11/19/2025
A lot of parents today are choosing not to vaccinate their kids, and honestly, it’s not coming from a place of neglect or misinformation like people try to claim. It comes from watching patterns, listening to our intuition, and refusing to ignore what we’ve seen with our own eyes.. It comes from living in a world where the conversation around childhood health has changed dramatically since the 90s and 2000s.
When you start looking at the timing of things like SIDS, it hits you differently as a parent. You notice how many cases cluster around those same 2, 4, and 6 month milestones.. the exact months babies get the heaviest vaccine loads. People can debate correlation forever, but for mothers and fathers who have held a perfectly healthy baby one day and watched them struggle the next, timing becomes impossible to ignore. Babies have underdeveloped detox pathways.. their nervous systems are fragile.. their breathing patterns are still stabilizing.. and throwing multiple immune activators into a tiny system all at once feels harsh to a lot of parents.
Then there’s the concern around neurological changes. No matter how loudly the world tries to shut this conversation down, parents know what regression looks like.. They know the difference between a developmental phase and a child who loses words, eye contact, or personality days or weeks after an immune shock.. They read the research on microglial activation, mitochondrial sensitivity, cytokines affecting brain development, and molecular mimicry that overlaps with neurological tissue. It isn’t political.. It’s biological. And once you see it happen in your community, your friend group, or your own home, you never forget it.
Encephalopathy is another thing parents bring up quietly, because the minute they use that word in a doctor’s office they get labeled.. But fevers that spike too high, seizures, abnormal brain inflammation, and sudden changes in tone or behavior are not imaginary.. They’ve been documented for decades.. The problem is that most families who experience it are told it’s coincidence and to move on. Parents know better.
And then there’s autoimmunity. It’s impossible not to notice how many children today are growing up with chronic inflammatory issues.. allergies, eczema, juvenile arthritis, type 1 diabetes, gut disorders.. It’s everywhere. Parents are simply connecting dots.. If early immune programming shapes the immune system for life, then overstimulation too early could absolutely shift a child into a lifelong inflammatory pattern. Especially if there’s a family history of autoimmune conditions or sensitivity.. Parents see that risk clearly, even if the medical system doesn’t acknowledge it.
A big part of this decision is also the ingredients.. not the antigens, but the adjuvants, stabilizers, and chemicals used in the formula. Parents who read labels on food, refuse artificial fragrances, clean up their household toxins, and choose natural products for their babies are not suddenly going to be comfortable injecting aluminum salts, polysorbate 80, formaldehyde derivatives, and other compounds directly into a newborn’s bloodstream.. It doesn’t align with their lifestyle or their logic.
But the deepest reason parents step back is because they don’t feel heard. They’ve watched their child change and been told it’s unrelated.. They’ve asked for medical caution and been mocked. They’ve seen doctors refuse to report reactions. They’ve sat in exam rooms, unheard, knowing damn well something happened.. That breaks trust.
So when parents choose not to vaccinate, it’s not rebellion.. It’s protection. It’s paying attention. It’s refusing to outsource their child’s wellbeing to a system that hasn’t earned their confidence. And honestly, it’s a return to something primal.. trusting the body, trusting nature, trusting patterns, trusting that gentle exposure and strong terrain might raise healthier kids than constant immune manipulation.
Parents making these choices aren’t confused.. They’re some of the most educated, intuitive, research driven people you’ll ever meet. They’re choosing long term neurodevelopment, long term immune balance, and long term wellbeing over quick fixes.
They just want their babies safe.. And that’s something nobody should shame them for.
-Mandy Johnson
