Kids’ covid vaccines are on the way. Parents, don’t let anti-vax propaganda fool you.

As my daughter slept, then cried, then fed, then cried, I read each and every post, comment and article. I let myself be swept into the tide of anti-vaccine rhetoric, allowing myself to feel what it must be like to encounter these messages anew during a time of such physical and emotional turmoil. In the blue light of my phone I found a message that targeted my deepest fears with surgical precision, then offered a seemingly simple solution. Anti-vaccine propagandists were waiting for me, ready to pounce on my darkest anxiety that something terrible would happen to my daughter. They told me that they understood my worries, that they had seen my journey through the medical establishment, that they understood my pain as a new mother. And they had an answer. There was one thing, and one thing only, that posed a risk to my child. Vaccines were the threat, and by refusing them, I could free my family from all of the messy “what ifs.”

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