I had a problem with a solicitor this morning.  I was 8 AM, I was just making the kids breakfast and drinking my coffee, when someone ruined my peaceful morning, and started pounding on the front door.  He knocked and pounded and stood there for at least five minutes.  I refused to answer the door because I did not know him, and I have no soliciting signs on both of my doors.  Finally, after five minutes of waiting while he was waving at my kids through the window, he gave up, wrote something down on his clipboard and started to walk down my driveway.  I thought I cant let this guy just get away with being disrespectful and knock even with a no soliciting sign staring him in the face.  I opened up the side door as he was halfway down my driveway, I said “You really should be respectful and not knock on peoples doors that request no soliciting!”   He replied.  “Screw You!”  I then went off on him, I am sure I threw out a few F bombs and finally told him to get off my property before I called the police. As he walked away he was laughing at me, laughing!  Now I am livid.  This creepy sales guy is laughing at me and making me uncomfortable in my own home!  I watched him walk to my neighbors house, she is another stay at home mom with a minivan parked in the driveway, and he coaxed her out of the house and away from her children and talked to her. He completely skipped the old peoples houses, and only targeted the houses with signs of children.

I called the police non-emergency number and asked if there is anything I can do to protect my rights to not have some creepy guy pounding on my door for 5 minutes at 8 AM?  They informed me that all solicitors in our town are supposed to register themselves with the police department before they go door to door, I asked if this guy was registered to which she replied he was not.  I then was directed to leave a message for the Police Sargent asking for his input on my rights, which I happily did. At this point the guy left so I did not ask for police response.

I called and shared my solicitor experience with my sister who lives three blocks away, when I was on the phone with her the guy came back to my court to talk to my neighbor again.  This time I took down the make and model of his truck, license plate, and his physical description, and waited until he left to ask my neighbor if she had a business card.  My intention was to call the parent company, complain and then contact the BBB. Unfortunately this neighbor said he did not give her a card, and did not show her any of his materials, he just wanted to talk to her about his educational program he was selling.

My sister called me three hours later because this same guy who I described to her on the phone, just came by and was pounding on her door and bypassed her no soliciting sign. She had her daughter sleeping  in the house and to keep him from waking her baby, she opened the door and yelled at him to go away, and not to bother people who request no soliciting.  He then repeatedly asked my sister to come outside and talk to him or just to look at his map and give him some information about our town.  She replied, no go away.  She had a minivan in the driveway and a swingset in the backyard. She watched this guy walk down her street and completely avoid the two old people who live on both sides of her, with no hint of children in the house.  Now she also called the police.  Not only was he harassing me, he was also trying to coax people with children out of their houses.

Why was I so defensive?  I believe that your home is the one place you can be yourself and do not have to be polite to strangers.  You should never feel that people are scoping out your house and walking around looking into houses or at your belongings.  The time of day that solicitors usually happen to come is during the day time  and in the summertime when school children are home alone, elderly people are home, or women with young children are home alone.  Door to door sales people are targeting the vulnerable people in the world.   I believe these door to door solicitors are the people who cant get any other jobs and often are people that avoid jobs that may require background checks.  Every time one of them comes to my house, I envision them as a convicted sex offender or a thief who was just released from prison, and now they are knocking at my door when I am home alone with my kids.  The most precious time of my day is when my kids are quietly sleeping, the worst is when one of these sales predators bangs on my door during nap time.  I might go postal on a solicitor who wakes up my kids.

I have had some very strange experiences over the years with solicitors. I had one guy who saw the no soliciting sign on my front door, walked to my side door and pounded on that door because there was no sign.  I pretended I was nice got his business card then yelled at him with all of my might until he left.   The next day I put a sign up on the side door after calling that solicitors parent company and contacting the BBB. On another day a very frightening and large man walked into my backyard when I was swimming with my kids.  He was trying to pet my dog who was going nuts barking because he was trying to protect us, and this man was trying to pet him to calm him down.  He walked through my gate and into my secluded fenced in backyard!  I have never been in a more vulnerable feeling position,  swimming with two wet kids and a strange man inside of my fence.   That was the first time I realized I needed to do something about solicitors for my safety, and I will never swim again without my phone by my poolside.

Why do I need to feel unsafe in my own yard because of solicitors?   There is a no call list and I am on it!    Why is there not a no soliciting house to house list that I can put myself on to protect my family?

I should feel safe and secure in my house and not fear that one of these strangers pounding on my door is scoping out my house for a robbery or to abduct one of my children.  I will continue to call my police department whenever I get someone who bypasses my no soliciting sign. I truly believe door to door soliciting should be illegal!

