Not always seeing eye-to-eye about how to parent your kids is typical in most marriages, but sometimes the difference in opinion is too big to ignore. Just ask one dad on Reddit, who is having a hard time dealing with his wife's newfound stubborn refusal to vaccinate their baby after getting "brainwashed" on Facebook. The dad doesn't want to let this go and is even thinking about taking matters into his own hands, but many people online advised that there may not a happy ending for this problem.
Although his wife of three years has always been "quirky," the dad explained that a recent friendship changed her in a fundamental way.
The horrified new dad shared that his wife recently "got sucked into one of those anti-vax Facebook indoctrination camps by one of her brain dead friends" and that woman hasn't let up since his wife gave birth. According to dad, once the anti-vax friend saw pictures of their newborn baby online, she started flooding his wife with messages about the *horrors* of vaccination.
Apparently the messages worked because now his wife is refusing to vaccinate their baby and isn't willing to talk about it. "I love my wife but she somehow manages to be the most stubborn individual on the planet while simultaneously being the most gullible and malleable," he wrote. "Shortly after birth (because this was pre-brainwashing) our child received her Vitamin K shot, and the Hep-B vaccine. However, now She’s refusing to give our child any of the other vaccines."
The dad explained that no matter how much he tries to reason with his wife, she's banned vaccines.
"I know that in her mind, she’s coming from a place of love for our child but as you can imagine, this has caused a considerable amount of strain," he wrote. To make matters worse, most of her arguments against vaccines don't add up and end with “I’m the mother here, this is a mothers instinct, I know I’m right, a mother knows best, etc etc etc…”
"I’ve tried showing her the statistics detailing the infant mortality rates in lesser developed countries where vaccination isn’t as pertinent and that vaccines are effective," he continued. But his wife is now convinced that "those statistics are created by think tanks funded by the government and 'big-pharma.'"
Realizing that his wife might not back down and that their child is at risk, this dad is considering having her vaccinated behind mom's back.
At his wit's end, the dad explained that they've been having serious arguments about this for weeks with zero progress. "I’m worried that the only thing which will wake her up is our child being afflicted by some horrible disease like measles which could’ve been easily avoided," he wrote.
Instead of potentially risking his little girl, he's now considering going rogue and doing what he thinks is best — whether mom likes it or not. "I am in Florida. Is there any way I can sneakily just bring my child to the doctor and have her vaccinated without my wife’s knowledge?" he asked. "What are my options here? Legally speaking, what kind of leeway do I have? I don’t want this to lead to divorce but I just feel quite lost at the moment."
People online seemed to agree; this dad needs to make this happen.
One person explained that the dad completely has the right to take his kid to get shots.
"You're an equal parent, not a secondary one," one person wrote.
And another person pointed out that if he doesn't do it now, it's going to be a problem when he tries to enroll her in school.
But some people warned him that if he does go through with it, he wife will surely be p*ssed.
And even the dad was a little concerned about upsetting his wife.
"I want to get her vaccinated but my biggest concern is that she will take it as a huge breach of trust," he wrote later in the thread. "While I want to have my child vaccinated, I want to try and go about it in a way that keeps my marriage as intact as possible."
But an angry wife is better than a dead kid, one person reasoned.
And another user argued that the only worst-case scenario should be divorce, not his daughter dying from the measles.
In the end, the dad wrote that he's decided to try and reason with his wife "one last time, as I am skeptical to go behind her back because she may take it as an unforgivable breach of trust, and that is not the outcome I desire."
But if she still won't listen to reason, "I have decided to get my child vaccinated without her knowledge and letting her believe otherwise, because I know that is the best thing for my marriage and my child."
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