Flu shots.

[rivka]

Normally, I get my flu shot at work. They're eager to vaccinate us because our immunocompromised patients would otherwise be at high risk of catching the flu from an infected employee.

I asked a couple of the nurse practitioners whether we were getting flu shots this year. One of them told me that the patient clinics haven't received any flu vaccine yet. Apparently, there's been some discussion about rationing within the patient population - saving the vaccine for patients with lower CD4+ cell counts.

So I called my primary care provider. They don't have the vaccine, and they're not expecting to get any in. The nurse advised me to call the health department. So I checked the health department website, and discovered that they don't have any vaccine and aren't expecting to get any in. They recommend calling your primary care provider.

I knew my midwife's office wouldn't have the vaccine, but I called to ask if they knew where I could get it. Nope.

Employee Health at the hospital doesn't have it, and won't be getting the injectible vaccine. They might be getting a few doses of FluMist, the intranasal vaccine, which pregnant women can't take.

I knew there was a shortage, but I had no idea it was this bad.

If it were just me, or just me and the Li'l Critter, I'd be willing to take my chances. I mean, if I were to get the flu, the danger to the baby would be either from (1) fever, which can be safely controlled with Tylenol during pregnancy, or (2) dehydration, which can be treated with an IV. The flu wouldn't kill me, and it wouldn't kill the baby.

But if I got the flu, it might kill one of my patients. I'm not being hyperbolic. I have patients whose ability to mount an immune response is damn near zero.

Meanwhile, in childfree, a healthy college student is bragging about managing to arrange a flu shot for herself. I quote: "I'm feeling good about it, because I keep telling myself I'm taking one away from some little brat who really doesn't need one."

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I can appreciate the conscious decision not to bring a child into the world, but bragging that one is denying a needed resource to another person who is the result of a differing philosophy is hateful and stupid.

Sadly, I cannot say that the story you relate above is a one-off; many of the folks I've encountered who label themselves "childfree" behave in aggressively anti-child ways, almost at the level of homophobic behavior towards gays (excepting physical violennce).

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

(excepting physical violennce).


That may be because, unlike violence towards gays (at least until recently), the authorities are all over violence to children (at least by people not their parents) and you *will* go to jail.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

many of the folks I've encountered who label themselves "childfree" behave in aggressively anti-child ways,

I find that that's true of large parts of the organized childfree movement as I've seen it online, but it doesn't describe the actual childfree people that I know personally.

I have a lot of committedly childfree friends - most notably, therealjae - and I wouldn't want to put them in the same category as the people who populate childfree.

[ckd]

I suspect a perceptual bias; the folks who are self-labeling as "childfree" sufficiently vehemently to come to rmjwell's attention are the ones whose behavior is more egregious. The quiet ones you don't notice, and they don't have it so tied in to their self-image as to need to act out, either.

Compare to proselytizers vs. the quietly religious and similar situations; same dynamic, just the details change.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Please note: I was not attempting to label all childfree-identified persons as exhibiting the behavior shown by the OP over in childfree. I was saying that I've heard this sentiment expressed by a non-zero number of people, both in online and in-person interactions.

As to the quiet ones who don't get noticed, I think it is important that people speak out for their own experience and ideas especially when sensationalists are trying to grab attention. No, not by trying to outshout the outrageous, but putting my own history out in the open. If quiet people cede the discussion to the loud, I don't think anyone should be surprised if people outside of a particular group --be it childfree, polyamory, or christians-- think the loud voice is seen as the singular voice.

[cheshyre]

Back in 2000, I actually went out seeking and reading the childfree groups in hopes of understanding their POV. Unfortunately, it seemed like every space I found was solely for really nasty ranting against and (verbal)bashing children and parents.

I don't want to fill Rivka's space with their comments, but here are my old Usenet posts on my findings. Take particular note of my May 25th post.

Maybe hopefully things have changed in the past four years, but you know I'm good at finding things if I put my mind to it, and I've never found the kind of space I was looking for.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to put them in the same category as the people who populate childfree

Well, *yeah*. This is livejournal, after all. I mean, would you want to assume that the majority of poly people are like the loudest folks who hang out in polyamory? ;-)

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

*cringe*

Suddenly, I understand the people who keep trying to invent a new word for "polyamory."

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

That's a really nice picture of you.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Jae thinks so too, which is why I most often haul it out in responses to her.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Our experiences of childfree-identified people differ, then.

Which is part of the reason I commented to your and not therealjae's post; I have no experience with her as to this matter and so didn't want it to look like I was painting her with the same brush.

[perigee.livejournal.com]

I know this is late, but I thought I'd say: misia and I are childfree, and will likely remain so. We've both got fertility issues, me the moreso. But unlike the real selfish dickheads I saw populating childfree we like little ones, and who knows - maybe we'll front the money required for adoption at some point.

But for now, we visit child-enabled friends and help take care of their kids. I just don't understand why some of the politically childfree feel free to be such dickheads about their choice. But then rudeness almost always puzzles me.