Confessions

I’m sure you can believe me when I tell you I’m far from the perfect mother, Jewish or otherwise. I’m short of temper, quick to anger, and patience is not a virtue I’ve ever experienced. How lucky for me that my progeny turned out the way they did.

You should know that I’ve never taken responsibility for those amazing human beings either. If they inherited any good characteristics, that’s simply because of their father, who epitomizes all that I do not.

But one kind word to me — I was mostly always careful. I was a worrier from day one of pregnancy and this continues until today, over 60 years later. This meant that I tried to exercise caution and good judgment whenever and wherever possible. Notice I said tried. Sometimes, like when I dropped my six-month-old onto the sidewalk one Friday afternoon as I was dashing home with hands full of infant and challot, I didn’t succeed. But I tried. I did tick-checks after every possible exposure, never left my babes in the care of an immature or untrained babysitter, and always aimed for a childproof house. I cut grapes and hot dogs into little itty-bitty pieces, and seatbelts and car seats were part of my vocabulary early early on. The pediatrician was always on call, and if he or she wasn’t, he or she just wasn’t for us.

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Yeah, but I was inconsistent to be sure. I often had a cigarette dangling out of my mouth when I was buckling those kids in. My regrets today certainly cannot undo that, and I have no good excuses available to me at this moment. I did stop smoking many years ago, when threatened by my 12-year-old daughter, who said that she would start if I didn’t stop. Bad Ima.

I believed what I read (past tense). When my first child was born, it was a series of articles about the dangers to children who were untethered in cars. In those days babies old enough to sit were placed in flimsy seats in the middle of the front row, the most dangerous location in the car. Do you even remember those seats, with their worthless plastic belts and toy steering wheels? Newborns were merely placed in an unsecured infant carrier, usually the removable mattress and upper section of a carriage. My response was to have an auto repair shop install newly available permanent children’s harnesses into each of our cars, which were clicked into position in two places on each child, shoulders and hips. Indeed, these were annoying contraptions, but they protected our children for years.

I still read (present tense), and I still worry. But I never ever thought that I would have to worry about vaccinating my children until Trump’s appointment of the pseudo doctor Robert Kennedy Jr. Can he really be the son of RFK, a man so adored by my generation of young liberals, including me? Talk about apples falling from trees!

As a child, before many of the common vaccines were even created, I had almost all of the so-called childhood illnesses. I luckily missed out on diphtheria and polio, but I remember all the others.

I had whooping cough one summer in Parksville, where my mother, the CEO of our little kuch alein, trusted a couple who swore that their children were coughing due to allergies. Half of us kids caught that allergy, better known as pertussis, and Mom had to return all the money paid to the Bauman House by those other tenants whose kids dodged the affliction, lucky enough not to catch the horrible disease. The rest of us kids coughed through the summer and we all survived.

I had chicken pox when I was 10. It was no big deal but I have the pretty characteristic scar above my nose as a permanent reminder. All four of our next-generation kids also had it, one at a time, since why make things easy and have it simultaneously?

I also had mumps and German measles, and they were both benign and unimpressive, but they did cost me days of school attendance. In pregnancy, on the other hand, German measles can be devastating.

Measles was the worst, however. I recall being dreadfully sick with raging high fever, horrid malaise, and a terrible rash. I had never known my father to join Mom in worrying, but my measles brought him to his knees. He clearly thought I would die.

And now here we are, two generations after I became a parent, with all of these diseases now preventable by vaccine. Which sane person in this world wouldn’t prefer immunization to contracting illnesses that threaten children’s well-being and can lead to their deaths? Clearly no one in their right mind would risk the lives of their children because of the opinions of one Robert Kennedy Jr. He is the individual casting doubt on the efficacy of vaccines that have saved innumerable lives by preventing deadly diseases, in this country and throughout the world.

According to The New York Times, measles cases hit record highs this year, 25 years after the disease was successfully eliminated. This is due to vaccine hesitancy encouraged by RFK Jr.

We are here in these United States. Our future history books will be incapable of explaining how our public health system charged with administering mandatory vaccines to children was challenged and potentially brought down by a presidential appointee, a high-level government official, part of an administration that consistently seeks to place the least competent, most authoritarian individuals in charge of life-and-death policies. Such a man is vaccine-skeptic conspiracy-theorist Robert Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy has no illustrious medical training to tout. He has none at all. He is not educated in public health. He cannot even be accused of minimal good judgment. Recently he was seen at a polluted public park in Washington, D.C., splashing and submerging with his own grandchildren in water where swimming is not allowed due to the high levels of bacteria.

We all know I’m not kidding! Mistrust in vaccines has now led to a surge in U.S. measles cases, the highest level in 33 years and counting. And Kennedy is still rallying his supporters, having fired the rational scientists who had been enforcing America’s vaccination programs. He is similarly heavy-handed with all vaccines, including those for seasonal flu and covid-19. His theories remain without merit or proof, and yet he is allowed control of HHS. Obscene, no?

It is possible that careful parents soon may not be able to vaccinate their children or themselves. Probably those with sufficient resources will be able to secure vaccines for payment, but those others, who are perhaps underprotected by insurance due to the new Medicaid cutbacks, may find that they are unable to afford what has been a minimalist basic health standard in a nation of free vaccinations.

Another of my confessions: I didn’t vote for the present government!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com