The Thinking Moms’ Manifesto

Rule number One:  Happy Hour begins at noon for Thinking Moms so drink up!

I jest, of course. Our detractors and critics like to “affectionately” refer to us as “The Drinking Moms,” so I thought I would open this rather heavy instructional post with some levity. This is a long, important read, so if you need to go grab some tea or perhaps a mojito (if it’s after 6:00 on a Thursday), go right ahead.

Are we good?  Stellar.  On to business.

Since the launch of our first book,  The Thinking Moms’ Revolution, the power associated with the Thinking Mom moniker has expanded beyond social outreach and grown to the status of a social thought movement. THANK YOU! We are so grateful that many of you consider yourselves Thinkers, and you’ve taken our message of healing to the streets! We are so thrilled to hear about how you have been sharing our stories, your stories, and our shared mission and resources with others.  We especially love the “I was spared your fate because I listened” testimonials.  As so many of you are identifying yourselves socially as “Thinking Moms,” we feel it is imperative we share these guidelines of conduct with you. As most of you know, there is much at stake right now, and we all have to step it up if we hope to achieve medical freedom and maintain our right to pursue healing for our epigenetically vulnerable children.

1)  If you call yourself a Thinking Mom, you treat every organization that recognizes what has happened to our children and wishes to advance their cause with respect.  This includes, but is not limited to:

Autism is Medical (AIM)
Alpine Autism Center
Age of Autism
Autism Policy Reform Coalition (APRC)
ARC
Autism Action Network
AutismOne
Autism Media Channel
Autism Research Institute
Autism Summit
The Autism Trust
Canary Party
Curando el Autismo
Dr. Bob Sears
Fearless Parent
Focus for Health
Gary Null
Generation Rescue
GreenMedInfo
Health Choice
Health Impact News
Kulture City
Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism (MAMMA)
Dr. Joseph Mercola
UC Davis MIND Institute
Moms Across America
Moms Against Mercury
Moms Against Monsanto
Millions Against Monsanto
National Autism Association (NAA)
Natural News
National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
Occupy Monsanto
Robert Scott Bell
Safeminds
Talk About Curing Autism (TACA)
TEAM TMR
Thriiive
Vactruth
Vaxtruth

We understand that not everyone gets along and personalities clash. However, what we are doing here together is far greater than what any one person or organization could accomplish on its own. Those who would be pleased to see our message suppressed need to see that we are aligned in our goal of putting children’s health before profit. This means holding these organizations, their creators and members in high regard.  It means going out of your way to commend them when you perceive a job well done, sharing their work, wisdom, etc. on social media and in public.  If any one of us alone were the Holy Grail of epigenetic illness activism, we would not be fighting piecemeal, state by state, to maintain our rights.  Medical kidnapping would already be a thing of the past, our children would be receiving the same quality of education with the sufficient supports their neurotypical peers enjoy, our food would be labeled and clean, and our preventative healthcare an option, rather than a mandate.

Thinking Moms recognize this and they put their egos to rest the day they figured out what happened to their children. However, they also understand that all relationships come with their share of challenges, and every one of us has screwed up on occasion.  Activism is not for the faint of heart. If you feel you’ve been maligned or disrespected by a fellow activist or organization, please wait at least 72 hours before you choose to act on your feelings. If you cannot let it go, take the issue directly to the person who caused offense instead of social media. Above all, when talking to new parents, do NOT trash a particular organization because you felt wronged by them. New parents are overwhelmed and confused enough by the very nature of what has just happened to their child.  Your slight, no matter how great, is of no interest to them.  They want to know how to save their child’s life and give them a future, and, most likely, you are their first point of contact.  Right now, we are being closely watched by everyone, including pre-Thinkers — there are no non-Thinkers, just pre-Thinkers hungry for the truth and learning discernment skills! While it may seem we are repeatedly preaching to the choir and our hard work is going unnoticed, on the contrary, we are under a microscope.  Shine with dignity and admiration for your peers under this scrutiny. In addition to supporting our fellow organizations, RAVE about and proliferate the films that have been independently produced and are being shown around this country thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of their makers, concerned citizens and affected families.

