I Grew Up Unvaccinated and Got Lucky. Now I’m a Vaccine Advocate.

by Erin R.

For years, I didn’t think my story was worth telling. When people share stories about growing up unvaccinated, they often describe contracting measles or whooping cough, spending weeks in the hospital, or living with lifelong complications from diseases that vaccines could have prevented. That isn’t my story.

But I grew up unvaccinated. And that shaped everything.

I grew up in the Chicago area in the 1980s and 1990s. My parents vaccinated me on schedule until I was nine months old, then stopped. They believed I had reacted badly to my nine-month vaccinations because I cried for hours afterward. That one experience convinced them the risks of vaccination outweighed the benefits.

By every other measure, I had a typical childhood. I attended public school using a religious exemption, even though we weren’t particularly religious. I never caught a vaccine-preventable disease. I had allergies and the usual childhood illnesses, but nothing that made me stand out from my classmates. If you had met me as a child, you never would have guessed I was unvaccinated.

One of my earliest memories of questioning my parents’ decision happened in elementary school. My school offered vaccinations during the school day. While my classmates lined up in the library for their shots, I waited in the school nurse’s office while she called my mom to ask her to explain why I wasn’t participating. The nurse patiently explained why vaccines were important and seemed genuinely worried about me. My mother just repeated that vaccination was “against our religious beliefs.“

Afterward, I asked my mom how that could be true when we weren’t very religious. She admitted that claiming a religious exemption was the only way to keep me in public school while still avoiding vaccination requirements—our state didn’t allow personal belief exemptions. As a child, I couldn’t explain why it bothered me. But I knew that the school nurse had presented evidence while my mom admitted she wasn’t being honest. That sparked doubt in me early. The nurse never convinced my mother. But she made a difference to me.

Another memory shaped my eventual path to vaccination—it was a consequence my parents never intended. My mom always told me not to tell anyone I wasn’t vaccinated, because other parents might not let their children play with me. She wanted to protect me from being judged and ostracized. Instead, I internalized the idea that being unvaccinated was something dangerous and shameful.

As I got older, the gap between what I observed and what I had been taught became harder to ignore. My vaccinated friends were healthy. The vaccine side effects I had been warned about weren’t happening around me. When my parents encouraged me to “do my own research,” they assumed I would reach the same conclusions they had. Instead, I found medically-backed resources and testimonials on the Voices for Vaccines website—they led with compassion and understanding, not judgment. Those resources and stories about vaccine-hesitant families helped me make the choice to finally get vaccinated.

Between 2010 and 2012, I caught up on every vaccine my doctor recommended. The shots themselves weren’t the hard part. The hardest part was getting over my shame. Admitting to every new doctor and nurse that I was unvaccinated—because my parents had fallen for antivax misinformation—was always an uncomfortable conversation. Catching up also meant taking time off from a new job, scheduling multiple appointments, and completing vaccine series that should have been done in my childhood.

When I told my parents what I was doing, they were heartbroken. They believed I had been manipulated and saw my decision as a rejection of them. I felt like they didn’t respect my ability to make informed decisions for myself as an adult. For years, vaccination was the one topic we just couldn’t discuss.

When my own children were born, we vaccinated them on schedule. After each appointment, I’d send my parents a photo of their smiling grandchildren along with a quick update about our day: they took a nap, we got ice cream afterward, they were back to playing within a few hours. I never lectured or argued. I just treated vaccination like every other normal milestone in their lives.

Over time, something shifted. My parents, who had refused a whooping cough booster when their first grandchild was born, eventually chose to receive COVID vaccines and annual flu shots. I don’t know whether they would describe themselves as having changed their minds. But I know that love, trust, and consistency accomplished far more than arguments ever had.

Today, my own children are fully vaccinated on schedule. People sometimes ask why, given that I grew up healthy. The answer is simple: my parents made a risky decision and we got lucky. My story isn’t evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary. I was fortunate to grow up in a highly vaccinated community where herd immunity protected me from serious consequences. But I don’t want to rely on luck for my family’s health.

It’s never too late to choose vaccination. I hope that sharing my story will help someone else make the choice to vaccinate.

Erin R. is a Chicago native (go Cubs!) now living on the east coast with her husband and two fully-vaccinated kids. Her story, like all others on this blog, was a voluntary submission. If you want to help make a difference, submit your own post by emailing us through our contact form. We depend on real people like you sharing experience to protect others from misinformation.