PARENTING December 7, 2009 ISSUE

NEW TERRITORY

ELIZABETH MASSEY

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, my husband and I moved our family across the country. This meant we were going home, as we had both grown up in New York State. Yet as a new stay-at-home mom, I was in new territory.

My first wake-up call occurred when the director of our son's nursery school phoned me a few weeks before Christmas. At the time, our son was two years old and attended school two morning a week. A parent in our son's class had learned, from a mutual acquaintance who knew that my husband and I were Christian Scientists, that our son was not inoculated. This parent was very concerned for the well-being of her daughter. The director was calling to alert me to the issue and to look for ideas on how to proceed.