Man Refuses To See His Only Grandchild After His Daughter Requested He Receive The Whooping Cough Vaccine
Whooping cough is dangerous, and it's generally agreed that anyone around a newborn should be vaccinated.
FamVeld | Shutterstock Family disagreements are nothing new. Typically, they don’t lead to full-blown rifts.
However, one man’s difference of opinion with his daughter has threatened to tear their relationship apart.
One mom wanted to make sure that everyone who was around her baby was vaccinated against whooping cough.
A mom posted on Reddit to share the argument she had with her father regarding her new baby because, as she said, “I just need somewhere to rant.”
She shared that she recently gave birth. “I had my baby almost four months ago, and the original plan was no visitors for the first six weeks postpartum,” she explained.
“Well, things went wrong; my labor and delivery [were] long and traumatic, and our baby was a screaming ball of fury from the start,” she said. “I reached out to family and invited people to visit within the first week, as long as they had their whooping cough vaccine (it’s standard in my country to have that vaccine if you’re around babies younger than six weeks).”
She was happy to have visitors but confused when her dad didn’t show up.
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“Everyone except for my dad visited,” she said. “I reached out to my dad on multiple occasions to let him know that I’d love for him to visit if he gets the vaccine.”
“I reached out more after six weeks to let him know that the vaccine isn’t necessary now and that I’d still love for him to visit. Each time he just read the messages but never replied,” she continued. “Around 10 weeks, I showed up to his house to see why he’s been silent.”
Her dad’s reason for not coming to see the baby shocked her.
“His reason was that apparently, I was blackmailing him by saying that he can’t visit the baby unless he gets a vaccine,” she stated. “I pointed out to him that even after the six weeks was up, he still hadn’t visited. He said that he figured I’d just blackmail him with something else and so he didn’t waste his time.”
Although his reasoning was confusing to her, she reiterated that she would love to have him visit.
“Before I left, I said to him, ‘Dad, again, I’d really love it if you came to meet your only grandchild. It’s not like anyone else will give you grandchildren,’” she recounted. “(I’m his only child.) He joked that he could have 50 other children around for all I know. But he didn’t comment on visiting.”
“I’ve left it alone since then,” she said. “It’s been almost six weeks since I saw him, and I haven’t heard anything. I’m so frustrated because he was so supportive during my pregnancy, and I thought that he was looking forward to meeting his grandson, but the fact that a vaccine was enough to put him off of meeting him makes me think that he never really wanted to.”
Science says that anyone around a newborn should be vaccinated against whooping cough.
According to the CDC, “Preteens, teens, and adults who will be around the baby and have not already had a whooping cough booster shot (called Tdap vaccine) should get vaccinated.”
This is because “whooping cough is most dangerous for babies, and they do not start getting their own whooping cough vaccines until they are two months old.”
On top of this information from the CDC, the March of Dimes called the flu and whooping cough shots “two vaccines that every grandparent needs.”
“Surrounding babies with people who are protected against a disease such as whooping cough is called ‘cocooning,’” they added.
It is essential to remember, however, that it is ultimately up to each individual whether or not they will receive a certain vaccination. While that is their choice, it can also be a parent’s choice to keep them away from their baby.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.