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Actually I suppose to a certain extent I've always been a skeptic. I like to have proof. I love facts, scientific studies, research. I like to know whether a thing is TRUE or not.

I remember several years ago I found the urban legends website Snopes. I was *dismayed* as I read legend after legend... so many things I believed to be true, which everyone knew were true, were in fact... NOT TRUE.

Ever since, I've been using the Internet to verify things for me. Of course you have to be careful of your sources on the Internet... I mean, you cannot use Billy Bob's website as a reliable source. (In my post about mattress wrapping, I point out that all the proponents of mattress wrapping are just random people who have NO PROOF that it does anything whatsoever. ) But my background in journalism helps me find things which I believe to be reliable. Also you can usually verify a reliable fact more than once, on more than one site or news article.

But I love the natural living communities. Attachment parenting makes so much sense to me. Breastfeeding to me seems so simple, so logical! I am not sure how I feel about co-sleeping, except that I am not against it and plan to see how it works for me and my family. Birthing at home not only seems safer and so much more comfortable, but there is ample proof to show that walking into a hospital to give birth increases so many risks to you and your baby, that I don't even need to debate it.

But then I see things in the natural living communities which honestly make me feel a little scared and like I am way, way on the outside.

Like, the Bill Gates killing babies thing. Or, that HIV is a myth. Or that all vaccines kill babies and that anyone who is pro-vax is pro-killing babies. Or that you should wrap your mattress against all the toxic fumes it emits. That there is a global genocide in progress, coordinated with every government in the world, to use vaccines to kill babies. That big Pharma makes more money from us being dead than they would if we lived. (???) That autism is caused by vaccines. Honestly it goes on and on, and it makes it hard for me to believe a lot of what I read about.

This site might be becoming where I hash these things out while I try to figure out for myself what is true and not true, what is valid and what is just jumping at shadows. Frankly I think there are enough real concerns for parents to have, that jumping at shadows like toxic mattresses are a waste of our energy. But I suppose we'll see how it evolves...