I have been vaccinated only because I needed to put my Mom in memory care and I am the her guardian. My wife has not had the vacinne and probably won't. She just does not trust it right now. Her right. My Aunt and brother have been vaccinated also. My brother keeps asking me about my wife if she is going to get vaccinated and I tell her it is her choice. He then proceeds to tell me that he does not want my wife around our Mom WHO IS VACCINATED!! I told him my wife is NOT the Pariya. She is not the boogie man. He is a very left liberal and has written Greg Abbot to tell him off several times. Weirdo.

Yes, I've had Covid been the base of some major family issues. Too long a discussion and complicated to go into here but my family has been "canceled" by half my wife's family.

Not masks, but back in the fall when my son went back to school, I was lectured by my sister that I was putting the elderly family members of my son's classmates in danger because I was going to my fitness classes.

Forget the fact that kids and parents at my kid's school weren't even adhering to mask policies (pretty much all of the sports teams had to quarantine at some point because they weren't wearing masks at practices and social events), but I'm supposed to not go to my fitness class because the elderly grandparent of some classmate of my kid ~might~ get Covid from me? Heck, the classmates wouldn't even have to quarantine if they are all wearing masks. Like another poster said, the odds are better that you'd get hit by a Chinese rocket.

I told her it's my responsibility to protect my immediate family and the friends/coworkers that I have the closest direct contact with. I simply can't be responsible for every person who ~may~ come into contact with someone who is within two or three or more degrees of separation from direct contact with me.

Thankfully, the disagreement didn't ruin the relationship, but it's amazing to me that we could have such disparate views of this situation. We are both highly educated engineers.

Hasn't impacted them at all

I have one sister who chose not to get the vaccine after a year of isolating from the world because they are concerned about Covid (as they should be because of several high risk factors). She doesn't trust the vaccine, either. This behavior is nothing new, though. She rarely attended family get togethers because the 45 minute drive is too difficult to make on any day but a Saturday.

Pre-vaccine, we continued to get together with my elderly at-risk parents in their backyard and continued to speak to them almost daily by phone. All good...

Got together with my cousins last week for the first time in a year- I think one person wasn't vaccinated, but she had Covid last fall. We're not known by any as a liberal family, by the way. Our grandmother was active in the Republican Party county organizations, held a position as precinct chair multiple times, etc. Our parents are active in Republican Party elections locally. None of us are particularly politically active. Just including that to say that our decisions to get the vaccine were not politically motivated.

So, if someone's family relationships are impacted, I think it's a possibility that there were issues in that relationship before Covid.

I'm legitimately curious. Who are they doing this for? Are they still concerned they'll get Covid? Do they think there's a chance they are an asymptomatic carrier and will expose others? What is their concern?

My family and I live in separate towns, but we are all vaccinated and stay in touch virtually through Zoom. My parents did express concern months ago when I came to work in person a few times a week while working other days from home, but they are relieved that I never tested positive for Covid-19 and my family is celebrating how everyone stayed safe and is now vaccinated.

My wife and I went to eat a Mothers Day Brunch in New Braunfels today. People with masks, lots without and a buffet where we all touched the tongs to serve and no social distancing. It was interesting to see everybody's reactions to the open buffet. Wife and I went thru with no problems. We saw families see what it was like and just leave. We saw one family fighting in the parking lot. Half wanted to go in and the other half didnt. We ate, drank beer and enjoyed ourselves.

B-1 83 said:

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MIL made a big scene at a restaurant two weekends ago. The Wife and I are both vaccinated. MIL is vaccinated, but insists on wearing a mask. She wouldn't wait around inside by the bar with us, and went outside because we weren't wearing masks.

She then proceeds to sit at a table, darn near elbow to elbow, with multiple unvaccinated people for an hour and a half.

Edit: Did I mention she once called NY Governor Cuomo "President Cuomo" in early 2020 for his COVID handling.

