“Don’t you know that vaccines cause autism?” Actually, they don’t. The British doctor who spread that fallacy admitted to falsifying the data and his name was stricken from the British Medical Register. (Translation: he lost his license to practice medicine.) Unfortunately, airhead celebrities like Jenny McCarthy are still spreading that lie. Daniel is completely caught up on vaccines and if I had any say in the matter, all kids would be required to be vaccinated. There’s no excuse for kids in the USA dying from diseases like whooping cough if the access to vaccines exists.
“Have you heard of the GAPS diet? It cures autism.” Yes, I’ve heard of it — I don’t think any parent of an autistic kid hasn’t because we do a huge amount of research in the hopes of finding something to help our kids. It also doesn’t cure autism because there is no cure. It sometimes *helps* some kids who have gluten intolerances and whose behavior is affected by them but it isn’t a cure-all thing. Besides, I have a kid with enough food issues that I’d rather not do anything to limit his diet any more than it already is.
“I can’t believe you didn’t breastfeed Daniel. Don’t you know that ‘breast is best’???” The fun part is that it’s people who know about my pregnancy from hell and the emergency c-section from the HELLP Syndrome who ask me this. Anyway, I have no regrets about not breastfeeding with Daniel. I actually did try pumping but I was so incredibly sick that I needed the sleep too much to have to wake up every few hours to pump. My doctor and I made the decision to suppress my milk supply (it had already started coming in because of the pumping) and it was probably what got me out of the hospital sooner rather than later.
“I can’t believe you want to vote for Obama!!!” I’d love to respond by saying that I can’t believe they would vote for Romney, but that would be wrong to do. 🙂 In all seriousness, I vote my conscience and I can’t, in good conscience, support Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. Our third party system is crappy at best so my other option is Obama. I stay out of discussions of this on Facebook and elsewhere because I believe one of the blessings of being American is being allowed to vote one’s conscience. If your conscience says “Romney”, more power to you. Mine says “oh Hades no!” to the though of voting for Mitt Romney so “Obama” it is.
“What do you mean your son has never had McDonald’s?!?!?!? Are you some kind of hippie granola freak?” Strangely, I’ve gotten this from people who are astonished that Daniel wasn’t breastfed. No, he has never had McDonald’s. He had a lot of texture issues when he finally started eating solid foods and I just never took him through the drive-thru because I didn’t think he’d eat it. When we were at his preschool picnic in May, peoples’ jaws dropped when they saw me bring the exact same lunch item for Daniel as I had brought for myself instead of going the Happy Meal route. I did get him a cheeseburger from Carl’s Jr a few days later and he was chill with that; but I’ve never gotten him anything from McDonald’s and probably won’t in the foreseeable future.
“Why aren’t you homeschooling Daniel because he’s autistic?” The thought of homeschooling Daniel has never occurred to me and when Jon brought it up, I shot it down immediately… and that was before he was diagnosed with autism. I am not a patient person by nature and homeschooling was never in the plans, especially once he was diagnosed with autism. While I’ve had ABA training, I would rather have people who are far better trained than I am working with him. His preschool class provides him with music, art, behavioral therapy, speech therapy, and teachers/aides who adore the kids. I couldn’t ask for a better situation, especially in a public preschool. Not to mention, he gets mainstreamed with the other state preschool classes in increasing amounts which is educational for them as well as for him.
“Can’t you just take some Tylenol for your fibromyalgia?” If that was a possibility, don’t you think I’d be doing that instead of spending $50+ a month on gabapentin and massage therapy? If you want your death to be slow and painful, just tell me that you don’t think fibromyalgia exists. I dare you!
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.
