In my former life I held various careers in sales, recruiting and management. I attended seminars and read books about personal and professional success. This ever popular guideline by Robert Fulghum was long my mantra:
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN.
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
- Share everything.
- Play fair.
- Don’t hit people.
- Put things back where you found them.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
- Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
- Wash your hands before you eat.
- Flush.
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
- Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
- Take a nap every afternoon.
- When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
- Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
- Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
- And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
Here is my adaptation, written from the perspective of a contemporary child in 2013. The year chronic illness, autism, ADHD, auto-inflammatory illness and obesity have claimed over 50% of our children. The year after the Congressional Hearings on the Federal Response to Autism. The year congress knew, and yet… still… STILL… did… NOTHING. Time is ticking. Nothing…
ALL I EVER REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW I TRIED REALLY HARD TO EMULATE FROM THE APPROPRIATE BEHAVIORS THAT WERE MODELED FOR ME BY MY THERAPISTS IN ADAPTIVE INCLUSION KINDERGARTEN CLASS.
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I am trying to learn in kindergarten. Wisdom is not at the top of the specialized adaptive special-needs graduate school mountain where over 30% of the population will attend school in the next two decades, but rather there in the arsenic-laden sand pile at school; where my mother no longer allows me to play (she says I get plenty of arsenic in my chicken and juice).
These are the things I am trying so hard to learn:
- “Sharing” seems to be important. I have no idea what that means because I have not yet mastered parallel play which my teachers tell me is a real problem. I like to spin things and line them up and no one gets me on this. Except of course, for the other five kids in my class who do the exact same thing. I don’t like to be touched, nor do they. Easy for us to understand, not so much for everyone else. A lot of the other kids are out most of the time because they have auto-inflammatory diseases just like me. My friend Jim just got diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. My friend Marcy has really bad asthma and they just found out Rorie has diabetes. The healthy ones get colds all the time, but my mom says if they keep eating school lunches, taking antibiotics and get vaccinated they will be spinning things like me soon enough.
- “Playing fair” seems like a biggie too. If I can figure out what I want, I take it. It takes A LOT of effort for me to figure it out and I am so glad when I finally get it, I tend to lack diplomacy when acquiring it. Hope the therapists can help me with this one because it makes my mom cry and even though they say I don’t care about that, I do. I just wish I could find a way to tell her. Wish they would help me with that instead of trying to get me to add and subtract and do flashcards. Not sure why that’s so important when I still wear a diaper. Oh well, they’re the “experts.”
- When they say “don’t hit people” I get that. But how else am I supposed to get my point across? I used to be docile. Really calm. Then I got five shots that were actually nine. Live, dead viruses, adjuvants, human and animal DNA, heavy metals poked into me, in one day. I’m not lying around waiting for that to happen again. My mom didn’t read the package inserts because the doctor told her she didn’t need to. Vaccine injury is “rare” he said.
- I’m a stickler for “putting things back where I found them,” and I wish everyone in my life could get on board with this one. The central nervous system and brain damage I sustained after my vaccinations precludes me from using my pincer grasp, so I cannot yet effectively do this for myself. My fine and gross motor skills are shot despite the 800 hours of therapy I had before my fourth birthday. Therapy for a kid like me is like prescribing an antibiotic for a cold. It does nothing except make everyone around me feel like they are doing something to help. Let me be crystal clear on this one. It. does. nothing. Like a band-aid on cancer. A tourniquet on heart disease. Cough medicine for a stab wound. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. Just detracts from the actual problem which is not behavioral but, rather, medical.
- I try not to take what does not belong to me. But, I am so confused half the time. My senses don’t work, I have a hard time identifying where my body is in space, and, for the most part, my stomach and head hurt real bad. So—you’ll forgive me if I take something that belongs to you. Not asking for special treatment or a pass here—just—I can honestly say I have no idea most the time if it’s yours or not. Ownership is such a sophisticated concept. I spend a lot of time just trying to discipline myself to sit for two minutes. This is a herculean effort and I wish you could understand.
