A MOTHERS THOUGHTS on an HIV MUPPET

I wish that this was a easy subject to discuss, but it's not. The way I view this there are really three issues here that need to be separated to make any sense at all:

#1) How to deal with people who we love who need our love and who are dying - this does not necessarily mean HIV only.

#2) How to deal with a deadly disease that is spreading throughout the world and is communicable from person to person by contact or contact with body fluids.

#3) How to best, as parents raise our children to be good, honest, compassionate and kind - and protect them as they grow from all types of danger - physical and mental, and emotional - so that our children can pick up this world and carry it into the next generation.

As many of you know, I am a gen-Xer, who grew up with Sesamee Street and I have four children under 10-years old. My brother died from aids not long ago. My husband is trying to come to terms and deal with the eventual loss of a younger brother, who he loves and respect tremendously, who is HIV positive. And when I cross the street I hold my children's hands. This sums up my perspective pretty well...

Anyone who has small children understands the tremendous weight everyday carries when they go off to school, or visit a friend, or even the first time they climb on a bicycle or climb a tree in the back yard. Apprehension, fear, prayer and a million emotions - for our little ones. I'm sorry, if you are not a parent you really won't understand the range of emotions a mother endures, daily....

I teach my children to be kind, I teach my children the golden rule, I make them wash their hands before meals, I pray with them at bedtime, I teach them not to talk to strangers, I pick their friends carefully, I teach them the 10-Commandments. I have a picture of Jesus across from a picture of George Washington in the reading room, I tell them never to pick up hitch-hikers and don't drink out of anyone else's glass. I bring them in the house during a lightning storm, I keep them home when they are sick so that they will not pass on their cold or the flu to other children. I hook up their seatbelts when we drive....and I pray that G-d will watch over them and all the other children of the world...

After all of this, can anyone at Sesame Street please tell me, why would I teach my children that HIV is NORMAL and they should treat it as such?! Anyone who has ever had children and watched NORMAL childhood play knows that it involves bangs, cuts, Contact, biting, spitting, holding, grabbing, on and on, day in and day out. Soccer, kickball, tag, volley ball, baseball...please - am I to assume that this is perfectly safe if a child with HIV is part of the playground equation?
Please, don't mix the issues here - parents are supposed to protect at the same time they teach their children - can Sesame Street's Schneider convince me that teaching is as valuable as protecting when all he wants to do is indoctrinate a character that teaches - but mentions nothing about protection?

As a mother, am I supposed to buy the Sesame Street standards, they will provide the kindness message and if that's all that happens don't I need to provide the protection lesson that includes- no scratching or spitting - wresting - no contact - no bleeding no exchange of sweat... carry Clorox and rubber gloves - disinfect immediately any blood from scrapes - report any spitting to the principal. Goodness, just review the rules and procedures for health care workers and law enforcement officers who may have been in contact with someone HIV positive...and this is what every responsible parent would have to instruct their child to do!

My G-d, no one denies that HIV infected children need love and kindness, but we as adults should at least have the mature social courage to treat dangerous communicable illness as a dangerous communicable illness - and take what ever means are necessary to stop the spread of this and any other communicable disease to other children! This is true responsible kindness and understanding and by no measure does it equal hate or meanness! An HIV child is like the child in a bubble in reverse. Geesh, are we expected to treat chicken pox and the flu with higher standards than HIV? You can fill in the blanks from there anyway you please...

Can't anyone see how our values of kindness and compassion have become the 'Trojan Horse' of those who wish to eventually destroy the family? In today's world there are people and groups whose sole aim is to tear apart what is good, pure and innocent - starting with our children.
It's much like the person who uses the story of the good Samaritan and they feign injury in order to rob or rape a passerby.

These children with aids are being used as political and social pawns and their tragedy is being exploited for a larger scheme - to normalize a radical and perverted agenda. If you want proof just ask (or answer) the following question: If these people are so full of compassion then why haven't they told the entire truth about the how/who/and why AIDS has reached this critical dimension? Fully two thirds of HIV transmission would never happen if people(both men and women) stopped dropping their pants outside of marriage. In this case just erase and replace the name of this illness with say syphilis, gonorrhea, meningitis, cancer - and see if it would qualify for a pre-school children's television show character...the conclusion itself should raise a red flag...

Yes, we can become like Africa - if we continue to have a POLITICALLY CORRECT HIV policy and we will follow them down the same path of social suicide - just continue telling half truths and taking half measures to deal with the reality of a fatal contact transmitted disease.