Bought
Documenting Hope
Genetic Roulette
The Greater Good
Trace Amounts
Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis

2) When it comes to helping others, Thinking Moms are short on opinion, strong on scientific data, medical facts, nutritional healing options and documented legislative history.

“Are you seriously going to let your kid eat those Doritos?”

“So you’re telling me she’s formula fed, and she has reflux and painful constipation? Hmm . . . Shocker.”  (eyeroll)

“I saw on Instagram you took your baby for his four-month sick-kid visit.  Now he’s seizing? I hate to say it, but I told you so.  Oh, and if you give that kid one more vaccine, you might as well sign his death certificate.”

“So it’s his third ear infection in two months, and you are STILL treating it with antibiotics?”  (Circles ear with index finger, making whistle noise)

These scenarios, while you are free to visualize them, MUST stay locked oh-so-tightly in your cranium.  If you are a Thinking Mom, you will articulate those sentiments in something like the following manner:

“I just got the best Paleo recipe for cheese crackers.  They are so good my kids ask if they can make them with me constantly.  Here, I made you some.”

“I am so sorry the baby is having reflux and painful constipation.  Have you considered testing for food sensitivities? Here’s a study that really helped us find the right care to manage Billy’s esophagitis and constipation effectively.”

“Please let me know what I can do to help you (as you hand over the organic GF/CF meal you’ve made for the family for that evening.)  I know seizures are terrifying.  Here are some great resources to add to what your doctor may have already given you (hand over vaccine package inserts, literature from NVIC).  ” I know it’s overwhelming.  I am here to LISTEN any time.”

“We ended up having so many ear infections I started documenting them.   We’d go in for a well-baby visit, and my son would have an ear infection two days later — well-baby visit, ear infection, back in for antibiotics.  It went on like that for months until I read Almost Autism, by Maria Rickert Hong. Here’s a copy if you’re feeling it.”

It’s all in the delivery, Thinkers. Suggest, don’t attack. Sometimes you just leave studies and do not say a word. Sometimes you listen and listen make one comment about causation and move on to something else. I know to us it feels disingenuous.  “So Rev, if I’m at a dinner party you’re basically telling me to whisper to my hosts, ‘Hey those shiners, that headbanging, and posturing? Those are all signs that little  PJ’s mitochondria is on fire. Those fever relievers you keep shoving down his throat are depleting glutathione. He needs a metabolic panel and organic acid test (OAT), stat. Pass the salt and pepper please.'”  I know it feels wrong addressing something of such significance with such passivity, but trust us when we tell you people cannot hear you at the beginning stages of the discovery process if you are screaming at them.

Remember,  we all believed our doctors knew it all, our government had our backs, bad things happened to bad people because they were bad, good always wins, and — stop talking to me about how important organic food is! I am trying to pick out colors for the playroom and choose a diaper bag for my registry!

Thinking Moms know now, more than ever, new parents are under immense pressure to follow groupthink. While it is perfectly reasonable that we would experience some degree of frustration in watching as they willingly board the slow train to autoimmune dysfunction that will ultimately manifest as a psychiatric disorder, we must treat them with respect and be patient. I was several months late in addressing my son’s multitude of epigenetic illnesses because my pediatrician, who is a figurehead for groupthink and has the CDC backing her, was telling me my chronically ill child was fine. What was then considered the “alternative health community” — which is really composed of thousands (now millions) of moms, doctors and activists who have recognized the disturbing trend in children’s health — was telling me everything was wrong and that I’d better get to work reversing the damage.

Damage?  What damage?