- I would like to “say I’m sorry” but the apraxia, brain damage and vestibular system issues, in conjunction with my severe mitochondrial disease that was not caused by, but resulted from vaccines, took away my speech. It will come. At least that’s what my mom keeps telling me when she kisses me good night as I kick her in the neck and spit in her hair. “It will come back buddy.” She says. Lots of people hate her. And my dad too. They say they’re stupid and anti-vaccine. I think they are just doing the best they can.
- I do wash my hands before I eat, with help of course, but what about all those kids in my class who get their shots and those diseases they are carrying shed all over my class room? Lots of kids who got the flu shot got the flu. One kid got chicken pox. I got vaccinated for it, and I still got chicken pox. Turns out—that kid got vaccinated for it too! Why don’t people talk about this stuff? I’m little and I have autism, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have common sense. Come on people. And even though I do wash my hands before I eat, meals are a straight-up bitch. I end up screaming and throwing food most the time. After I got the pica (see nine vaccines in one day) it’s been really hard for me to eat real food. Even applesauce feels like a million staples on my tongue. The doctors say, “It’s just sensory you’ll have to work on it.” I would like him to come to my house so I can staple his tongue a million times.
- When my parents get to the bottom of my autistic enterocolitis I promise I will flush. Right now just making it to the toilet the 15 plus times a day I have to go is a huge accomplishment.
- Warm baked organic apples with cinnamon and cold camel’s milk are good for you, provided you are not sensitive to phenols and do not have a cerebral folate deficiency like me. In which case, clean water, processed by reverse osmosis, makes for a great afternoon refresher. Stay alkalized my friends, it does a body good.
- I would love to play and dance and sing and work each day. I hope someone will have the patience to teach me these things
through all my screaming. Truth be told, these are all great ideas, but I am in a lot of pain. Not sure why this is so hard for all the big people to get. You are miserable you hit and kick and scream, right? They just keep saying its behavior. I will try to get balanced, but if you don’t mind me saying so, I think everyone who could do something about what happened to me is imbalanced and doesn’t know what the hell they are talking about most of the time. - I have to take a nap in the afternoon because I cannot methylate or metabolize properly. I wake up laughing and screaming at 3:00 a.m., and I often do not return to sleep. Makes for a long day. Oh, and if you decide to reward me with a cookie and a glass of cow’s milk after a nap my mom will come at you like a starved pitbull at a heifer show.
- I get out into the world all the time! The big people call it “eloping.” I do not hold hands. With ANYONE. The last time I did I was lead right into my pediatrician’s office. I had a cold and I got a bunch of those shots. I no longer hold hands because I do not know where the people who supposedly have my best interest at heart are taking me. They jacked me up so bad I had to relearn how to walk! Once I did, I ran into a lake. Another time I almost made it to a building site where they were pouring concrete to make someone’s basement. I like to scale buildings and climb on top of cars. I do not need anyone, and I will go where I please, thank you very much. Just for review for you newbies and the slower folks… I could walk; I got shots, and then I couldn’t. Then they told my mom I had “autism” which means, “We are absolved of any wrongdoing that may have lead to this child’s inability to walk. Or his sudden inability digest food. Or his sudden inability speak. Or his sudden inability to hold a writing utensil. Or control his emotions. Or sleep.” Yep—autism covers A LOT of iatrogenic problems, doesn’t it? Not sure if you know, but it’s just a made-up word! Absolutely NO medical defining criteria. If something is wrong with you or someone you love and it gets labeled, “autism,” “unknown auto-immune disease,” or “SIDS” odds are really good a doctor, or a medicine prescribed by a doctor, caused it.
- What’s happening in that cup is photosynthesis. Not such a big mystery there Robert-oh. See, I have a pretty remarkable mind. But, again, all the big people who supposedly know better than me thought it would be awful if I got the chicken pox or flu. Now, I cannot hold a cup or use the toilet. But it all works on the inside of my mind. I wonder about buildings, Santa Claus, angels, mathematics, art and science. How did my mom and dad meet? Why does my sister only wear pink? Why is Jesus crying when he looks over the children in that one stained glass window at church? Why does my mom only take me there when no one is around and why am I not allowed to touch those 300 candles that are lit in perpetual prayer? I wonder about so many things. Especially about why my body does not do what I tell it to. My parents are working on thi,s but my God, GOD… I am asking you… HOW MUCH LONGER?
