Rebecca Villasana-Espinoza shares her experiences of motherhood, emphasizing the unexpected anxieties that arise around everyday situations like grocery shopping and pediatric visits. Influenced by societal skepticism towards vaccinations and health norms, her fears are heightened by conversations and social media portrayals. This unease is exemplified by an encounter at a family dinner where a mother brings raw milk—further complicating Rebecca's perspective on health choices among peers. The current climate challenges her understanding of parenting, merging concerns of safety with societal pressures on health.
What nobody told Rebecca Villasana-Espinoza about becoming a mother was how it could turn the banalities of day-to-day life into boogeymen, creating all these new possible threats that lurked in the aisles of the grocery store, or in a misstep at the pediatrician's office.
Having a newborn was like having a colony of new anxieties implanted in her mind... Social media and text exchanges about vaccine skepticism combined to sharpen that angst.
Becoming a mother now means confronting a grab bag of voices on phone screens and on Reddit, but also at school pickup and church that are critical of the medical establishment.
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