The moms gave me copious amounts of academic studies, scientific books about autoimmunity and nutritional healing.  I had to buy a medical dictionary to understand most of them. They  seemed to feel my son’s immune system was overstimulated based on his physical symptoms.  But my doctor said all this was normal.  Who to listen to? Pediatrician — who is supported by the whole modern world and is telling me there is nothing wrong and not to worry (which, of course, was what I wanted to hear)?  Or moms — a bunch of nobodies who read a bunch of books, created the blueprint for autism causation via preventative healthcare and GMO, recovered their kids, and spend every day of their lives trying to end this Holocaust?  Like most humans, for a long time I chose the path of least resistance. Of course, our son’s condition worsened with each well-baby visit; a label and diagnosis loomed, and the differences between the two factions became clear.  My pediatrician was simply choosing to dismiss the physical symptoms of vaccine injury.  No two-year-old should be non-verbal, scooting, licking walls, lining up items, suffer 20 diarrhea-filled diapers a day, chronic ear infections, painful skin conditions and wake for the day at 3:00 a.m.   The moms however, considered these issues, presented the data that reflected causation and guided me toward doctors, labs and treatment protocols that helped.

This is why it is so imperative that Thinking Moms engage fully and invest their time and attention in new parents as the discovery process unfolds. When we project our reality onto the experience of a new Thinking parent, it dishonors their inquiry.  When we speak from judgment, anxious to impart all we know about vaccine legislation, metabolic anomalies, our personal knowledge of the Homeland Security Act and the myriad of difficulties in our own family we are talking at them. We need to listen, give them the science and live by example.  Some parents will launch headfirst into Thinking, and some will bury their heads for another few months, or even years. If you have been thoughtful and kind in your presentation, and you listened, really listened, they will remember your investment in them and their child. No matter the outcome for their family, you planted the seed.  No one wants to believe our bastions of public health are complicit in the neurological damage and autoimmune destruction of our children. No one wants to spend every waking moment reading studies, spending their hard-earned dollars on organic food, cooking from scratch, scrapping vacation plans to see out-of state doctors, trading soccer practice for blood draws and neurofeedback appointments.  It’s a hard reality. We know this. Believe us, please, when we tell you we know the frustration of having spent hours upon hours with the mom of a newly diagnosed child only to watch her disregard your words.  Please also believe us when we tell you that you never know how you may have impacted that mother, regardless of how steep her denial may be. You may never know how many others she may influence as the result of having been educated by you.

3) The paths to recovery are many, and Thinkers acknowledge them all.

Some parents cut out gluten and dairy, get a little OT, and spend a couple of years with a qualified MAPS doctor and their severely affected seizure kid is on the honor roll and captain of the football team.  Some parents follow a multitude of protocols, see mainstream and alternative doctors, shell out thousands upon thousands of dollars, and potty training and pointing at the age of nine are considered monumental victories. I know kids who have fully recovered with dietary intervention, ABA and a parasite protocol.  I know kids who are virtually indiscernible from their peers having used mitochondrial supports, mainstream gastrointestinal treatment and nutritional intervention.  I also know kids who are rocking their high school years with nothing but Son-Rise and nutritional modification.  There are quite literally hundreds of paths to recovery and improvement.  I am partial to the protocols offered through AIM.  Several of my friends have dropped 30+ ATEC points by using CEASE homeopathic intervention.  Still others enjoy great progress with homotoxicology and neurofeedback. Since we know the one-size-fits-all immunization program is what landed many of us in this elite club, resist the temptation to narrowly define recovery. Because something worked  for you does not mean it will work for them, and because it worked for them, it will not necessarily work for you. Thinking Moms know labs are crucial in accurately diagnosing a child’s specific metabolic and autoimmune anomalies. While you may have developed disdain for western preventative healthcare, you know when it comes to replacing a limb, stopping a heart attack, and piecing people back together after traumatic accidents and injuries, there is no better treatment option than allopathic medicine. Yet, you also know you must  promote and protect our right to pursue homeopathy, herbalism, naturopathy, chiropractic, nutritional intervention, medical marijuana, etc. Thinkers fight not to destroy one, but to embrace all treatments so that our kids may have access to every healing option and treatment modality available to improve the quality of their lives.

