Why I tried to bribe my son to get the vaccine
‘My friend’s mom offered her a car if she got the shot,’ my 28-year-old son told me after another argument about getting vaccinated
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Your support makes all the difference.For months, I begged, cajoled, and urged my 28-year-old son to get vaccinated. I would have cried, too, if that would have worked. As the archetypical middle-aged Jewish mother and lawyer, I was certain I could persuade him the vaccine was the quickest way to get the world back to normal.
The first time it came up, I said, “Hey, you’re eligible — you can get the vaccine.”
“I dunno,” he mumbled.
Moving to a more straightforward approach, I added, “You need to get vaccinated.”
“It’s like when the Nazis rounded up the Jews, and they obeyed — I don’t trust any government,” he said.
“You can’t blame the Nazis for Covid. Just get the vaccine,” I said.
“I’m healthy…and I don’t go out much,” he replied, flexing his deeply tanned arm muscle.
“You have friends over a lot,” I reminded him.
“We’re safe,” he responded. He’d been living in a trailer on our property in the Santa Monica Mountains on the outskirts of Los Angeles. And his posse of friends came over maskless and likely unvaccinated all the time.
“Not doing it,” he said.
We were stuck in a it’s-time-for-a-vaccine loop until the debate degenerated into a fight. At which point he ghosted me for two or three days, even though we lived in the same place.
Then it would start anew.
“What about your grandparents?” I urged. They were 85 and 92 and had survived Covid thanks to monoclonal antibody treatments.
“I’ll wear a mask,” he said.
Three months later, as I followed my son to his car, the old conversation took a new turn. He said, “My friend’s mom offered her a car to get vaccinated.” Then he drove off.
Later: “I might consider the vaccine if you would co-sign on a loan for me,” he threw out.
“No,” I said impulsively. Then I thought about the parent who had offered her daughter a car. The power of social norms sucked me in just, like the hotel signs which say something like, “Would you like to join the almost 75 percent of our guests who reuse their towels to help the environment?” I needed to get my kid vaccinated. Wasn’t it worth it? My son could make the downpayment, but he would likely not qualify for a loan. So I wasn’t exactly bribing him with money for the vaccine. Rather, I was making it possible for him to move into a place of his own and out of mine.
I asked the realtor if we could see the property.
“No problem,” she said. Then she called back and meekly admitted that the seller had raised her price. Since I wasn’t 100 percent comfortable with the idea, I felt relieved. Even my son agreed that the property was out of reach now.
“What about the vaccine? Your dad is a diabetic and I’ve got a weak heart. Do it for us, please,” I prodded.
He was unmoved.
Around the same time, his closest friend was due to marry a woman who was immunocompromised. Her parents frantically pressed their soon-to-be son-in-law to get the vaccine.
When I saw him after the wedding, I congratulated him and asked, “So, did you get the vaccine?”
“No way, man,” he replied through his Joker mask, his beard poking through the bottom. “My in-laws were pushing me to do it but if I put anything in my body, the next thing I’ll be back doing heroin.”
The helium leaked out of my balloon.
“Yeah, my in-laws offered me ten grand,” he added with a laugh.
“Just do it,” I said, hoping my son’s friend could influence him.
“I’d be a real d**k if I gave up on my principles just for some money,” he shot back.
I thought about how I had “incentivized” my children when they were young. I offered my son a full riding kit for his cycling team if he kept a B average for a semester, for example. And I didn’t feel guilty about it. According to Shaun Gallagher, author of “No, You’re Not Bribing Your Kids,” incentivizing positive behavior is okay. A bribe rewards bad behavior. Getting a vaccine is a good thing, I reasoned.
“Gramma called me,” my son said.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“She misses me and really wants me to get the vaccine, so I’m gonna do it Thursday,” he said. And he did.
When he came home from the pharmacy, he told me, “The lady had a sense of humor — she gave me the shot right in the eye of my shaman tattoo.”
“Did your friend get the vaccine and the car?” I asked.
“She was pissed that her mom tried to manipulate her with the car. She had already gotten the shot.”
I continue to worry about anti-vaxxers prolonging the pandemic and causing a multitude of variants of the Covid virus. And I still can’t decide who’s more in the wrong: me, the shamelessly bribing mom, or my son and his friends who risked their lives — and mine — out of stupidity.
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