Once upon a time, my first daughter was referred to speech therapy.  Once upon another time, my second daughter was referred to speech therapy.  In both twisted tales, each daughter was under the age of eighteen months. 

That’s my daughter in the water, everything she knows I taught her. 

My four-year-old daughter is healthy, not normal (because that is boring), independent, smart, fierce, and like every parent says of their kid – the perfect child.  She throws toddler tantrums, has strong feelings about what color popsicle she wants (during the day and before lunchtime might I add), watches too much television, parkours outside like a monkey in the jungle, and reads, dances, paints, sings, and plays with fervor.  She gets sick on occasion from licking things she should not be licking, she bumps her head an alarming amount, and she touches, presses, and pulls on things when she is not supposed to, inching us closer to the next accidental nuclear disaster.  As a mom doctor – the best kind of doctor – she is hitting all the marks and doing all the things – smooth sailing.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news

But whenever I enter the doctor’s office, I feel the opposite – I worry my child lags behind, not pushing enough, not exceeding the gold standard.  I feel diminished, beat down, and regretful for all of the teachings I have spilled out before the kids.  I sink into the corner as they ask me about her diet, I shake when they check her vitals, heart, and appendages, knowing that one wrong move will get us a one-way ticket to the specialist, I get the jitters when filling out the developmental packets, knowing one off-kiltered answer will land us in the referral penitentiary, and I get anxious spinning a tale in my mind of how I am going to politely decline the doctorly advice.

Over the course of my daughter’s four-year life, I have been referred to a nutritionist, a cardiologist, a physical therapist, and a speech therapist, none of which provided a benefit to me, with the tiny exception of the cardiologist, which I still think was initiated because of a doctor needing to hit a certain amount of referrals for the month to get their fat bonus to fund their multiple vices (we all know they have them).  $250 later, and I know she has a heart murmur that is innocent until proven guilty, a common occurrence in children that probably could have been diagnosed within the primary doctor’s visit instead of spending a month worrying until the specialist appointment takes place. 

I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch.

I am no doctor, but I am a wannabe M.D. who goes medication-free (except for the green stuff),believes in holistic approaches, and throws her own theories into the mix whenever conversing with the gods of medicine.  Back in my twenties, I pursued medical school and PA school; I took the MCAT the same week I took my GRE, thinking I could use my MS in Health Administration and my certification in laboratory science as a way for the doctors to “finally accept me,” but they still slammed the door at my one interview, the same as the pre-med snobs who shut me out when I studied with and got better grades than in college.  Giggles still flee from my soul when thinking of the countless nights those smarties spent studying, missing out on the valuable lessons on bedside manner where you have a drink in one hand and a blunt in the other.  Those pre-med puppies were mostly bullies, telling me I was not smart enough to get that kind of grade, shooting down my ideas, and pushing me out of the conversation.  Being the feisty, determined, and witty undercover genius that I am, I took the path they less traveled and now bathe in contentment and get to see my family ten times more than they never dreamed of doing.  That never was not a typo, folks.

I’ve got to tell you in my loudest tone, that I’ve started looking for a warning sign.

After living in the medical world for 18 years, I have developed an impressive bullshit radar for any provider I come across, and I exercise it whenever I can, especially in my children’s visits.  This past visit was an 18-month checkup for my 17-month-old.  I filled out the developmental packet, providing honest answers, scoring low in the bulk of the Communication section, knowing a conversation was about to be had.  Like clockwork, the doc came in after a half hour of living with toddlers in a tiny room, giving me a concerned look and talking in Charlie Brown teacher voice, the only words I catch being “concerned,” “speech therapy,” and “follow-up appointment.”  I took out my invisible Samurai sword, chopped the head off of the referral beast, and left the office knowing I would not be coming back unless a vaccination was needed or a chronic condition came up.  

On our way home, my mind raced with nervousness and worry – was I not talking to her enough?  Am I a bad mom?  Did I make this happen?  Is she an idiot?  Can I force speech on her like a ventriloquist’s dummy?  HOW DO I MAKE THIS BETTER?

When we arrived home, I morphed into a depressed mom, who could not mom like she used to, and my kids suffered more than they would have had we not gone to the doctor.

Two weeks later, my child started saying words, the first one being “Ow,” the second being “Mom,” you decipher that. Rewinding back to my first child, and she started talking a little after two, spewing words like “parasaurolophus” and since has not stopped chatting. She’s a living jabberwocky just like her ‘rents. And then I realized that the eighteen-month speech therapy referral was a load of BS, at least for our family.

Talk dirty to me

Correct me if I am wrong (and I am quite a bit), but are children supposed to be throwing out water cooler talk at the tender age of eighteen months?  As a parent of kids who grow too damn fast, I thought we were operating under the theory of “it will happen when it happens and we are not supposed to rush this.”  But after a few Google searches and nosedives into academic journals, the “wait and see” approach is as outdated as the Blackberry.

Alas, I will still push my ancient wisdom on you all, because I want to save every single future parent from a nail-biting, anxiety-ridden, worrisome experience that is both preventable and motivational.  

Case #1 – Pushing children to talk – I thought we were all wearing the same team colors here, but there were many wolves in sheep’s clothing, and I am the dumbass that fell for it.  My impression was the adults were cheering for words after the two-year mark.  That gives us two years to coddle, cuddle, and muddle through the crazy infant/toddler/monster years without adding talking to the mix.  I have enough thoughts going through my head and find little need for a one-year-old to learn how to form opinions, contribute squeaky bits to adult conversations, and demonstrate the violent rush of swear words that flow from my mouth as routinely as your morning bowel movements.  And how are they supposed to talk if they don’t have teeth?  Both of my girls got teeth after a year, meaning they could not practice dialect the first year of life.  No thank you, one-year-old, please sit on your Boppy pillow, play with your blocks, and absorb the world while I bask in the first two years of your adorable and fastidious life.

Case #2 – Pushing children to walk – Throwing this in there because I hear parents with anxiety about their kids not walking at a certain age.  I could be crazy, but I want the gremlins to start walking as late as possible, offering me multiple opportunities in their first year of life to get shit done and cuddle that blob of a poop-machine before it evolves into a squirmy, wormy agent of chaos that jumps from tabletops without looking down and uses the couch like a trampoline, defying the death of the coffee table corner that used to be childproofed but both the children and dogs ripped off the padding and now we are in a wild West free-for-all.

A visionary, vision is scary, could start a revolution, polluting the airwaves

Call me selfish, call me a bad mom, call me whatever your judgy heart desires, but I like my babies immobile and poorly-versed for the first one to two years, and who are you to tell me different?  Oh yeah, I forgot….you are THE doctor, and what you say goes.

But let’s all be reminded of the one major importance of this situation – Einstein did not talk until he was five.  

What are we worried about here if our baby geniuses are sitting silent, observing the beautiful world around them, practicing speech in their cribs at night, and waiting, just waiting, for the perfect moment where they can recreate that one time you said “oh fuck” in front of them?