4) Not all recovery is created equal, and not all Thinkers must approach it the same way.

As I stated above, the paths are many, and recovery appears to be as varied and diverse as our children. Some kids become homecoming queens and concert pianists. Some get married and teach. Some are mechanics, firemen, or social workers. Some, live at home with their parents gainfully employed, but too medically fragile and socially awkward to live independently. Still others, despite their parents greatest efforts, remain diapered, locked in a rocking, humming, seizing existence until their fourth decade of life. While this truth bothers many, it is still truth. While the mere notion of vaccine injury bothers many, it is still truth.  The idea that we have to fight for appropriate labeling of our food because it causes neurological harm and cancers in vulnerable children is disgusting, but it’s still truth. I know the temptation to judge and compartmentalize others is strong for many. For many of us, myself included, we’ve pursued recovery at all costs. It is really hard to accept the truly broad spectrum of existence I outlined above because every time we invest in another treatment or protocol IT HAS TO WORK. Time is ticking.  We tend to ignore what we do not want to hear sometimes and point the finger of blame when things do not go our way. If your child is recovered completely, or if she is still non-verbal and self abusing, the simple common experience of sharing the knowledge of what has happened to them — regardless of where they are in the present — should bond us for life.

Thinking Moms do not measure the value of other Thinking Moms, based on the level of progress their child has made toward recovery. Please know that if I hear a single solitary self-proclaimed Thinking Mom allow the phrases, “Well, you know, she just didn’t follow through . . . ” or even worse, “You know, if it was my kid I would have done XYZ . . . ” to pass from their lips within earshot of other humans,  I will sincerely lose my sh%t. You have not walked in their shoes. You do not know their story. You do not know their life. You do not sleep with them, eat with them, live with them, or deposit money in their bank account. You hear snippets of their perspective and form judgments that may or may not be accurate. Always give other Thinkers, and all parents with affected kids for that matter, the benefit of the doubt and treat them with understanding and compassion.

5) Thinking Moms’ ditch canned positivism in favor of authentic outreach.

At the height of my son’s treatment, when rage, screaming, physical abuse and sleeplessness were constants in our daily lives, an acquaintance told me to “think positive” and admonished “try not to cry and, no matter what, follow through.”   I averaged about three hours of sleep a night those days.  My many, many waking hours were filled with bloodcurdling screams from a child who attempted to elope from moving vehicles and bloodied my face when I tried to keep him safe.  Advice of that sort, at that point in my life, was just additional noise I had to dismiss. It’s what Thinkers call canned positivism. “Keep going!  You can do it!  Great job!” Pffft. Weigh the value of your words against your ability to truly listen to and serve that fellow parent. All Thinkers are doing everything we can for our sick children and giving every moment of our lives to advance their health and well being.  Sure, encouragement is necessary.  But, a sleepless, abused mom of four who is cooking SCD for her family, administering meds and giving enemas to a 160-lb kid around the clock does not need a pep talk.  She needs a damn break. We all suffer greatly as the result of what has been done to our children on our watch.  This is the reality, and it must be acknowledged if we are to move forward in the interest of all our affected children.  We are all one.  When one falls, another Thinker picks her up and carries her until she can do it on her own again. Then she gets back out there, picks up another parent and it goes on and on. If you cannot provide physical assistance, offer prayers and intentions on her behalf.  If you are in a position to lighten a fellow Thinker’s load in any way, DO IT.  Pick up a sibling from practice, do a load of laundry,  pick up her mail, give — don’t lend — her $20.  Whatever it is . . . If the thought flits through your mind, follow through on it. Many moms and dads are too exhausted, prideful and overwhelmed to simply say, “Help me, please. I’m drowning.” You don’t have to wear a pin, carry a card, or wear a TMR t-shirt to jump in and relieve someone else’s burden.  This is authentic outreach.  It does not take place in front of a camera, it is not documented in corporate newsletters, it’s not photographed with celebrities, or filed anywhere of any notarized importance — except, perhaps, the Akashic records.