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I have a sister in law in Hawaii who (along with another sister in law in Austin) convinced my wife's mom to not come to my sons wedding back in July. Outside. In Prosper. Collin County was, at the time, getting a *robust* 15-30 new cases per day. Hawaii SIL told my wife "How would you feel if something happened to mom"

Fast forward to December when my wife's mom bought plane tickets to Hawaii for February at the urging of Hawaii SIL. I don't have a problem with not traveling but if you're going to stand by your principals, then by gosh stand by them. By the way, MIL had not been vaccinated at the time of departure.

We commented and it was one of the topics that has got us banned from the ring leaders of the family.

There's more; just giving an example.

John Francis Donaghy said:

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2girlsdad said:

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My response, which was kinda jerkish I admit , was then don't come by the house if you're going to be wearing a mask.

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Ask yourself if this response passes the funeral test.

If you were to stand up and speak about your relationship at this person's funeral in 10 years, would you want the story to end this way? That your relationship ended when she wanted to wear a mask in your house? And your kids never knew her after that?

Or would you rather relay this mask story as a funny anecdote of her quirky convictions that you didn't always agree with, but were just a part of who she was?

Telling family they aren't welcome in your home is a nuclear option that you may never come back from. If you do it, you better be very sure you're willing to live with the consequences to you and your family.

Uncontrolled drug addiction that puts your family at risk? Physically or verbally abusive? Mental instability or illness that makes you fear for your family's safety? These are all good reasons for a nuclear response IMO.

Wanting to wear a mask when they come visit your house. Not so much.

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scd88 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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MIL made a big scene at a restaurant two weekends ago. The Wife and I are both vaccinated. MIL is vaccinated, but insists on wearing a mask. She wouldn't wait around inside by the bar with us, and went outside because we weren't wearing masks.

She then proceeds to sit at a table, darn near elbow to elbow, with multiple unvaccinated people for an hour and a half.

Edit: Did I mention she once called NY Governor Cuomo "President Cuomo" in early 2020 for his COVID handling.

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I have a sister in law in Hawaii who (along with another sister in law in Austin) convinced my wife's mom to not come to my sons wedding back in July. Outside. In Prosper. Collin County was, at the time, getting a *robust* 15-30 new cases per day. Hawaii SIL told my wife "How would you feel if something happened to mom"

Fast forward to December when my wife's mom bought plane tickets to Hawaii for February at the urging of Hawaii SIL. I don't have a problem with not traveling but if you're going to stand by your principals, then by gosh stand by them. By the way, MIL had not been vaccinated at the time of departure.

We commented and it was one of the topics that has got us banned from the ring leaders of the family.

There's more; just giving an example.

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I wonder how many families are using this as another way to sow discord amongst their own family to gain favor. It's an easy topic to use for that.

None of this COVID stuff has caused any issues for my immediate or extended family. In my immediate family, all of us except my brother chose to get vaccinated. We still see each other as often (if not more often) than we did pre-pandemic, and that's been the case this whole time. Not once have we ever considered wearing masks around each other, either.

I genuinely feel sad for the people who chose not to see their family for a year.

It was all good until today. I posted the following in multiple messages over on the Tine board (culled for relevance):

#1
So disappointed in my family- meaning my sister and BiL and parents.

My sister and BiL live with their kids outside Denver. Their kids are 10 & 6 and are close to our boys (niece is 9 months younger than our oldest and nephew is 10 days younger than our youngest). My sister has been planning to come down to visit everybody here next month and then drops the whole "if you're not vaccinated we won't be seeing you" in the family text string.

The Mrs. and I have not been vaccinated because we're still exhibiting antibodies from our covid infections 6 months ago. And there's the TBD nature of long-term effects, positive and negative, of the vaccine. We're not opposed to vaccines in general it's the still unknown nature of a lot of things and the still "emergency authorization" rather than standard approvals. Plus, there's the ultimately very low risk of actual bad outcomes vs. the unknowns here.

Of course this blows up on the family text string.

