Posted on 10/04/2007 4:14:11 PM PDT by SubGeniusX
They’re watching you right now.
They counted every beer you drank during last night’s Red Sox game.
They see you sneaking out to the garage for a smoke.
They know if you’ve got a gun, and where you keep it.
They’re your kids, and they’re the National Security Agency of the Nanny State.
I found this out after my 13-year-old daughter’s annual checkup. Her pediatrician grilled her about alcohol and drug abuse.
Not my daughter’s boozing. Mine.
“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.”
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.
And that information doesn’t stay with the doctor, either.
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.
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.
And then they wonder why we drink.
The problem, my dear friend, is that many of their sycophants reside right here on FR.
Statists are the majority on here now, unfortunately.
It seriously bothers me.
I’ve left FR twice over it. A third time and I might not return.
There is a sign on the building right by the door that says concealed weapons of any kind are not allowed in the building. There are pamphlets on the dangers of guns in the lobby for parents to read. When we were going there frequently (well baby visits, ear infections, etc.) I used to take NRA coloring books and leave them on the kid's table and in the kid's reading rack.
Come to think of it, it's time to see what other Eddie Eagle stuff I can buy to drop off there next time we go! Tee hee.
Massachusetts pediatricians were doing this same thing back in the early 1980’s when I had my son. I was shocked by the questions asked to a two, three yr old. We moved out of Massachusetts.
“That’s against federal law. You should’ve reported them for that.” (darkange)
Oh, believe me, when you go to hospital staff about this problem, at very high levels, they can cite loop hole after loop hole. We had money to pay our own hospital bills (that’s what they didn’t like - we weren’t socialists). But we didn’t have money to retain attorneys.
Oh, yes, we complained. What we did manage to do was have a cover page placed in our son’s records denying access to any persons employed by or associated with the agency for which those women worked. A Ph.D. speech analyst on staff there (one of the people very kindly working with our son) took up our side on this and wrote several letters on our behalf. This brought a cessation to anyone contacting us.
This Ph.D. (the most learned on the whole team - he provided the information that told the surgeons the extent of work needed. This man made the (motion X-ray) videos of our son’s throat, palate and adenoid pad area, and had the knack of explaining the procedures to us in a way anyone could grasp. . . and most compassionate.) had once walked up on the socialists trying to question us. He shoo’d them off for us that time. I told him what they had been trying to do. He was NOT happy.
Hopefully that doctor fired them. I would have said “Listen up here, what you are doing is illegal, and if you do it again I will call the authorities.” Sometimes you have to scare people like that.
That Ph.D. was one of hundreds of doctors on staff there. He wasn’t their boss and had no hiring/firing authority.
Still, having the FBI looking for you would be a lot worse than getting fired from a job.
Sorry, it happened to us in Massachusetts during the early 1980’s.
“Does Daddy own a gun?”
5 year old response....
“Daddy says only people who need to be shot will find out.”
Very good article. Well said. I posted it at our other site...which you need to check in with, please! Debbi is about to have a stroke worrying about you! :)
I blame the democRATs and RINOs in government.
I totally understand what you are saying. My participation here has dropped drastically because of the situation.
I pulled my “about” page over a year ago and no longer participate in certain regular/recurring threads that I was always o in the past.
I hope you yanked your medical records out of their hands, at the same time!
I did that when I moved, stating they are “MY Records”, and I’m not too damn concerned about your “policy” to do a Doc to Doc transfer.
I’m not going to be 3 states away wondering why you didn’t transfer them!
You should have given the PA the "Steven Wright" response: "Whadya need?"
I just emailed my daughter not to let our 7 year old granddaughter be alone with the doc.
I understand that you blame dem’s and government for these types of intrusions. However, please don’t blame Romney, we never heard of the guy in the 80’s. Government yes, you are correct to blame. I think it had to do with where the Doctor received his degree and what the school told them to ask patients.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.