Survival of the Fittest

 I am a jumble of thoughts and emotions right now. The only thing that I feel will help me find some comfort among the chaos in my mind is to write. So here I am. 

My girls have joined a high school homeschool choir. They are both so excited for this opportunity to be among 40 other kids their age. It is one of the best opportunities my family has had as homeschoolers to make friends and be with peers. 

All of the kids involved in this choir are over the age of 12. All of them are vaccine eligible. 

A notice came out from the choir this morning that per our county's guidelines social distancing will be in place, but cannot be enforced at all times due to the nature of the practice space we are using. It also stated that masks were required, but that that policy would not be enforced. No reason would be required if a child should choose to not wear one. 

My mind immediately panicked when I read this notice. There are a lot of unvaccinated people especially among religious groups - which although this choir did not advertise itself as a religious,  choir practices are held in a church and all of the people I have met are very churchy. (I know that this generalization and that there are plenty of non-religious folks who haven't been vaccinated, and on the flip side, I know that there are plenty of religious people who have gotten vaccinated. Because I homeschool, the majority of people I come across are religious and so I am speaking from my experience.) 

I fear that when we go to our first practice on Tuesday that no one will be masked. (My girls will be.)

This whole vaccine situation makes me want to cry with frustration. Believe it or not, I believe it is your right as a human being to choose to vaccinate yourself and your kiddos. I understand your hesitation if you haven't done so. If I had a completely healthy family, I would be questioning the vaccine and its safety and possible long term consequences too. So, I get where you are coming from if you are in this camp of thought. 

But I don't have the luxury of having a healthy immediate family. And so from my perspective, you not vaccinating yourself or your family is putting my kid at risk. (The crazy part is that my kid is vaccinated and still has a 50-70% protection rate because of the medication she is on to keep her disease at bay which means you vaccinating your family is even more important to my family.)

And yet, I still want you to have the choice to vaccinate or not. I don't want the government to force you to have to get a vaccine. That is a slippery slope I do not want to start down. I believe people should have the right to choose just about everything - even if they are choices I would not make for myself and my own family. 

Yet, I want to protect my kid. 

You could say she should stay at home. Why should everyone else have to vaccinate to protect people like her? Isn't she the one with the problem? Why should everyone else who doesn't want to get the vaccine be inconvenienced for people like her? She's in the minority if you are looking at the survival rates of the Vid. Healthy people tend to survive just fine. People with weak immune systems tend to have a harder time with it. We cannot bend over backwards for everyone.

 To be honest, I wouldn't have an argument for you. I get that line of thought as well. Like I said above, if I had the luxury of have a healthy family I may just be a staunch supporter of that line of thought too..I don't know. It's hard to tell what you would do or say if you aren't actually in a particular situation - thinking you would act one way is a lot of the time not actually how you would act in that given situation. 

The words "survival of the fittest" run through my mind when I get filled up with worry and confusion over the Vid. This is how life is, right? As a species, some are meant to grow old and some are not. Only the strongest genetics survive, the weaker ones are weeded out. Isn't that what something like the Vid helps humans do? Weed out the weak? 

We are all out to protect our own at the end of the day. And so, if me begging you to vaccinate your family to protect mine makes you feel that by doing so you would be putting your family at risk, then I understand that you won't do it. 

It makes sad to know that this is true, but I also understand completely because at the end of the day if you asked me to do something that I believed could be potentially harmful to my family I am not sure I would comply with your request either. 

There is no easy solution right now. It seems like battle lines are drawn and people are very passionate about the side they stand on. I get it. I wish this wasn't so, but I get it. 

I wish all of our children were protected equally. I desperately wish my family was at the top of the food chain and that without a doubt we could all survive the Vid if we got it. But that is not the hand we were dealt. And in a way we are at the mercy at those who sit on top and have luxury to make the choices we can not make. 

I don't have any answers right now. I just know that I feel sick to my stomach about the whole situation. I feel confused and angry and incredibly sad.