Then my old man, a man with an Ivy League PhD in microbiology calls and starts haranguing me over it. Of course I lay out my reasoning and it's not mere stubbornness. It's reading studies and speaking with doctors, including my primary care physician and weighing the risk vs. reward here.

It's so frustrating for people who are educated and should know better to lose their heads. And even more frustrating to have to defend reasoned and rational decisions made on research and personal risk tolerance.

#2
We're not anti-vaccine at all. At least not in theory here. Meaning the wife and kids and I have all the normal vaccinations with concerns whatsoever. The only ones I'm not sure on are the chicken pox and HPV vaccines. I know I haven't had them, don't know if the wife had the kiddos get those vaccines though.

And this is not a position taken without thought. The wife and I have both had covid and extremely mild cases and are still exhibiting antibodies. We're aware of the risks of the virus itself. We've also looked at all the data out there and how we've been living our lives since last March (basically full go normal since April 2020) and spoken with multiple doctors, including my primary care physician, and several friends. My PC said that if you're at a higher risk profile he recommends the vaccine but if you're not, and especially if you've had covid, he's not saying "don't get it only that there's no long-term data." Physician friends are somewhat split but many have similar stances.

Thus, with the available data we're more comfortable with the risks associated with the virus itself than the unknown vaccines. We're not doubting the efficacy of the various vaccines only the long-term unknown side effects. And even more so for our kids. Frankly, if this was like small pox with a 30% mortality rate it alters the calculation but this is something where less than 5% of the cases are considered serious and far less than 1% mortality rate.

My sister has gone off the deep end in many ways but my parents are still in the mind that you can trust the MSM from when they were young and Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. I think my old man just wants peace but I could be wrong. He'll relax about it soon enough- I mean, he and my mother have both been vaccinated and they're hanging around us and other unvaccinated people regularly without complaint.

#3
And I spoke with my brother- he, his kids (16 & 15), and his wife all had covid about the same time as we did. Actually, right before us over Thanksgiving but we didn't see them and hadn't been around them to get it from them. My brother's ex-wife and her husband caught it from the kids too. My 16-year old nephew and 15-year old niece had mild cases (low-grade fever, some sinus infection-like symptoms for about 36 hours) but my brother and his wife had a little tougher time but they both also tested positive for the flu at the same time so they were both down about a week but no lingering effects or any respiratory issues. None of them have been vaccinated yet either. In speaking with my brother he's pretty much of the same mind I am, he doesn't see the need at this point but isn't all that worried one way or the other. More that there's no need to rush. He did say, "we want to travel internationally ASAP and it looks like we'll have to have the vaccine to do that."

I'm not sure my sister or parents are aware of that.

So my sister called to apologize today but she also told me that she and my BiL made the decision, that even though they're fully vaccinated, they will not be around people who have not been vaccinated while indoors.

They're also planning to get their 10 & 6 (7 in September) year old kids shot up as soon as possible. She was somewhat aghast that we're a hard "no" on vaccinating our kids who are basically the same age as hers any time soon and until there's a whole lot more data.

She was apologetic for the way she communicated her position before but kept going on about how they're following CDC guidelines and about the risks. I asked what she was worried about if she'd been vaccinated and was sure it worked- she reverted to CDC guidelines. I brought up the known, minuscule risks of actually being infected with or having covid to people in our general age group (I'm 44, she's 39) and the even smaller, infinitesimal risks to kids vs. the unknowns of the vaccines due to the lack of long-term data and it was like talking to a wall.

She and my BiL have quite clearly drunk a great deal of the FearAid on this.

It's not even that the wife and I are saying we're never going to get vaccinated. We just feel there's no real risk in waiting until there is far more data on the vaccines.

People mocked me for using the term "permanently damaged" in another thread. Well, children are impressionable and if the adults they trust keep fearing for their livesthen, yeah, both adults and kids will be permanently affected.

I have relatives like this, too. They'll pal around with their friends but have a different set of rules for their family. Oh, I forgot to add "who have a different political ideology than them" at the end of last statement.

Loons and liars.