- Yes, we all die. I get that and I’m like five. Not sure all the doctors who were “taking care of me” know. They thought they could artificially make me immune to every malaise under the sun. They took my body, but left my mind. Brain here. Body in space. In pain. Tortured. Day in. Day out. And while my mom says I gotta forgive, this one is really hard. I want to swim and play and run and jump and bike and fish with my family. And I want to not have seizures. Yes, I think this one the doctors need to understand. They are not GOD. Even though they might think they are. Listen to me… YOU ARE NOT GOD MR. DOCTORMAN. Oh and newsflash: if mom and dad were “anti-vaccine,” why do you think they took me in for each and every single shot as scheduled ON TIME until I “went away”? They diagnosed me a full four months before a doctor confirmed it. Even then, the doctor was in awe that my parents knew so much. “Are you therapists?” they asked. “No,” my mom said, “We just pay attention. We had a healthy little boy. He got his shots, and now he’s gone. We’re just observant.”
- I read books upside down and backwards because even my eyesight has been damaged. “LOOK” looks like KOOL to me. I can read in mirrors. It’s also how I watch television. I wish someone “LOOK”ed at the package inserts on all those vaccines before they gave them to me. Because what happened to me and my friends is not kool. See Dick and Jane go in for their shots. Dick gets full-blown autism. They will call it better diagnosis. Jane will get ADD, eczema and food allergies. A peanut will now kill her. They’ll call it “more and more common these days.”
Yes, I guess everything I need to know is in there as Robert says, “The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.” Except, these are not sane times. Terrible, terrible things are happening to children in kindergarten. Terrible things are happening to our newborn babies and toddlers. Our government DOES NOT abide by the golden rule. When they realized basic sanitation (clean water and garbage collection) was saving lives, but not nearly as profitable as vaccines, they decided to scare the pants off all the grownups and make shots mandatory. Mandatory does not mean medically necessary, it means scantily researched, but extraordinarily profitable. But, since those politicians, lobbyists and vaccine makers do not “…have a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess(es),” the kids they damage (and continue to damage each day) and their parents are left without support. They are silencing the doctors who take away our children’s pain. They are squelching the science that shows causation. They are destroying us. I wish Robert’s kindergarten lessons still held true, but they don’t any longer. It is time to take the blinders off.
~ The Rev
This post by Lisa Joyce Goes originally appeared in Age of Autism.
For more blogs by The Rev click here.
In 1997 when my son was born they threatened CPS would show up to take my son if I didn’t return him for a 3rd round of PKU (heel sticking) tests. Apparently the first 2 were done at the “wrong time” so they weren’t valid. The hospital staff was generally annoyed with me for my uncooperative questions and insistence on always accompanying my baby when they wanted to do anything…and not allowing him to be taken to the nursery.
6 months down the road he had a quarter size lump in his thigh at the inoculation point and it was still there when it was time for the next round. They told me it was nothing to worry about and gave him the next set. That night my son was not himself he acted like he couldn’t understand me…not belligerent but scared, and then hysterical and babbling. I had given him their suggested Motrin at first thinking it was a feverish reaction, but it didn’t help and it frightened me. After a day or so my son returned to normal , thank God! Once agai when I questioned I was reassured he would be fine…but I kept looking and put off more shots I read a few things that decided me, especially stories of increased negative reactions after vaccinations ultimately leading to a walking talking toddler becoming a withdrawn disabled child …No more! I am so grateful to those who shared their stories in spite of ridicule by many: I firmly believe they helped save my son and of course possibly my daughter who at 11 has only been to see a doctor once in her very healthy life!
My children have both had chicken pox and mumps even(lifelong natural immunity) and are sick so rarely (seasonal maladies)and mildly compared to their peers it is remarkable!
Please keep sharing you may never know how many you save!
