We are fairly anti doctor/hospital/medication in my house. We know emergencies happen and it's a great thing to have a medical facility to help out(like the flu/reflux attack I had the other week), but 99% of the time we prefer to wait out an illness or treat it at home. Skip has been treated by military doctors his whole life. Any of us that have had the pleasure of dealing with that know good and well it's not exactly an awesome experience. I have spent a good part of my adult life without health insurance and seen the difference in treatment when you don't have any means to pay for care.
The health system can very difficult to navigate and more often then not I personally have been treated like an object and not a human. That was really the first reason we opted to not deal with doctors or hospitals with this pregnancy. I don't want to be part of an assembly line baby making production here. I've never had a doctor introduce themselves and then tell me about who they are, where they grew up. their beliefs or what made them choose medicine. NEVER. They essentially remain a stranger that has permission to touch you all over once or twice a year. They are the only people that get to do that without knowing much more than your birthday from your medical chart.
My midwife on the other hand has told us her story of how she got into her field. What drives her. Her personal beliefs and values. We know about her family, her marriage and a lot of times about the things she is doing currently or scheduled in the future. She respects my body as my personal temple and doesn't see me as an object to treat. She speaks to my husband and includes Aiden in all our visits. She will ask about testing and explain the pros and cons. She lets us make the decision with making us feel guilty or worried that we made the wrong choice. She trusts that I am telling her the truth and never speaks down to me or tells me that I am wrong. All of her solutions to things are natural. Things that can be found in nature that won't harm my body or that of my baby. I feel safe and in control while in her care. She does NOTHING without asking first and making sure I am ready. She has not given me a single vaginal exam and chances are I will give birth without ever having one. It's my personal space and no one needs to be violating that.
I am so very thankful I will not have a doctor attending me and treating my body like it is dysfunctional. I will not have a bunch of nurses telling me I am wrong and I can't possibly know what I am feeling and only they can make the calls on what happens next. I will not be paying someone this time to imprison me and take away my choices and rights because they think they know more than me.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Teaching Our Children
When was the last time you spanked or slapped a co-worker for screwing something up at work? How about the last time you hit your spouse for not doing the dishes or laundry right? Did you yell at your neighbor last time they didn't mow their lawn on time? Hey, maybe you even stood your mother in a corner for an unreasonable about of time for forgetting the cheese on her grocery trip.
Why don't we do any of these things to adults? Simple, it would be considered assault or some kind of abuse. You would go to jail, even though these people are old enough to fight back and protect themselves. Yet every single day a child is subjected to one or more of these forms of "punishment" because somewhere it was made to be Ok. It's ok to physically harm little people who have no voice yet in the world for doing something wrong.
I grew up on the receiving end of physical punishment. As a child things always seem much bigger and worse than maybe they are or perhaps the perception is right on target. I learned nothing but FEAR and VIOLENCE from these punishments. I was affected long into adulthood and to this day there are still things that make me flinch, get edgy and uncomfortable. I will have a life long battle remaining calm in the presence of situations I endured growing up with.
We have had a rough couple of years with Aiden. Understanding what makes him tick, what he is capable of sorting out himself and what he needs help to reason with. During that time there has been spankings. There has been yelling and there has been long time outs. With every single punishment we felt guilty and we felt we had failed him by not understanding or teaching him what was expected. Instead he got punished and the behavior we were trying to fix did not change. So we had a talk about it. We sorted out why we were feeling bad after an episode and discovered our failures and ultimately the damage that was going to be done by looking back to our childhoods and remembering our own small feelings.
We want Aiden to do the right things not because he fears punishment, but because he has learned that doing the right things are moral. He needs to know right from wrong, not pain VS no pain. We he grows up and learns to drive I want him to do the speed limit not because he fears getting a speeding ticket, but because he knows excessive speed can kill or harm himself or others.
The way we handle Aiden now and the way he interacts with us when he does something wrong has changed dramatically. We understand he is not an adult and it is out job to show and be an example of what adults are. He is more willing to reason with us and understand why his choices are wrong based on learning, not on fear and punishment. We cannot expect our children to become adults when we are not giving them the opportunity to act and learn like one. Hitting them, yelling at them and putting them away in a dark corner will not teach them how to make better choices. You have to guide them there with patient hands and understanding.
Someday your children will be adults, how do you want them to interact with the world? Do you want them to fear repercussions from doing the wrong thing? Or do you want them to know what right is and not have fear of doing the wrong things to make their lives a success?
Why don't we do any of these things to adults? Simple, it would be considered assault or some kind of abuse. You would go to jail, even though these people are old enough to fight back and protect themselves. Yet every single day a child is subjected to one or more of these forms of "punishment" because somewhere it was made to be Ok. It's ok to physically harm little people who have no voice yet in the world for doing something wrong.
I grew up on the receiving end of physical punishment. As a child things always seem much bigger and worse than maybe they are or perhaps the perception is right on target. I learned nothing but FEAR and VIOLENCE from these punishments. I was affected long into adulthood and to this day there are still things that make me flinch, get edgy and uncomfortable. I will have a life long battle remaining calm in the presence of situations I endured growing up with.
We have had a rough couple of years with Aiden. Understanding what makes him tick, what he is capable of sorting out himself and what he needs help to reason with. During that time there has been spankings. There has been yelling and there has been long time outs. With every single punishment we felt guilty and we felt we had failed him by not understanding or teaching him what was expected. Instead he got punished and the behavior we were trying to fix did not change. So we had a talk about it. We sorted out why we were feeling bad after an episode and discovered our failures and ultimately the damage that was going to be done by looking back to our childhoods and remembering our own small feelings.
We want Aiden to do the right things not because he fears punishment, but because he has learned that doing the right things are moral. He needs to know right from wrong, not pain VS no pain. We he grows up and learns to drive I want him to do the speed limit not because he fears getting a speeding ticket, but because he knows excessive speed can kill or harm himself or others.
The way we handle Aiden now and the way he interacts with us when he does something wrong has changed dramatically. We understand he is not an adult and it is out job to show and be an example of what adults are. He is more willing to reason with us and understand why his choices are wrong based on learning, not on fear and punishment. We cannot expect our children to become adults when we are not giving them the opportunity to act and learn like one. Hitting them, yelling at them and putting them away in a dark corner will not teach them how to make better choices. You have to guide them there with patient hands and understanding.
Someday your children will be adults, how do you want them to interact with the world? Do you want them to fear repercussions from doing the wrong thing? Or do you want them to know what right is and not have fear of doing the wrong things to make their lives a success?
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