My family is fully vaccinated. We are team "yay science" and we are living that vaccinated life: socially distant, no-masks unless in crowds/indoors and mostly cautiously optimistic. Of course the delta variant is here, and yes it is highly contagious but mostly, it is really bad for my mom sanity.
All of this new information keeps coming out about potential side effects (heart issues) for teens who have gotten the COVID-19 vaccination and it really has me freaking out. Even though I weighed all the pros and cons of getting the girls vaccinated before we ever scheduled their shots, I canāt truly know if there will be long-term effects.
Even though I firmly believe in science, no matter how you slice it, the vaccine is new and taking a chance with myself is one thing but even the slightest risk with my girlsā lives is something completely different. It was not something I chose lightly but, for us, the consequences were too high not to get vaccinated.
I got my girls the vaccination as soon as they could.
My main three reasons:
- We lost people to COVID
- I wanted to keep my girls safe from potential life-threatening (proven) possible long term effects of actual COVID
- The security it gave them to know they were vaccinated and the confidence it gave them to feel like they were doing their part and to go in public again.
The vaccine was freedom, a release from the self-imposed pandemic prison weāve been living in for the past 16 months, thanks to my diabetes. It was becoming too much and something had to give.
My girls, like many tweens and teens, have developed issues from surviving the coronavirus pandemic.
Luckily, we started the girls in therapy way back when the lockdown first started because there was no way any of us were coming out of this pandemic world unscathed. Therapy was the least I could do for my girls. Mental health is too important and I couldnāt just stand by and watch this pandemic happen to them. I had to fight as hard to keep them mentally healthy as I did to keep them physically healthy.
We are so thankful that we had the luxury to be able to stay safe and quarantine.
We know not everyone could. The ānew normalā is anything but normal and it shows. Every parent likes to believe our teens are these resilient, tough, big kids who are too self-involved and narcissistic to let something like a pandemic stop them from doing them but anyone who actually has a teenager knows that these ābig kids,ā caught between childhood and adulthood, need a lot of help making it through challenging situations and a pandemic is one of the most challenging situations any of us have seen in our lifetimes.
Being a teenager under normal circumstances is hard enough.
Starting high school, getting the hang of the routine, making friends and thriving is hard work. Add to that hormones, social media, FOMO, and peer pressure and even on a good day, being a teenager is full of ups and downs. Thatās why when the vaccine was available, even though we struggled with the decision, all we really needed to do was ask our girls and see how much they wanted to have that choice to get vaccinated and we knew what the right thing was.
Iām not going to lie, all of this still scares me to death.
Iām having a mini freak-out in my head just thinking about back-to-school next month. I still worry about whether or not there will be some another surge of cases, a new variant that the vaccine has no effect on, or some unexpected side effect from the vaccine itself later down the road. But, for now, Iām trusting the science and hoping for the best.
One thing I do know is that the potential long-term effects of COVID, even on young people, can be disastrous to their health.
More importantly, I know the peace of mind and freedom it has given my daughters. They are reentering the world and living, thinking, and acting like teenage girls again. They are happy and excited and enthusiastic, which is something they havenāt been experiencing a lot of over the past year.
My girls are looking forward to finally doing normal teenage girl things again: going back to school in person, hanging out with friends, and going to games and dances
Even though my mom heart still worries every time they leave the house, about COVID and a myriad of other things, I can exhale knowing that not only have I raised good humans but to also have given them the freedom to move happily and safely in the world.
At the end of the day, it was a hard choice whether or not to vaccinate our girls because the vaccination is still so new and it's impossible to know the long-term effects.
I was torn because they are my children, my everything. But in the end, I chose what I thought was the best for them.
It has definitely restored their self-confidence and made them less anxious and depressed. As their mom, Iāll willingly worry behind the scenes about all the things that can go wrong, as long as they can live happily and healthy.