The last vaccines my boys had were the day of my younger son’s 2mo well visit in 2007. My older son was 26mo. I was coerced and pressured by the POS pediatrician into giving my older son the flu shot that day “to protect my very fragile newborn from RSV or pneumonia in the coming winter months”. My newborn son was just given his first round of the 5-in-1 multi vial pediarix (DTaP, HepB&IPV.) And it was also his last. Do u want to know what’s in pediarix? No. No, u don’t. The adverse reaction my older son had to the flu shot that day opened my eyes to start thinking, researching & looking for answers. When I read about pediarix, my heart was in my throat. My big boy was given pediarix at his 2mo, 4mo, & 6mo well visits, along with a whole bunch of other poison filled shots, antibiotics and let’s not forget loads of Tylenol!! From infant up til that 2.5yo stage my son was constantly sick! And his newborn brother in his first 2mo of life was constantly sick! Everything changed that day. The first change? We found a new pediatrician. Now in 2012 at 5 & 7yo, my boys are the healthiest theyve ever been. Over the past 4 yrs….they have been to the dr prob 5x altogether, the lil guy has had a severe cold maybe 2x, older son has had one 24hr vomit bug over the summer & 1 ear infection this past November. That’s it! The biggest test was in September, we went to chuckie cheese for the 1st time in over 3yrs. We’ve always stayed far away from that place bc they use to get so sick EVERY SINGLE TIME. This time they DID NOT! You know who did though? Me! Lol I caught a bug from that place & neither of them did. Unbelievable! Want your kids to stay healthy-keep them far away from those well-visits and VERY far away from those vaccines!!
Brilliant, Rev! Thank you and TMR for all you do for our kids, you are the true heroes of this world!
All of you who responded today…thank you so much. It is so hard…when I see your journeys…even those unaffected–I think–we are going to win. We are. WE ARE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND SHARING US! Jennifer…always share! Please! Gina B…we are the same sister. You and me…we are the same <3
🙂 Thanks LJ, you made me smile! “even those unaffected”…there is barely anyone “unaffected” anymore, and it’s going to hit all of us, BUT I still have hope!! Thank you for all youd.
This is without doubt the most powerful piece of writing I have ever read on this subject. I do not live your life but I am on your side. It was luck and circumstance that saved my children from vaccine damage. I see around me everyday children who are suffering, friends’ children, strangers’ children. I had a conversation before Christmas with a man who is a step-father to 2 severely autistic children. He was explaining how his son uses an ipad to communicate. And how his daughter won’t stop talking (as loudly as possible) – ever. He is a stranger to me but I find myself thinking about him and his kids frequently. Sometimes I think parenthood is trying, but I realise I really have no idea what that word means until I read a piece such as this or listen to a father like him. I would like to share this if I may.
Jennifer, we’re all for sharing. If you post it on another site, just make sure that it’s credited properly.
I am sitting here crying, but that’s also because all the energy I had today left me in the 10 minutes I spent getting my daughter on the bus. This is beautiful and painful, and I’m at this crossroads, where I took the kids off everything and suffered the consequences, to clear up the diarrhea. And now the new protocol I’d like to try, the testing, the supps, I can see it putting me in the poor house – and I’m upper middle class! I don’t even know how I’m going to ask my husband to agree to get all this stuff or how to bring in more money, because I can’t work. I’m needed and above that, I can’t do these protocols with a 40 hour, crappy job with commute time. But my daughter’s lack of progress, the regression – and the double whammy of seeing everything that’s written in this book about autism also manifested in my other daughter who has Down syndrome, so all those protocols times two. I’m upset, I’m angry, and I’m sick and tired of wearing a brave face when 15 hours a week go to figuring out what the hell my kids can actually eat. I’m sorry, Rev, it’s been a bad bad day, and I needed to vent. Thanks for letting me unload. And thanks for keeping up the fight for us.
Gina,
You can always unload here. We get it. xoxo
As always, Truth! Preach on Sista! They are listening! My niece’s friend is pregnant and she put her in contact with me, I shared info that was shared with me and voila! A young THINKER is born! WE WILL WIN!
Oh how this hits home. My son had to relearn walking too….why….we were told “Late onset Cerebral Palsy” for which nobody seemed to know WHY it happened…..20 years later and it’s epidemic….where will it end. Posting these anywhere and everywhere hoping people read, but more importantly get the warning.
