One teen is ready to risk it all with her anti-vax mother after the mom threatened to pull her payments to her dream school if she dares get the required flu shot. The problem is, the teen truly believes there's no issues with getting vaccinated, but she isn't sure if she could risk college money to stand up for her beliefs.
The Original Poster (OP) is an incoming freshman.
She's clearly so excited that she got into a semi-competitive engineering program at one of her "top choices for college."
"I absolutely love the school," she wrote in the r/relationship advice forum. But her school recently instituted a new rule that all incoming students must get their flu shot before they can attend.
Her mom is less than thrilled with the new rule.
She recently called her daughter to go over this whole flu shot problem.
"She was asking me to reconsider going to another college halfway across the country because they don't require flu shots," the OP wrote. "The school is not nearly as good in terms of engineering, it's a long way away and it's expensive as hell for out of state students."
But more importantly, "I have zero desire to go there," she wrote.
The teen truly believes this "this wasn't the hill I wanted to die on."
She doesn't think getting a shot is that big of a deal, and she doesn't want this to be the reason why she doesn't attend her dream school. Unfortunately, her mom doesn't agree.
"She got kinda angry with me and basically implied that she wouldn't pay for me to attend college if I got the shot, I would be completely on my own," the OP explained.
Her mom suggested that the OP start a protest at the school to let her attend without the flu shot.
The suggestion was really a sly dig at the fact that the OP had organized a local Black Lives Matter protest — which the mom also disagreed with.
The teen told her mom that she wasn't sure she wanted "to associate with those people [anti-vaxxers]." That made her mother cry and end their call abruptly.
"My mom and I seem to be at odds about everything right now," the OP continued. "She was upset with me for organizing the BLM march, she doesn't like most of my political views, and she's even threatened to burn a book I was reading by Richard Dawkins about evolution because 'he advocated for cannibalism' (???) and she seems to vaguely think evolution is a lie, despite not [being] religious so far as I can tell."
Even more crazy, the teen has had a vaccine before.
Albeit one that her dad took her to get behind her mother's back. It happened her freshman year of high school — and her mother has never gotten over it.
" I feel like this whole disaster is going to be the final straw though," she wrote.
Sure, the OP could walk over to a drug store and get herself a shot.
The problem is that even if she does secretly get a flu shot, her mom will immediately know because she'll be eligible to attend her dream school.
"I just really need some advice on how to deal with this before she comes home from work and gets super mad and starts yelling at me," she continued.
Many commenters told the OP to ignore her mother's wishes.
"Whatever you do, do NOT choose your mother and her money over your education," one commenter advised. "As an engineer, you'll easily recoup the money you have to spend going to [college]. If it turns out you can convince your mother to pay for it, that's great."
"Yep, OP will regret it forever if they let their mother ruin their future like this over her fanatical beliefs," someone else agreed.
"I’m an engineering school dropout, take it from me and the electrical engineering school drop out crowd, education and your future matter more than your family and their backward thinking. Progress! For the future of earth!" a third person chimed in.
Many commenters also advised the OP to talk to her school's financial aid department or to see if there is any other way to get funding. Overall, people thought her education way outweighed her mom's dated beliefs.
The teen can see where her mom is coming from, despite their differences of opinion on the subject.
Later in the thread, the OP shared that she can understand where her mom is coming from — even though she doesn't agree with her. And that might be a good place to start when trying to get her mother to understand how important school — and the one with the program she wants to enter — is to the teen.
"She really, genuinely believes vaccines are dangerous and I know all she's trying to do is look out for me in her own way," she wrote.
