US Non-Vaxxers and Delayed/Selective Folks: How Easy or Hard Was It to File Your Exemption?

[Turquesa]

Obviously this is optional, but feel free to elaborate in the comments on where you live, what type of exemption you filed, and/or what your experience was like.

[fruitfulmomma]

Easy. We homeschool under a private umbrella school and only had to sign a paper. We are in Colorado and use the philosophical option.

[Bokonon]

I voted "Mostly Easy" - at each of my children's schools, I've had to have a conversation with the school district nurse and explain my reasons, plus hear the spiel about herd immunity and all that.  It's not a big deal because I am confident in my choices and will not be swayed by someone who doesn't know my children and their health history, but it does feel very authoritative and designed to intimidate, especially considering they were both fully immunized for a while (DD until after 2 months and DS until 5 years).

I'm in CA and filed philosophical exemptions for both of my children.

[Mirzam]

Easy-peasy. Another Coloradan here, so I just have to sign a piece of paper and hand it in to the school. The other day I got a letter from the school stating that DS did not have the required Tdap for 7th grade, with the usual warning that he would be denied school etc. However, the person sending out the letter had highlighted the paragraph about exemptions and had marked an 'X' where I should sign to exempt him!

[LiLStar]

WA state, mostly easy. As of this school year, having the exemption signed by a dr was required. Not that big of a deal since my kids hadn't had WCV in awhile and I do like to pop in once in awhile, but it was an extra step beyond printing off the form and signing it, which was all I needed to do last school year. My intention was to file a philosophical exemption, but when the ped was filling it out she checked medical. 

[Marnica]

Easy Peasy!

Mind you I've only had to do it for preschool, but they actually included the avaliable exemptions (medical and religious) in the enrollment packets!!

I have a friend whose unvaxed DD is in school where my DS will be next year and she has not had any problems so Im thinking I will not get any grief thank goodness! This is in CT BTW

[Turquesa]

That's sweet, Marnica! And this isn't a Waldorf School?

I have a theory, (which can't be confirmed by an unscientific MDC vax forum poll), that people in philosophical states don't necessarily have it easier than people in states with religious exemptions. Regardless of the type of exemption you file, school officials can be either your best friend or worst enemy. And in philo states, health department officials often try to cram down your throat a bunch of one-sided, paternalistic, scary-sounding "information" and "education" that pretends like you're too stupid to go look up the CDC's Pink Book, VICP claims, VAERS data, package inserts, Cochrane Review data, etc. I think they want to cling to the media narrative that we're a bunch of frumpy-dumpy idiot housewives getting our medical information from celebrity gossip sites. I actually wonder if, at the eleventh hour, they have managed to convert any heathens.

Of course, any anti-informed-consent ideologues who may be lurking want public policies that punish skeptical, non-compliant, naughty widda mommies by making our lives hell.

A lot of people come to the vax forum on a fly-by-night basis begging for help with an exemption. I have no issue with that, but it sucks that they're not around to answer this poll.

[prosciencemum]

Oddly I had to do an exemption once. My fully vaccinated (on UK schedule) son attended day care in New York state and Massachussets for a few days (during a work/family trip to the US). As varicella is not on the UK schedule I had to sign an exemption for it for him to attend the daycare in NY (which was super easy). It was never mentioned in MA.