication, but even more tragic to lose thousands of children to preventable illnesses. I think that now many of us have never seen some of these illnesses due to vaccination programs, we have become blase about how terrible they really were.

[Austin]

I've only been around for two of the vaccination threads (maybe more if some of them were only blips on the radar) and I didn't think they were that antagonistic overall :/ Can't say I can really be bothered to say my piece again, though.

We've had some pretty good arguments here, but not as bad as I've seen on some boards, especially mothering boards.

The thing I can remember that bothered me enough here at FJ to stop getting into the nitty gritty of vax is when I mentioned in a vax debate thread that I had had recently had my sons vaccinated for something. Two posters came at me like freaking dive bombers with the "what kind of mother are you? eleventy! 1111!!" thing and "how could you be so ignorant?" I ended up just stepping away from the conversation, put them both on ignore (this was before I was a mod) and didn't bother with either of them for months. One thing I will not tolerate is being called a "bad mother", as I put a great deal of thought and education into my parenting.

But now I've gotten over it to the extent that I couldn't even tell you who they were :D

But generally, I don't find that anyone's minds are changed in these debates. I wish it was possible, but there is just a very basic difference in worldviews going on and facts or studies don't seem to move people off of those sorts of things too well. I, too, worry about the epidemics that are almost certainly headed our way, but what can be done? Seemingly nothing. All I can do is protect my family. I also try to keep in mind that the other side sincerely believes they are doing what's best for their families and while I may completely disagree with them, they are not any less invested in their understanding of how things work that I am.

[Kitchen Princess]

I think people do change their minds over time. The person who does will never go back to the person they fought with and admit it. However, I do believe that when someone engages in a debate like those, they inculcate the opposing sides arguments into their mindset and will be more likely to soften, and may even change their mind if they have an opportunity to do so and still save face. Not everyone of course, but enough that it makes the debate worth the effort.

I've seen it over and over and over again on mothering and homeschooling boards.

[Austin]

If you say so. I'm just going off my own experiences, particularly with extended family members who have held these views for years and cannot be persuaded no matter what study comes out (or what is debunked). Hopefully, people do change their minds, but I've not seen it happen with regard to this subject. Again, just my experience.

[clibbyjo]

I think people do change their minds over time. The person who does will never go back to the person they fought with and admit it. However, I do believe that when someone engages in a debate like those, they inculcate the opposing sides arguments into their mindset and will be more likely to soften, and may even change their mind if they have an opportunity to do so and still save face. Not everyone of course, but enough that it makes the debate worth the effort.

I've seen it over and over and over again on mothering and homeschooling boards.

You have seen it on homeschooling boards? Do you mean homeschoolers who have become anti-homeschool? I am just curious, I have never seen that in 10+ years of homeschooling. I have 2 die hard homeschoolers who sent their teens to school this year,but both are still very pro-homeschool(one is still homeschooling her youngest)and know we are here if school doesn't work out.