According to the CDC, child vaccinations have gone down significantly over the past two decades. Now, a woman in Ohio is speaking out about how it feels to be the child of an antivaxx parent. She declares “I wasn’t vaccinated as a child” and shares with her audience how this had a huge impact on her life. Spoiler alert: it turns out it’s incredibly dangerous to reject vaccines, especially among children.
On TikTok, user HelloKae shared a personal experience she had growing up as a child who was never vaccinated. Though Kae points out she didn’t die as a child, she was sick all the time. She goes on to say, “I contracted illnesses that there are vaccines for.” She lists chicken pox and whooping cough as examples. Her bout of whooping cough was “incredibly painful” and it went on for several weeks. Is that really good for a child’s education, to miss all that schooling?
Kae also states she was sick multiple other times but never received proper medical care for a diagnosis. Apparently, her antivaxx parent left her “medically neglected” on top of lacking necessary vaccines. When she became an adult and had agency over her own medical care, she took charge. She finally made the decision to have herself vaccinated at her doctor’s office, receiving everything she was missing since birth.
Kae goes on to say the year she was finally vaccinated was the year she stopped speaking to her mother 15 years ago. The biggest reason was the constant medical neglect, which it is. There’s a reason polio isn’t a concern in the U.S. anymore and it’s thanks to vaccines. Her conclusion: “She didn’t give a s**t about my health and well-being.” Kae then ends her video by saying, “Please vaccinate your kids. Listen to doctors. Listen to science and show your children that you care about their health.”
“The antivaxxers will be dead quiet on hearing first hand stories like this. Soo many unvaccinated kids get themselves vaccinated as adults and are resentful for being put at risk,” one commenter pointed out. And it’s because it ruins an antivaxxer’s narrative that vaccines are bad for you.
One commenter shared a similar story to Kae’s. She said, “Yeah. I was unvaccinated for ‘religious reasons.’ I was sick my entire childhood. As soon as I went to college, I went to the campus clinic and got ALL of my vaccines.” It’s good to hear that people are taking charge even when they were stifled as children.
