I completely agree. I had a similar experience the other day. I went with my 4 young nephews, their moms, and my mom to a science museum last Friday. this museum is full of propaganda, including an entire exhibit dedicated to covid, vaccines, how viruses spread, etc… full of lies and it broke my heart but my family is brainwashed so this is where they like to go. anyway, this museum has also been insane about masks. during the mandates, they were known to even remind individual kids to cover their noses with the masks they were wearing. in those days my family just didn’t invite me on these outings since I refused to wear one at all. so that’s the background story. the similarity here is, my 9 year old nephew Jackson started telling me there how he does NOT want to wear a mask. he used to be serious about wearing them, even when he didn’t have to, so it was interesting that he was now going on and on about not wearing one- like he has decided to try to impress me all of a sudden, knowing I don’t wear them. as our convo went on, he added that he hasn’t been “vaccinated.” he mentioned this because the museum’s updated policy is that vaxd don’t need masks, but unvaxd still must. some unmasked parents there were making their kids wear masks, but the majority of children were not, even though none of them are vaxd. so my mom chimed in with, “yeah, you can’t get the vaccine yet, but most of the other kids here arent wearing a mask either.”
she was saying this as to imply that it’s okay that he’s maskless, since most other kids in this building aren’t either.
I quietly held my peace, wanting to keep this visit a pleasant one despite the disgusting propaganda around me, and wanting to avoid angering the other adults with me, but I thought to myself, “oh, so it’s not about the alleged science or keeping us safe, or even the museum rules themselves- it’s about following the herd, mom?!” she had raised me and my siblings to be literal “free spirits” but here she is, making it super obvious that it’s also important to her to just blend in and not stick out. it was okay to break the rules since most others were.
it’s been eye opening to see the truth about everyone close to me and it hurt to not be able to say much. perhaps I could have. but it caught me off guard to finally hear my nephew tell me that he doesn’t want to wear masks. I was careful because his parents have made it clear that if I talk anti-covid around their kids, they will leave the premises. so I have been careful not to rock the boat. I want to maintain getting to spend time with my nephews. there’s no huge conclusion to this message I just wanted to share my similar story, kinda the opposite, where my mom indeed found it actually more important to blend in than do what she actually thinks is right… when I think of it, maybe behind all the parroting she does, perhaps she doesn’t actually know what to think, or is afraid to acknowledge what’s in her heart that would make her stand out in social disgrace like I do.