Got Kids?
American Academy of Pediatrics recommends North Korean surveillance tactics for the good of you and your family. Michael Graham’s oped at the Boston Herald, on his daughter’s checkup:
“The doctor wanted to know how much you and mom drink, and if I think it’s too much,” my daughter told us afterward, rolling her eyes in that exasperated 13-year-old way. “She asked if you two did drugs, or if there are drugs in the house.”
“What!” I yelped. “Who told her about my stasher, I mean, ‘It’s an outrage!’ ”
I turned to my wife. “You took her to the doctor. Why didn’t you say something?”
She couldn’t, she told me, because she knew nothing about it. All these questions were asked in private, without my wife’s knowledge or consent.
“The doctor wanted to know how we get along,” my daughter continued. Then she paused. “And if, well, Daddy, if you made me feel uncomfortable.”
Great. I send my daughter to the pediatrician to find out if she’s fit to play lacrosse, and the doctor spends her time trying to find out if her mom and I are drunk, drug-addicted sex criminals.
We’re not alone, either. Thanks to guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by the commonwealth, doctors across Massachusetts are interrogating our kids about mom and dad’s “bad” behavior.
We used to be proud parents. Now, thanks to the AAP, we’re “persons of interest.”
It’s Friday night. I just got home. I’m drinking a black and tan. Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout and Newcastle Brown Ale. It’s really good. You should try one. I’ll be having another shortly. My 13-year-old daughter’s sitting on the couch in the family room, within eyeshot, no more than 10 feet away, watching TV with her mother. While I’m here at the kitchen counter. On the computer. Drinking. So who is going to know about this? Aside from you, I mean.
The paranoia over parents is so strong that the AAP encourages doctors to ignore “legal barriers and deference to parental involvement” and shake the children down for all the inside information they can get.
Debbie is a mom from Uxbridge who was in the examination room when the pediatrician asked her 5-year-old, “Does Daddy own a gun?”
When the little girl said yes, the doctor began grilling her and her mom about the number and type of guns, how they are stored, etc.
If the incident had ended there, it would have merely been annoying.
But when a friend in law enforcement let Debbie know that her doctor had filed a report with the police about her family’s (entirely legal) gun ownership, she got mad.
She also got a new doctor.
No, she didn’t shoot the doctor.
In fact, the problem of anti-gun advocacy in the examining room has become so widespread that some states are considering legislation to stop it.
Last year, my 7-year-old was asked about my guns during his physical examination. He promptly announced to the doctor that his father is the proud owner of a laser sighted plasma rifle perfect for destroying Throggs.
At least as of this writing, no police report has been filed.
“I still like my previous pediatrician,” Debbie told me. “She seemed embarrassed to ask the gun questions and apologized afterward. But she didn’t seem to have a choice.”
Of course doctors have a choice.
They could choose, for example, to ask me about my drunken revels, and not my children.
They could choose not to put my children in this terrible position.
They could choose, even here in Massachusetts, to leave their politics out of the office.
But the doctors aren’t asking us parents.
They’re asking our kids.
Worst of all, they’re asking all kids about sexual abuse without any provocation or probable cause.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has declared all parents guilty until proven innocent.
Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Google isn’t helpful on the history of this, except with one article that indicates it goes back to 2002, and the AAP website is so obtuse as to be useless. I did, however, find this: Consistent, Frequent TV viewing causes behavior problems. No kidding. Behavior, sleep and attention problems. Where did you think all that ADHD is coming from?
Welcome, Dr. Helen’s patients, Argghhh!!!’s castle guard, Livejournalists, etal. So good to see you, come on in. We’re mulling the public health and safety menace posed by flashlights. The political negatives of flagwaving. Meanwhile, in fatwa news. CAUTION: Climbing ladder creates risk of falling!
Topics: kids, moms and dads
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:42 pm Comments (14) on Thursday, October 4, 2007
14 Responses to “Got Kids?”
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October 4th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Hey, I’m chugging my Sam Adams, Newcastles, and Firestones while watching baseball, and my kids are coloring at the dinner table, etc. So I’m with you on this…
Good parents will raise good kids. I don’t like the nanny state getting in between.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
I think it is worse than a nanny state problem. That they have doctors doing their dirty work is bad enough, but they are also training up the children. It reminds me of the kind of thing the Nazis did.
I thought it was bad enough that the medical profession seems so eager to allow themselves to become well-paid slaves of the state, but I see that they are perfectly willing to go even further.
Sometimes I can do nothing but weep for my country.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:33 am
No, she didn’t shoot the doctor.
But I bet she thought about. I would have. Thought about it, I mean.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:12 am
May I suggest you Mass folks send your kinds in with a pre-packaged set of questions for the good doctors? Malpractice-bait type inquiries. This informant-rich domain can play both ways, and a well-designed query can silence the quacks very quickly.
October 5th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Got Kids?
This story gives the line about doctors going fishing a new and disturbing twist….
October 5th, 2007 at 9:40 am
This doesn’t seem to me to be a subject for amusement. And “nanny state” is much to mild for this type of intrusion into family life.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Children as state informants
I remember being horrified as a child when I learned in the 1950s that under communism children were turned into informants against their parents. But it is beginning to happen in America.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:02 am
We’re gonna be Sweden with a summer before we know it.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:25 am
There is a solution. The next time you find out the doctor is grilling your kids, go into his waiting room when it’s full of patients and make a very loud scene. Demand that the doctor come out to speak to you. If the doctor won’t come out, start on the staff (normally I wouldn’t recommend that, but all’s fair in war). Demand to know (in a loud voice in front of everyone) what the hell he or she thinks they’re doing, questioning your kids about private matters that have nothing to do with their physical health. Threaten a possible defamation lawsuit (again, loudly – hey, it works at universities). Don’t push things so far that they threaten to call the police to have you removed, but leave willingly, first promising to spread the news to all your neighbors, family, friends, other patients, and to write a letter to the newspapers and your congressman. Make sure there are plenty of witnesses in the waiting room. And no cursing or violence, just righteous indignation and justified grievance.
Public knowledge (and the subsequent embarrassment to the offenders) is the surest way to kill this kind of insidious crap.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Nice idea, Rebecca. Some organisms don’t do well in the light.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Think of the paranoia engendered in a child’s mind when a medical doctor makes those kinds of probes and inquiries.
(gee, what’s wrong with mommy & daddy ?)
I guess it’s all part of the child’s conditioning in becoming chip implanted zombies of the overarching state.
October 5th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
[...] Liberty. trackback Universal health care would just increase these sorts of events. Doctors don’t trust you with your kids, your second amendment rights, or in fact, your ability to make choices about your [...]
October 5th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
One easy solution for the silly control-freak stuff: if your son/daughter’s pediatrician is fishing for information, go with your son/daughter to the next appointment and in a polite, yet firm tone, tell the pediatrician that asking for private health information (PHI) is a direct violation of HIPPA rules, and that you will be seeking a new pediatrician immediately, as well as filing a complaint with your health insurance provider, as well as the state licensing board.
For the more serious stuff, such as abuse, kids will be much more reluctant to answer questions of that nature, even if the evidence is obvious. A genuinely concerned doctor knows the difference between a kid joking about mom and dad eating their weight in Big Macs, and beating the kids to a pulp, and will use their judgment as such to ascertain that information without violating HIPPA or PHI.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
[...] the American Academy of Pediatrics wants their doctors to interrogate kids for information on the parents — like whether they drink, do drugs, smoke, and are abusive. That’s already kind of [...]