Care and Feeding
She is in deep.
Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My 64-year-old mother, who is a wonderful person in many ways, is somewhat of an anti-vaxxer and is very distrustful of doctors. I wouldn’t say she’s an extremist by any means (she got her initial COVID vaccines, and my sibling and I got all the vaccines required to attend public school in our state), but she believes in several health-related conspiracies and generally does not believe what doctors tell her. She rarely took my sibling or me to doctors as children, and my dad was too career-focused to pick up the slack. I’m not exactly sure why my mother is this way. She has never mentioned any significant negative experiences with doctors, and my family has always had decent insurance and enough resources to pay medical bills.
At 25, I have come to understand that I didn’t get good medical care as a child. I’m now up to date on all vaccines including optional ones, and luckily I have only one minor health issue that could have been prevented with early detection and treatment. I think that in her own way, my mother was trying to protect my sibling and me. But this brings me to my current worries. Recently over the phone, I mentioned that an elderly woman I know got her RSV shot and asked if my mom was planning on getting one. She said that she sees no reason to. We also discussed the newest COVID booster, and my mom said she probably won’t be getting that one either. This led me down an anxiety spiral, and I realized that this was only the beginning of what I suspect could be decades of my mother refusing medical care. The woman has asthma, for crying out loud! RSV or a blood COVID case could be tough on her health. Then I got to thinking of some of the more heinous conspiracy theories she has talked to me about over my lifetime—that chemo doesn’t work and people with cancer instead need to change their diets radically, or that any number of ailments can be cured by drinking salt water each day.
She really believes this stuff, and I am worried she will act on it rather than on the advice of medical professionals! I know that it’s ultimately my mom’s choice what type and how much medical care she receives. I understand that I don’t have any power to force her to do anything. But I have become terrified that my mother will someday face a serious diagnosis and disregard everything her doctors say. Is this something I should talk to her about?