Examples include: not vaccinating Calvin, and feeding him organic (and when possible home grown) foods. We may vaccinate him in the future, but right now he is not getting any combo vaccines. A court in Italy just said basically what the vaccine courts in the US have stumbled around not saying, but half-heartedly admit to: some vaccines cause autism. It’s in the public interest to disprove it, so there is a lot of effort put into that, but the long and short of it is that 20 years from now they will either have dramatically improved vaccines or we will be doing single instead of combo vaccines and they will be spread out over a much longer period of time. There are simply too many cases with too many children being harmed and killed by vaccines. The tide is slowly shifting. I just happen to be at the front of that tide instead of the tail end of it.
We grow a nice vegetable garden with heritage seeds because I am freaked out about the amazingly horrific damages caused by GMO foods. Did you know that nearly ALL corn and corn products produced in North America is GMO? Did you know it’s killing off bees? Did you know that there is no testing to prove or disprove the safety of this genetically modified food in humans? Think soy is safe? Think again. We are one huge mass living experiment. Previous experiments like this have caused bad problems in the past, but no one seems to be learning from past mistakes. I can’t wait to see how this alters our DNA.
The above two examples are things I don’t mind admitting. I have science on my side. There is a lot of evidence pointing to why I've made the choices I have in those. The one little secret I don’t announce, until now, is about his shoes.
I went into a specialty children’s shoe store to get his feet measured and find out what kind of shoes they have for him. I figured they would be on the cutting edge of what is new and safe for kid’s feet. I arrived and when I said what kind of shoe I was looking for the guy, as politely as he could manage, wanted to know why I was making that choice when, if I could kindly look at the propaganda on the walls, I could see that I should be making the mainstream choice. Sigh. Since I can’t quote the science yet behind my thinking of what shoe is best, I just mumbled about thinking about it and got out of there.
We keep Calvin barefoot as much as possible. No shoes. But when we go out, he wears shoes and boots. I try very hard to find what people would call ‘barefoot’ shoes for him. There are articles out in pediatric podiatrist journals, but I haven’t found a lot of repeated studies over and over that can state the same thing: thick bottomed, and/or rigid shoes alter the foot and the way a child walks, not in a good way. A few studies for sure are available, but for some reason this feels like my dirty little secret. That I believe barefoot is best for the growth of a foot well into adulthood. Now that I've admitted it, it’s time to do some shopping.