I judge you because (the parenting edition)

You chose to have a home birth. A few years ago, Rikki Lake made a documentary called "The Business of Being Born." The basic message behind the film was that birth is a natural process. It conveyed a message that women should take control of their own bodies during this process rather than allowing a doctor's agenda and the fiscal aspect of hospitals to interfere. I have been involved in many discussions on this topic and find home births to be a horrible idea. You never know what could go wrong during labor. Problems may arise that can put both you and your baby at risk. It's grossly irresponsible. If you're at a hospital, help can be there within seconds. What is wrong with allowing doctors and nurses to take charge of the situation? They will go through this process more times in a single day than you will in your entire lifetime. Let them be the experts. I often find that the women who push for home births tend to be of the hippy dippy variety. Like me, these same women sometimes fight for safe and legal abortions. I question that if they want to use technology for a procedure that will result in the fetus not surviving, why deny technology when you are looking for a survival outcome?

You drink or smoke while you are pregnant or you smoke in front of children and pregnant women. I've never been able to understand the appeal of smoking. Have we not done all the research we could possibly do to prove that smoking in general is bad? Why do it at all? And I'm tired of smokers complaining about their rights. Shut the fuck up. You can choose to smoke but I can't choose not to breathe the air while you're doing it. Your selfishness is infringing upon my health, my rights and that of my unborn child's. Personally, I don't care if you smoke. Please, by all means, get cancer and remove yourself from my gene pool. Darwin would be proud. And drinking while pregnant is also ridiculously selfish as well. Why risk damaging your child? And if I can give up drinking for nine months, anyone can do it. Trust me.

You choose not to vaccinate your children. I will never understand this. Again, why put your child at risk for getting sick? I understand that one of the arguments against vaccination is that rates of learning disabilities have gone up since vaccinations have become more widely attainable. Gee, do you think it's because we've also become more scientifically aware in general? Our kids are now going to school and graduating rather than dropping out to help on farms or support the workforce as they did in generations past. We have trained our teachers to spot learning and attention disabilities (although, I think we are also sometimes too quick to make these judgments out of laziness and last resort as an excuse to medicate and walk away). And we're also feeding our children a different diet than in the past as well. The key is, that child mortality rates have also dropped dramatically since we've started vaccinating regularly as well. And once again, I think this becomes an issue of not wanting others, such as the government, to influence your parenting decisions. What makes you the expert?

You let your baby drink soda. Caffeine is like kiddie alcohol. It has its time and a place. It's one thing to have it on a special occassion, like a birthday party. It's another thing to have it constantly every day.
Childhood obesity is on the rise and soda is like a gateway drug. As mentioned in the previous point, we're also discovering more learning disabilities and attention disorders. I think if we limit the amount of caffeine and sugar in our kid's diets they will be significantly calmer and less hyperactive. I was not allowed to drink caffeine as a child because I would bounce off the walls. As an adult, I have a lower tolerance for caffeine and don't find myself being a slave to it as others that I know are. I have the ability to energize myself without depending on a stimulus.

You home school. This is true especially in cases where people do it because the curriculum interferes with their religious beliefs. What are you so afraid of? If you're so sure that what you believe is true and that you are raising your children in what you consider to be the "right" way, why would learning about other ideas raise any issue? I'm not particularly religious, but if my child learns of a religion and decides to become a part of that faith at an appropriate age, I will not be disappointed. Although, if they decided to be Republicans, I probably would question where I went wrong. Still, there is no reason why you can't continue to teach with your influence outside of a school's curriculum. Why not let children be children and discover the world in a well-rounded way?