Posted on 10/08/2007 10:19:50 AM PDT by Jean S
They’re watching you right now.
They counted every beer you drank during last night’s Red Sox [team stats] 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.
Not only parents, but also neighbors:
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is proud to collaborate with PAX on the ASK Campaign and help promote its important message.”
“The ASK Campaign (Asking Saves Kids) provides a concrete solution to an indisputable problem. Over 40% of American homes with children have guns, many of them are kept unlocked and loaded, and every year thousands of children are killed or injured in shootings involving these guns. The ASK Campaign encourages parents to ask their neighbors if they have a gun in the home before sending their children over to play. The power of this campaign is that it enrolls all Americans concerned with the welfare of children, including gun owners, and makes a discussion about public safety and good parenting part of the solution to gun violence.”
“ASK Day
ASK Day—an annual national day of focus on the life-saving, public health message of the ASK (”Asking Saves Kids”) Campaign. The ASK Campaign is a public education collaboration between the AAP and PAX—an organization offering real solutions to gun violence, that urges parents to ask about guns where their children play. ASK Day comes as summer approaches and children will be out of school spending more time playing at friends’ houses.”
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/PAXASK.htm
Here’s the PAXUSA.org Board (usual lefty celebs):
http://paxusa.org/about/board.html
And here’s AAP’s own Web page on guns:
http://www.aap.org/family/tipp-firearms.htm
Ah yes. Much better to have your left-wing cronies write and implement the "legislation" so you can sit back and reap the socialist benefits (what Cadillac Duval must say to himself about this).
From the article:
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.
If you think that is bad, check out the UCAPA bill the Uniform Law people are seeking to implement in all 50 states. (Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act).
Presumed innocent - gone.
Gestapo cop tactics allowed - check.
Our pediatrician asked US this several years ago. When all she got was an angry stare, she said it was so they could caution us to secure them in a safe way. So I told her "There are no unsecured guns in my home."
As my wife pointed out, if you stonewall then you run the risk of them submitting some damn report where CPS decides to drop in for an "investigation."
This is not surprising. I have two boys, age 2 and 5 months. When we began bringing the first one to the pediatrician, two years ago, we were given a “well-baby” questionnaire, soliciting information including whether we keep a gun in the home, whether we use sunblock on the baby, etc. One question asks us to list the names of every person who lives in the house.
Like other privacy-invading questionnaires that I’ve seen, after getting “the goods” on you, they conclude with some rather anodyne questions, like “what do you like most about your child”, and “what are you concerned with the most about your child that you would like to discuss with the doctor”, to make the whole thing seem innocent.
I refuse to fill it out. I expect many parents fill out at least some of it, if not the entire thing.
My rule is I almost never fill out questionnaires, and even if I were inclined to fill out part of a questionnaire, if I find any questions that are offensive, I refuse to fill out the entire thing.
The ACLU goes blue in the face worrying about “government intrusion” into the affairs of people who are at least targeted as likely to be up to no good, but not a word about this wholesale gathering of data on parents who have done nothing to cast suspicion upon them. It did not occur to me that they might ask my kids directly when they get older.
Never ever leave your kids alone with a doctor or a nurse.
The doctor might be a pedophile.
Don't ever leave your kids alone with another adult.
My son’s pediatrician knows fully well not to ask questions that are not relevant to the immediate health of my child.
With respect to the report being filed, I would sue the doctor, and petition to have it expunged.
Wouldn’t medical privacy rights bar doctors from supplying information to the government. THen again, probably not since the parents aren’t the doctor’s patients.
I don't buy that...sorry. Might be true in MA, but not nationally.
Also I think it's the natural progression of "plans"...like Romney Care.
FWIW-
Another place that fishing for information on parents to report to fearless leader occurs is in school? Are your children required to keep a journal for any class? When her children were in elementary school my friend was quizzed one night by her son. He asked quite innocently how much she and her husband drank each night. When she asked why he needed to know, she was told it was for his school journal and his teacher had suggested the question.
My friend told her son it was none of the teacher’s business and his journal was to be about what he did. Not what they did.
My friend and I concluded that journals were a rather clumsy attempt to spy on families by getting children to write down information that was none of the school’s damn business. I still stand by that conclusion.
This is a very interesting program, and we have the same thing here in Florida. Or at least fundamentally it sounds the same. Our pediatricians ask much the same questions, including things like do you own a gun, or do you drink at all. Both of these are legal actions, protected under the law, but somehow they are important to the doctors. All health care providers also are required to report any suspicious injuries or marks on children, and this means a likely visit by the social workers and police, with a possible removal of your children to points and places unknown.
I think the dangers here are obvious to all, and the abuse of privacy are very worrisome. But, what should be considered is that it is not the left fighting for this, but the conservatives. Jeb Bush championed this, and so do all the Republicans here. Those I meet and work with have consistently argued that this is a necessary approach since without it we would be abandoning abused children to their unworthy parents.
First of all, regardless of how many abused kids this helps, I just don’t think we can say doing that means nobody has any rights. Wouldn’t hidden cameras in every house also save lives and help abused kids? What is stopping that but some idea of rights or privacy? This idea that all things are acceptable in the pursuit of helping abused kids just doesn’t work and cannot, in a free society, be defended.
But, does it even help any kids in the first place? Consider a man who drinks too much, beats his kids and smacks his wife around. If he breaks his daughter’s leg is there really any chance he will take his kids to the doctor under this plan? Haven’t we refrained from forcing confessors and psychiatrists from revealing privileged information just because doing so would mean people would stop seeking their aid? How would people react if the police starting doing breathalysers and searching the home of any woman who reported a rape, just in case she was hiding something. It might mean a sharp decrease in reports of rape, but I doubt it would either catch any criminals or help rape victims.
I don’t think we can avoid considering the doctor either. My doctor, who can barely speak English, likely couldn’t diagnose a case of athlete’s foot, much less really identify the likely cause of an injury to a child. This means several people I know have been investigated because their child fell out of a tree, off a bike or touched the iron. The only people safe under this program are the guilty, who lack the decency of providing needed care for their children, and they are the only people who needed the help. Just what is our goal in this, and who do we serve?
This is not, contrary to what some would say, a liberal idea. Yes, they have it, but so does the right, and that is the problem. There is no vote against this really, and both parties have agreed to share their support of such onerous measures. Conservatives must regain their consistent approach and begin opposing such blatant abuses by the government which serve nobody but themselves.
Maybe all patient visits and examinations by doctors should be videotaped, or at least all patients should fill out questionnaires after each visit to determine if any improper touching, suggestive behavior, or leering took place.
Doctors have definitely been found to be pedophiles and molesters, have used patient visits to instigate affairs. You just can’t too careful.
bmflr
Greet the New STASI!
The last time I took my kid for a sports physical - the paperwork asked a series of questions similar to what was in the article. It is frightening. As a parent, never allow a child a be interrogated by a physican. It really is none of their business and it is still legal to tell the doctor just that.
“Denver school-based “health” clinics created with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation money already track a student’s sexual habits, whether his family owns a gun, whether his parents get along, and whether his friends obey the law”
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment061500c.html
The RWJ Foundation basically funded the first Clinton presidential campaign in return for authoring major portions of Mrs. Bill Clinton’s Health Care plan.
I will never raise my children the US.
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