Welcome back to the blog, dear kitteh. Pull up a chair, let uncle Jake tell you a story.
Uncle Jake recently had a little baby boy (eight months recent, as of this writing). While that was a bit of a semi-unplanned event, it’s changed Jakey’s perspective on quite a few things. Among them, the thing you really get as a parent, protecting the small and innocent. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about. You will straight up murder somebody, if they mess with your little one. Strong feelings, having babies.
So these days, when I get e-mails like the one I’m about to show you, I feel rather strongly about @endmyopia, and the truth about glasses.
Let’s start with that e-mail:
Right?! Not cool at all, that.
Now I’m not mad at the optometrist. They’re just doing what they do, which mostly is selling glasses and not asking too many questions. Same is true for any McDonald’s cashier, or guy working in the marketing department at Marlboro, or the guy welding pipes on a BP oil rig, or the accountant at Monsanto. Tiny cogs in questionable machines.
But, that’s a little boy we’re talking about. A little boy whose eyes are perfectly healthy, at least until the optic shop gets their hands on him.
I’ve got some issues with that, especially thinking about some optic shop guy putting glasses on my kid. This idea makes me more than a bit anxious, and realizing that it’s happening to thousands of parents, right as you read this, is motivating to keep spreading the word about the truth about myopia.
Help me to get more parents to hear the message about early myopia.
It’s just close-up strain! A focusing muscle spasm, don’t put glasses on the wee one!
I don’t care what adults do with their lives. I don’t even bother telling people about glasses and myopia. I turn down publicity options, because I’ve learned that people will strongly resent you for rubbing their own bad habits in their face. You don’t want to be that guy (or girl), the one preaching, the one telling everybody about things they didn’t ask to know.
I’m not that guy. 90% of my real-life friends know about my finance “what do you do” profession, but not about this batcave of an eye guru project. Likewise @endmyopia the site, is something meant to be found only if you’re asking the right questions.
Kids, though … don’t let yet another for-profit business, masqueraded as “medical establishment”, screw up little boys wellbeing. They’re too small to make their own choices. Let’s help parents make better ones.
How? Share blog articles you like. Don’t be “that” guy, being preachy about it. Just little tiny nudges, plant little sign posts to the truth. Help the message be found, if somebody is looking for better answers (here of course, and on Twitter, Facebook-not-advertised, Youtube, and Quora).
Cheers,
-Jake
