A few days ago a woman in our practice was getting checked to see if she needed an adjustment. While having her spinal analysis she spoke about her family and how difficult it was to relate to her teenage daughter. In learning some of what was going on in this woman’s life, it reminded me about how being a parent is demanding – and it’s not getting any easier. She was facing many of the same challenges we did when our kids were younger, but with advanced technology, and the complexities of today’s world, it’s getting 
more and more difficult to be a parent. Kids may think that their parents have it easy because they wield all the power, but if they only knew the reality. The stakes are high, and parents often feel a bit helpless when trying to make the right decisions to give our children the opportunities they need to flourish.
It occurs to me that one of the things that make it so difficult is that we care so very much. We care about their health, happiness, grades, friends, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately deciding not to care isn’t an option, so we do the best we can with what we know and have available to us.
The difficulties confronting today’s parents involve all facets of life, intersecting with education, cultural, economic, racial and even political overtones. It’s become so complicated that we often find ourselves looking to experts for answers. We also live in an age where it’s harder than ever to trust expert opinion, and upon closer examination we find that the experts don’t seem to agree with each other. So just what are we supposed to do when the experts disagree?
It seems as though people are finding many different ways to answer that question and we can see their impact on changes in our way of life. In some ways people are beginning to take control. Nowadays we find supermarkets offering organic foods that they laughed at a decade ago. Health foods didn’t just happen, you demanded them and the economics of your demands changed what’s on the shelves. Health care is also changing based on your demands. For example, you couldn’t imagine hospital emergency rooms advertising for business ten years ago. Similarly, educators are having serious introspective conversations about goals, methods and outcomes; and home school families aren’t nearly as rare as they were a few years ago. These are but a few of the changes reflecting the power of informed people. All of this being said, getting the right information to make informed choices remains difficult for parents.
Today a practice member asked me whether I thought it would be good for her family members to get flu shots. As a chiropractor it’s not relevant to my practice, nor is it within my professional expertise to offer advice on the subject. After I told her that she asked me whether I was getting a flu shot. I’m skeptical of anything where big money is involved, and as a consumer just like her, I have to look at the evidence before making that kind of decision. We’ve all heard the argument in favor of getting the shots, yet we don’t seem to hear or see much about the other side of this controversial matter. 
But the information is out there for parents seeking it. I wrote an entry in this blog about the subject a couple of years ago called When the experts disagree… At that time I was concerned about how controversial this subject is. Unfortunately the problem is getting worse and it’s still shrouded in big money for big pharma. See the article: https://www.youneedchiro.com/blog/?p=752
A January 8, 2018 ABC News report by Mariam Alam, MD says that “…Concerns have been raised about this year’s vaccine after an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine last Thursday said it was only 10 percent effective…” http://abcnews.go.com/Health/years-flu-season-bad-flu-shot-effective/story?id=52209578 Some other reports indicate that the vaccine’s effectiveness might be higher than ten percent.
One has to wonder whether to put our faith and trust in experts with such outcomes, especially when we consider that the shots themselves pose a risk including serious known side effects like difficulty breathing, swelling around the eyes or lips, hives, racing heart, dizziness and high fever. Source: Live Science https://www.livescience.com/40279-flu-shot-information.html (accessed January 15, 2018) and an article in Natural Health 365 suggests that persons having the flu shot for three to five consecutive years greatly increase their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Source: https://www.naturalhealth365.com/flu-shot-vaccine-dangers-1640.html (accessed January 15, 2018).
This issue even seems to impact our pets. Last Thursday’s Natural News featured an article on the devastating side effects that dogs have experienced due to the toxicity of vaccines. https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-01-11-pet-health-warning-veterinarians-overdosing-small-dogs-with-toxic-vaccines.html#
Yes it’s true, the experts don’t always agree, but the lesson in all of this is to question what’s being marketed to us, look for both sides of the issues and most importantly, set a good example for your children by being a well-informed consumer. I’m not recommending that we all drop out of the culture and not trust anything, but we do need to remain aware that not everything that comes down to us from those in authority is reliable.
Ultimately it’s a good thing that we consumers are more demanding than ever because that’s how things get changed. In the supermarket please read the labels. If you see ingredients listed that you would have to be a chemist to understand, then don’t buy it! 
This is powerful because we vote with our feet, and if we stop buying things that are full of artificial chemicals, then manufacturers will eventually learn what we want, and what we don’t want. If a physician offers a treatment we should know why he or she recommends it, what the potential benefit might be, and the risks of being harmed by it. Whether shopping for physicians, dentists, groceries or auto mechanics, we need to be discerning, willing to ask the hard questions, and demand sensible answers.