The End is Near!

Okay, that title is perhaps just a tad overdramatic, but times really are getting bad! Besides just the normal economic crises that we're all dealing with right now, our niece put another kernel of panic into my head. She was talking about her 11th grade humanities class and how they're learning about Mayan Prophecies and specifically about the prophecy of 2012. I started doing the math in my head and thought of how my poor son will barely be starting kindergarten and how our possible second child will just be a little toddler when that day comes! At least it puts our current problems in perspective, right?

When I'm not thinking about the possible apocalypse, I've been diverting my attention to the weight of parenting and all of the many theorists out there who offer advice with the underlying message always being, "Just think of all of the many ways you are screwing up your kid!" Sure, that is probably a stretch in implication, but this is my impression of parenting in these current times. No matter what decision you make for your child, there will be a throng of angry naysayers. I'm open to learning ways to improve myself all of the time and so I'm willing to listen to the advice of just about anyone, but I don't think that most people really have _the_ answer.

Today, for example, my husband and I are taking our son for some vaccinations. This has been a topic that I have wrangled with since his birth. We have selectively delayed most of the vaccinations and so he is far behind schedule, but I really don't feel secure in knowing what the correct course of action is nor do I believe that anyone can really know 100% what the right thing to do is. Now that our son is nearly two, I'm under the belief that you just have to take a gamble either way and hope for the best. If you get the vaccinations, then you have to keep your fingers crossed that there are no serious adverse reactions, and if you don't get the vaccinations, then you have to hope against everything that your child does not end up with one of the diseases that may have been preventable. So far we have chosen a path somewhere in the middle by getting some vaccinations, but not all and not on the regular schedule, and so far we have been extremely lucky that our son has been healthy.

The "middle path" is a concept that I remember learning about growing up as a Buddhist, and I really think that it is the way to go for me. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom cut out an article from the Sunday Parade that had the advice, "Avoid zealots." My mom told me then that this is important advice to remember in life, and although I didn't know the word "zealot" back then, her advice stuck with me and I heed it more and more as I grow older. Now back to worrying about the end of the world...