6) Healthy boundaries are essential for all Thinking Parents.

Our journeys are intense.  For some, recovery is a matter of months or years, for others, decades.  I have worked very closely with parents of severely affected children whose spouses have left them financially destitute, and they’ve been beaten by both — deliberately by their spouses and unintentionally by their profoundly vaccine-injured children.  I was enlisted to help a child here in Chicago, whose mother allegedly took his life after many years of seeking support and help through hospitals and government aid.  His story is chronicled in the award-winning documentary Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis?Having had this incredibly valuable life experience, I can tell you this:  The child is always worth saving, despite the condition or situation of the parent.  However, you must always ask yourself with great sincerity, “What is it that I have to give?”  At the time I became involved with Alex, my son was profoundly affected.  Our first TMR book had just launched, and I was the point person for public relations.  But I delved headfirst into documenting Alex’s plight, despite this responsibility and the fact that I was managing tremendously complex medical and nutritional protocols at a time when a good night’s sleep amounted to three hours. Despite all our core team of seven attempted to do to help Alex, he died.

As hard as this experience was, it taught me you cannot save every child and you cannot sacrifice yourself or your family trying.  This does not mean any child should be written off.  It does not mean that you walk away from families in need, who are seeking real help.  Sometimes, your prayers, advice, intentions, and rudimentary direction are all you have to offer.  If you truly can provide material assistance, meals, housing, assistance, advocacy, financial aid, by all means, you absolutely must. But these families have been through a lot, so do not over commit, do not under deliver.  Do what you say you will do.  If you spend several hours with a mom, and you discover in your communications that she is not following through and she is spending the bulk of her time complaining about her plight but not really doing anything about it?  There is only so much guidance you can provide.  If you provide instruction, and she tells you she cannot follow through, but would prefer to talk about how unsupportive her spouse is,  how awful her days are, how penniless she is, how rotten her family treats her?  That may all be very true. Tell her you will pray or intend for her, but you do not have time to talk to her every day.  Weekly 10-20 minute check-ins should suffice.  Maybe she can email you updates and find local support.  There is only so much you can accomplish in a day, and every day you must care for your family and yourself.  If the pre-Thinker you are working with is not grounded in the truth of the situation, is not capable of humility, and cannot fully commit, you are limited in your ability to affect change in the child’s life.  Authentic outreach goes both ways, genuinely giving and genuinely receiving.

7)  If you are truly a Thinking Mom, you are defined by what you are FOR, rather than what you are AGAINST.
 
Look, we know what happened to our kids was avoidable.  We know that it is remarkably unjust. We know greed and chosen ignorance contributed to their illness.  But you need to know, if you are aligned with us, the foundation of your philosophy is loving support for your affected sisters and brothers and a genuine desire to prevent what happened to your child from happening to others.  Our original founders came together under the superior organizational and diplomacy skills of Helen Conroy (a.k.a. Goddess), not because we were aligned against pediatricians or mainstream medicine or GMOs or vaccines.  We came together under her extraordinary leadership to learn from each other in a safe forum and, in turn, give back to our communities the exceptional gift of knowledge we gave received. We came together to heal our children and to heal others. We were not aligned against the forces that harmed our kids, we were aligned for the purposes of healing them and ourselves.  While we get with great clarity the immense burden associated with the knowledge we now carry, our commitment is to spread the truth, not destroy the liars.  It is our hope that everyone will align under the guise of the whole-body medical model that benefits all our kids and embraces individualized healthcare, authentic nutrition, and integrative healing.  This is what Thinking Moms embrace and fight for.

Thank you so very much for joining us.  It is our privilege and honor to advance medical freedom and spread the message of truth and justice for all our families alongside you.

Much Love and Respect,

~ The Rev

For more by The Rev, click here.