Acceptance of diversity
Hooray for tolerance and acceptance and general friendliness, right? Including for parents who don’t vaccinate their children, including when you are a parent with children in the same school, right?
It’s right according to the principal of Brunswick North West Primary in Melbourne, Trevor Bowen. Slate quotes from his message to parents:
We expect all community members to act respectfully and with tolerance when interacting with other parents and carers who may have a differing opinion to their own. This includes an opposing understanding about child immunisation.
People from both sides of the discussion have expressed their thoughts in terms of the wellbeing and ongoing health of the children they care so much for. This is most admirable. I ask all community members to interact respectfully at all times and with a sense of tolerance and acceptance of diversity.
That’s a mindless thing to say. It’s a little like saying that all “community members” should “interact respectfully at all times and with a sense of tolerance and acceptance of diversity” with parents who let their children bring large sharp heavy knives to school and carry them around all day.
That school is dealing with an outbreak of chicken pox. The Age reports:
One in four of the children who attend a Brunswick school that calls for tolerance for vaccine dodgers has contracted chickenpox.
At least 80 of the 320 pupils at Brunswick North West Primary in Melbourne’s north have become ill with the disease in the past fortnight.
…
The school has a lower immunisation rate than the state and national averages.
In the May newsletter, the school’s principal Trevor Bowen said 73.2 per cent of students were immunised, compared with 92 per cent within the local postcode.
But they’re a friendly tolerant community, so it’s totally worth it.
Yes, of course, you must be tolerant of someone who puts young children at risk. If you are a parent whose child can’t be immunized because of some serious childhood illness or immune deficiency, we beg you to be tolerant of those parents who have a different opinion about children’s health than your opinion, your doctor’s opinion, the opinion of nearly all health professionals, and the opinion of all other experts in the subject. We ask that you be tolerant even as your child is suffering from a high fever and a potentially lethal illness because people who could immunize their child simply have a different opinion, garnered off the Internet and fed by fanatics, because we are a tolerant community. If your child dies of this totally preventable disease, we ask that you be tolerant of the people that simply had a different opinion than you about what should be done about vaccinating their little darlings. Engage with them, and maybe you’ll understand their point of view, and you will feel less of an urge to choke them to death while you’re weeping over your child’s grave.
I’m getting very tired of being told I have to be tolerant of stupid ideas; it’s even worse when said stupid ideas lead to serious problems for other people.
I think anyone who uses the phrase ‘Both Sides’ should be administered a Milgram-esque electric shock.
@1 iknlast
Agree completely. I thought that the state government had closed some of the anti-vac loopholes, apparently not.
Well, perhaps we are forced to be tolerant of the decision that these parents have made to put the health of their children and that of other children and adults at risk. But surely we can be *intolerant* of the germs that these kids are more likely to carry and transmit, so if the parents choose not to vaccinate, there is no reason that their kids need to be allowed into school.