I’m getting my kid vaccinated, and now I’ve been accused of child abuse
MINOT — It is my custom to take some vacation days during the week between the Christmas and New Year holidays. It’s an opportune time for a newshound like me since not a lot of consequence happens that week anyway. It’s not likely I’ll miss anything.
This year my wife and I decided we’d use the time to check off some to-do items from our list. Among them, vaccinations. She and I need our boosters, and our 6-year-old son needs his first shot. I made the appointments, and then posted a little update on my personal Facebook page since that’s the sort of thing you put on your personal social media platforms.
“Just made vaccine booster shot appointments for Jessica and I over the Christmas holiday. Scheduled Cooper to get his pediatric shot, too,” I wrote in what I thought was a perfectly innocuous status update . “Won’t make for a very fun Wednesday, but happy to have it scheduled.”
What followed my post was 170 comments of anti-vaccine vitriol, including multiple accusations of child abuse for following the advice of our pediatrician to get our son vaccinated (our middle-school-aged daughter is fully vaccinated but isn’t yet eligible for her booster).
Here’s a sampling:
