Skepticism and Motherhood

Now I'm not a professional blogger so don't expect this post to be all intelligent and informational. I do however have some observations.

I joined the wonderful world of "mom" in November and as anyone else who lives in this world knows, that means I receive buckets and barrels of unsolicited parenting advice from almost everyone I run into. Everyone from family to the elderly woman in front of me in line at the coffee shop. This doesn't surprise me; I've seen this happen to almost every one of my friends in the past few years. What HAS surprised me and concerned me lately is the type of advice I receive.

With the internet being so readily available these days, I'm honestly shocked at the type of things people (parents) still believe in. Homeopathic remedies such as "teething tabs" and "camilia" for example for teething (obviously) and other ailments. The first time I had these things recommended to me I had no idea what they were so I googled them both. It took me less than 5 minutes to discover both were homeopathic remedies, and another 60 seconds or so to confirm that yes, that means what I thought it meant; companies selling (at inflated prices) sugar and water solutions with no actual active ingredients in them. Fantastic, and this is what people are recommending for everything under the sun nowadays!

Another great new fad I've come across is the "baltic amber teething necklace." First I noticed one of the babies from one of my mom groups was wearing one, and I thought it was cute but didn't know what it was. It wasn't until a couple months later when I saw another baby wearing one that I asked the moms, thinking it was a cultural thing. When they mentioned it was an amber necklace for teething, I thought it sounded interesting. Then I googled it. Of course there's no actual evidence to support any of their claims.

I guess I'm just shocked what people are willing to do or believe in when it comes to their kids. Why don't they do any research? Why just blindly follow the masses? What if the teething tabs or necklaces were dangerous? In fact, maybe they are. The teething necklaces supposedly contain a drug in varying concentrations (although most of them don't even contain the right kind of amber, let alone any actual concentration of the drug), so it seems the masses are okay with potentially exposing their child to an unknown concentration of a drug that hasn't actually been reliably tested as a pain reliever. I'm not okay with this.

If anyone is reading this, don't take my word for anything I posted here, just look it up. Always check out both sides of every coin, it's as simple as that.