A lot of it is very likely genetics based on family history, but every time my daughter has a mental or physical health issue, I wonder if it’s because she was exposed to this sort of thing as a baby. But then, I was born when the air was filled with lead from gasoline and there were probably even more and worse pesticides in my baby food, so maybe it’s not as bad as it used to be?
Even worse, we usually have to make those mistakes several times. And even then we have large swathes of people that forget we made them, and advocate for making the same mistakes over again. And then we make perverse incentives to lie to people about the fact that they’re actually mistakes. Humans are wild.
And I think I’ve done my best. I’ve made mistakes, but every parent does. If she was eating toxic stuff as a baby, that was through no fault of my trying to keep her safe. I could’t guarantee her baby food would have been free of poison. All I could do is hope they didn’t do it. She was also born in Los Angeles and lived there for the first two years of her life. Maybe the air quality harmed her in developmental ways, but we didn’t have the resources to move. You do what you can, but I hate that we poison our kids without even knowing it.
All you can do is give them a better life than the one that came before them. It sure beats sending children to work in the mines, or 50% of them dying as infants, etc. One day we’ll get there :)
Or even worse, what they did in the middle ages, sell them into slavery if you couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Yes, we definitely are treating children better than any people I can think of in recorded history.
A lot of it is very likely genetics based on family history, but every time my daughter has a mental or physical health issue, I wonder if it’s because she was exposed to this sort of thing as a baby. But then, I was born when the air was filled with lead from gasoline and there were probably even more and worse pesticides in my baby food, so maybe it’s not as bad as it used to be?
It’s a curve that is very difficult to get ahead of, because humans need to make a mistake before we identify something as being a mistake.
Even worse, we usually have to make those mistakes several times. And even then we have large swathes of people that forget we made them, and advocate for making the same mistakes over again. And then we make perverse incentives to lie to people about the fact that they’re actually mistakes. Humans are wild.
The world has never been a safe place, but we keep trying. You do the best you can with the information you have and hope for the best.
And I think I’ve done my best. I’ve made mistakes, but every parent does. If she was eating toxic stuff as a baby, that was through no fault of my trying to keep her safe. I could’t guarantee her baby food would have been free of poison. All I could do is hope they didn’t do it. She was also born in Los Angeles and lived there for the first two years of her life. Maybe the air quality harmed her in developmental ways, but we didn’t have the resources to move. You do what you can, but I hate that we poison our kids without even knowing it.
All you can do is give them a better life than the one that came before them. It sure beats sending children to work in the mines, or 50% of them dying as infants, etc. One day we’ll get there :)
Or even worse, what they did in the middle ages, sell them into slavery if you couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Yes, we definitely are treating children better than any people I can think of in recorded history.