My 5-year old once asked me "Who's the parent here?" My answer to her was - "I am..." and before I finished, she told me that I have to "...do what a parent does." I intend to do exactly that. I will teach my children right from wrong and I will teach them love and compassion - and I will do everything in my power to protect them from ALL harm and danger. If that means don't talk to strangers as well as don't watch Sesame Street - that is what I will tell them.

I would wager to say - most who view this new character in a favorable light have no small children that they are trying to raise in today's real world. Please don't try to use my little children for politically correct ideas, indoctrination or politically protected illness...I'll stop you anyway I can.

Please, don't try to tell me the how's, what's, and why's, of raising my four children...use it on your own little ones. I watched my brother die from AIDS.

P.S. Compassion? Try this - Have some compassion for the unborn children of the future, and those young people who will become HIV infected tomorrow if we adults don't have the courage to treat AIDS today in the same manner as other communicable and dangerous fatal diseases.

In San Francisco, which does NOT have nurses btw in school sites (truth!), the SECRETARY is supposed to take care of all injuries and is NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW IF THERE'S HIV+ children in the school site!

Hey, that's no big deal. NURSES in hospitals often do not know if a patient is HIV+! This information can be withheld from the patient's medical record. So, if a patient is admitted for a surgical procedure, and does not want the staff to know he/she is HIV+, they will not know it. ALL patients are treated as if they are HIV+ and this is supposed to prevent transmission (Universal Precautions). This makes sense since some patients themselves may not know they have the virus.

The truth is, there are times when staff allow other priorities to take over, like when there's a Code Blue (cardiac arrest). At these times, some staff do not take adequate precautions. However, I DO. Nothing, not even a life and death emergency, can cause me to forego Universal Precautions.

Yes, women can become infected with the HIV virus. However, statistically, their chances are much lower. The reason? It is less likely that infected body fluids of their sexual partner will come into contact with the woman's blood. Why? Because the vagina is a tough organ that does not bleed easily, even when battered, because of its inherent elastic nature.

However, some things increase the risk of a woman getting HIV from an HIV+ man. The main things are: (1) pre-existing venereal diseases or other vaginal infections that cause inflammation and increased likelihood of contact with bleeding tissue, (2) anal sex, because rectal tissue, unlike the vagina, is very friable and bleeds easily, and (3) violent sex that results in bloody bodily fluid exchange (gross, I know, but it's a fact, sorry).

Now, these facts do not set well with the P.C. set because it is in their interests to insist that EVERYONE is equally susceptible to the virus. That is simply not true.

Another case of P.C. madness in the medical field is the ridiculous insistence by the medical community that EVERY woman over a certain age have Pap smear tests annually or every other year. The truth is that 99% of all cervical cancer cases are directly attributable to genital warts. If you do not have warts on your genitalia (which are, BTW, incurable), it is NOT necessary and a waste of your insurer's money to have annual Pap smears. Women should continue to have pelvic exams at their time of their annual physical, but the Pap is not needed unless they have the warts (human papilloma virus). Period.

To add to your list, (4) any gum disease, bleeding gums, or small cuts in the mouth allow HIV to enter. With rash of underage girls treating their boyfriends to oral sex, which isn't considered sex since Clinton, their chances of getting HIV increase.

A group you never hear of is women over 50 who catch HIV from their wandering, experimenting husbands. This has been true for years, but they're "respectable" women and don't talk about it. Remember socialite Mary Fisher, who caught AIDS from her husband and spoke about it a Republican National Convention a few elections ago? They said it was because her husband had transfusion, but he was bi. I met him, he was a creep who should never have married as he clearly preferred men. Fisher is one of thousands.

There are plenty of macho men, who in their later years get in touch with their "feminine sides" and start experimenting with homosexual sex. Psychologists are well aware of this phenomenon. Wives should be too.

A group you never hear of is women over 50 who catch HIV from their wandering, experimenting husbands

Let me assure you, the bathhouses and backrooms at places like Lafitte's are FULL of hetero, married men "on business".

I've known several gay men over the years who specialized in hitting on just this sort of voyeur. They preferred seducing straight men and -- as it turns out -- it was probably the safer way to go in many respects. No strings. The opportunity to meet him subsequently "on business" elsewhere. And a manliness much desired by homosexuals that's not always readily obtainable among a bunch of screaming queens.

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