Thanks Rev! It is both horrifying and gratifying to read someone else’s experience which so closely mirrors our own. Autism isolates you and leaves you believing you are alone, frantically bailing to rescue your child like you would a sinking ship; thank goodness for the internet, which allows us to bail together and resurrect the children before it is to late. I sincerely hope those contemplating children and those who are pregnant take the time to read this and truly understand the weight of their decisions – I wish I had had the information and the opportunity for truly informed consent; maybe I would have chosen the same path, but at least I would have understood the risks…
Thank you for being a voice for us all. I hate and I mean, HATE the misinformation, budget constraints, unions, and ignorance all around us. I hate being the only one that believes my child is capable and deserves the opportunity to LEARN. I can’t be here too long, I have a list a mile long of emails to send to school district personnel, our special ed attorney, MAPS physician, state disability insurance, CVS (can’t find a crucial medication he needs), and prepare for work. I don’t know how to maintain this and continue to be a working parent. Being a Thinking Mom is a lot, but it sure as hell beats being an idiot. That is what got me to be a thinker, after all. So I thank you for taking the time and effort to do all of this advocacy for Julius, because I sure as hell am not in a place to be doing it myself, yet.
Doctors refuse to help you to truly heal and recover after they harm you–accept for some pills etc which you often do take out of desperation for something to help because feeling so horrible is unbearable and everything you have tried has not helped at all.But these are mere band-aids and often the “helpful” effects wear off and something additional or new is needed.
Sometimes you have no choice because your body cannot produce insulin or hormones etc needed to function due to the harm done.
And the doctors and masses will marvel at the wondrous miracle of these meds that may not have been needed at all if you had not had your body-brain so badly damaged by the very doctors prescribing these meds..
The medical community and society at large–including family, refuse to acknowledge what has happened, it’s too scary should it be true.
How could all these doctors reconcile what they have done–they couldn’t so they will all pretend that nothing is wrong, as long as they believe this lie it is true.
But deep down inside, they must be wondering “what If it is true”, you know some are thinking this even if they won’t admit it.
When you come to learn that many of these very doctors harming all of us:
choose to have home births, do not vaccinate themselves or their own children,
but will than harm your family,
—that is just pure evil, it is so they can earn lots of money by playing by the rules established by evil people.
Dr. Oz comes to mind as one such evil person.
He says to do this and that to be HEALTHY, and to get your shots, but does not vaccinate his own family. what a despicable human being he is.
And yet we still need doctors for many things and each visit that disappoints or scares me turns me inside out with raw emotions.
There are some doctors who are truly good people doing amazing things to help people, but usually it is as much about cleaning up the mess made by other doctors.
After spending a ginormous amount of time, energy, and money,I yet to find any that can truly help us–conventional or “alternative”.
Now we are sicker , broke and losing our house too.
And you get labeled by doctors who refuses to accept responsibility for the harm they have caused, and the “others” who believe they have not been effected by all this-yet, as:
crazy,deranged, bitter,your beliefs are dangerous,
you need to be straightened out of your delusional thinking for you are a conspiracy theorist who has become a paranoid nut job.
Right now, our entire family is more extremely physically ill which has triggered severe depressions and anxiety–again
.How will the doctor visits we have planned today and later on go–not swimmingly.
We go because we need blood tests and some “band0aids” to get by.
Praying for a cure from all injuries and disease,
praying for doctors to be like Hippocrates,
praying for God to have mercy on us all and work miracles for all who suffer and struggle.
To be fair, the ONLY statement I have ever seen from Dr. Oz about not vaccinating his family was in regard to the H1N1 vaccine. I have seen nothing about the more common vaccines. He may not be quite as hypocritical as he sounds.
He is. and is not alone.
Media medical “experts” , talk show hosts and news reporters claiming they
know everything about health and well being make me puke.
There is a special place in hell for these who do so much harm in the name of fame and fortune off the backs of the masses who suffer and struggle thanks to their promoting evil.
What makes them such experts?-nothing.
Who said they are experts–they do.
TV ratings and big bucks trump truth and what really benefits all the people.
And than Big Pharma are their biggest advertiser/sponsors
Thank you again “The Rev” for your insightful & truthful perspectives on the world that our kids and we are living in. TMR & all of us are blessed to have you on our side! You truly have a gift for writing and bringing thing down to a level that even the most ignorant to the world of autism can understand and relate to. Keep up the awesome work! Looking forward to your next post!