Today I spoke with the police sargent who told me that he has been getting an unbeliveable amount of calls the last two weeks about solititors harassing people and he advised me that because there is no city ordinance there is nothing they can do to stop solicitors in our town. I quickly contacted my mayor and city council members asking them to enact a similar city ordinance as our neighboring towns so that we can monitor solicitors.  I have also asked everyone I know that lives in my town to contact their city council members as well.  Hopefully my passionate dislike for being harassed in my home will make a difference in my community.

I am not a doctor, I am a parent and I am my kids advocate and protector with their medical treatments.  To be an educated advocate, I believe in researching current practices and treatments to make sure that I am comfortable  with my pediatricians care.  The medical field has changed practices and what was once commonplace 50 years ago is considered outdated and possibly dangerous today.  Doctors no longer use Thalidomide for morning sickness because it caused birth defects, or tetracycline to pregnant mothers or young children for risk of damage to their adult teeth, practices change and evolve and I prefer to question the status quo.

Today one of my close friends shared with me her scare from her child having a horrible reaction to her 15 month immunizations.  Her daughter developed a high fever and became lethargic and unrousable the evening of her shots,  she had to bring her little girl to the emergency room to be monitored.  I asked my friend what immunization she reacted to?  She said she did not know because she was given three immunizations at that one appointment.  Her Doctors office suggested that for the next round of immunizations they give her one immunization every two days to see if they can figure out what one she reacts to. I asked my friend if this was the first time she reacted, and she said she had a high fever at her three month shots as well.  I then shared with her my alternative schedule to the routine CDC immunization schedule and suggested she try it with her child and told her to start researching which immunization could have caused this type of reaction.

With my daughter I would have never considered not following the CDC’s schedule for immunizations.  My daughter was right on track with the CDC recommendations, she had all of her cluster of immunizations and concoctions on her standard well baby appointments.  It did not occur to me to delay her shots weather or not she had a cold.  Looking back I am unbelievably grateful she ended up not having any reactions  to her shots, and is a healthy, animated and intelligent four year old now.

My awareness of the risks of immunizations was raised when I worked at the high school.  I started to do research on  the increase of immunizations over the last 25 years, autoimmune disorders, asthma, ear infections and allergic reactions that are possibly linked to reactions from immunizations.  I also noticed students in special education, there were approximately 10% of the total student population at our local school district receiving special services.  I began to hear stories about students that were born normal, had autoimmune response to a childhood vaccination and became mentally disabled.  The majority of students with Autism and ADHD were boys. When I started learning about these conditions I felt guilty for not adequetly protecting my daughter during her immunizations, and I decided I wanted to do everything in my power to protect my son.

Protecting my son started when I refused to get a flu shot while pregnant, I ate little to no fish or seafood that had a chance of containing mercury, I did not drink more than 1 cup of coffee or beverage containing caffeine, I did not drink or smoke of course, I did not eat soft cheeses, processed meat more than once every few weeks, I did not dye my hair or breathe any harmful fumes.  You name the pregnancy precaution, I followed it.  The protection of your children during pregnancy is just practice for how you will need to protect your children as they grow.

The easy thing to do would be just to refuse to get immunizations for my son but I believe that there is value in protecting my child and protecting society from preventable common diseases and outbreaks.  I researched, I spoke with parents of children with autism and adhd, I read books, magazines, research papers and online articles and from this research, I chose what made the most sense to me, to create my own alternative immunization schedule.

Since birth for my son’s immunizations, I have only allow him to receive one shot at a time and each shot is given one month apart. I make sure he only receives an immunization when he is completely healthy, no fevers, no colds, no sniffles.   I request that he does not receive concoctions.  I shared my plan with his pediatrician, I told her that I was not only concerned about autism, but also stressing his immune system with multiple shots and that I am more comfortable doing it my way and by my schedule not by the CDC’s.

I let his Pediatrician pick which immunization she believes is most important to get at each visit, and I schedule an appointment one month after the first shot, to receive his next shot.  Even though I have cancelled and rescheduled shot appointments due to illnesses, my son on his monthly schedule will be caught up to the immunizations on the CDC’s cluster schedule, by the time he is 28 months old.

I will attach some interesting articles, graphs and schedules below for the beginning of your research and so you can make up your own plan about how you want to advocate for your child.

Please don’t let your pediatrician guilt you into following the CDC’s immunization schedule.  If it makes you nervous that your child’s immune system might be stressed by multiple shots, an extra copay is very cheap in comparison to your child suffering from a possible lifelong condition or a bad response to an immunization.  Until every immunization is proven 100% safe, I choose for my children only one immunization at a time.

Dr. Sears website posts information regarding an Alternative Immunization Schedule by Dr. Bob Sears

70% of autistic children have tested positive for having the measles strain and gastrointestinal disorder.

Autism Dr. Andrew Wakefield fixed data regarding MMR-

Look at the increase of immunizations from 1983 to 2005 to 2009.

Current 2009 Childhood immunization schedule-

Childood immunization schedule from 2005–

Childhood immunization schedule from 1983-