Vaccination and victimhood

will almost certainly come together at some point. Someone is bound to claim that not getting vaccinated now is because of their childhood upbringing. After all, you can blame anything on the way you were brought up can't you?

Prince Harry is blaming it all on the way he was brought up so why can't the rest of us? The kid down the street who was caught throwing rocks onto cars on the freeway can blame it all on the way he was brought up so why can't we? The girl in front of the magistrate for stealing the eye-liner blames it all on the boyfriends her mother brought home so why can't we?

I thought of all this when someone told me that her mother "didn't believe in getting us kids vaccinated"  so she wasn't going to bother either.  Her mother is a radical, angry woman - a trouble maker. She has been arrested a number of times and it is sheer good luck that she hasn't ended up in prison. Her daughter can barely read and write because she wasn't made to go to school as the law required. I was called in to help her fill out some forms.

So I told her how my mother didn't believe in getting us vaccinated either. I told her how my mother's religious beliefs influenced our childhood and how my siblings and I were eventually vaccinated and how we had made sure that the next generation were fully vaccinated at the right times and how they are making sure that their children are also vaccinated.

"You don't have to be like your mother," I told her. I don't usually say anything like that but she was making herself out to be a victim here and saying that her behaviour was the result of the way she had been mothered. (Her father is nowhere on the scene.) I pointed out that you don't have to pay to get children vaccinated against a wide variety of things in this country - and that there is a "no jab no play" policy in place. The two year old with the runny nose and the grizzling baby both need to be vaccinated before they can go to any sort of child care.

I brought up her local council website and showed her.  She sighed.

"I guess but it's such a waste of time," she told me, "I mean if Mum never did it."

"You have a lot more sense than your mother," I told her, "It's not your fault if your husband is off work.  The accident was not his fault. It was the fault of his mate not doing the right thing. His boss is holding his position for him. This is just to help you over for now. If you do the right thing your children and your grandchildren will be much better off.  Are you worried about it? Do you want someone to explain? Do you want someone to go with you?"

We sorted it out in the end. She has an actual appointment to talk to a nurse. Her husband came in as we were finishing things off. He is a decent young man and told me, "I'll still be off work so we can go together."

I hope they do go and that a nurse can convince her of the need to be vaccinated.  If the children are vaccinated she can get some help with her literacy at the local college and they can go to childcare there.  She doesn't need to be a victim of her parenting.