#TGIF – Thursday Thoughts
Happy Friday! Thank goodness it’s Friday… am I right? Yes, I’m sending my ‘Thursday thoughts’ on a Friday…. but life happens. So excited to share this four part story with you over the next few weeks.
Part 1
The questioning all began in a doctor’s office, as it does for so many mothers.
Protocols were being carried out—a system that relies on submission to something that is expected of everyone. I held him down. It was me that sat beneath him, hugging his little body, worries flooding my brain. Was I doing the right thing? If I trusted my doctor, why was I feeling so doubtful? Was this truly necessary? What did I really know about what was being injected into his body?
But I did it. Even in my doubts, I still allowed a doctor to speak over me and tell me this was the best thing I could do for my son.
And then changes began to happen.
I think I was looking for them. I think the worries that had swirled within my head had created a new radar that was operating within me—looking for what could be a sign that what I allowed was not the best option for my child.
The one that caused a mix of overwhelm, anger, and shame to surface was when he stopped saying “mama”. My baby stopped calling me “mama”.
This is where I think the guilt really set in for me.
Why did I allow this to happen? Why wasn’t I more diligent? Why did I just have this blind trust in someone else?
I’m his mom and I felt the responsibility for what happened to him heavy on my shoulders.
But I didn’t know.
I think this is where so many other mothers have also been—where they just didn’t know but make themselves feel so guilty as if they should have. However, we never know until we do. And although shame and guilt will twist itself within our thoughts and we’ll have to wrestle with it at times, we can only blame ourselves for what happened if we choose not to change something going forward.
So, I went to the doctor. I laid out my concerns and what I had seen with my own eyes—the ways my son had regressed.
It was here that I was shamed, chastised, and made to feel as if I was inferior—that what I suspected was ridiculous. I was told there was nothing to support my accusations and that nothing that had happened in his office could have caused such things to happen.
Then I was kicked out of his office—as if the problems my child had after that day were something I had made up, and it is because I was viewed as the problem. My thoughts and our experience were not wanted in that place. I was a potential threat to the system they appeared to worship.
A system designed to keep mothers ignorant until they are shaken from what they experience in their own homes, and then made to believe they are the crazy ones.
Mamas, we are not the crazy ones. You are not crazy for wanting to know more.
If the information is withheld from us, shouldn’t we be questioning the ones withholding the information?
Part Two to come….
