I was having wine with a friend (not an unusual happenstance for me, thank you very much) and I was thinking about the time a few years ago when a very snobby mother was apparently sick of hearing about how hard a child with autism can be. I was having wine with a small group of women and someone asked me what autism was like, since I have two children with autism. I told her what it was like for me day in-and day-out w/o going into elaborate and boring detail. I said something like Meghan needs constant attention, constant help, and constant redirecting. She is constantly running around, running off and not listening, having bathroom accidents, and always getting naked, etc … and one of the mothers let out a great big “YEAH! Like all the rest of our kids…” as in defending herself and the rest of the moms in the whole wide world who work just as hard so why is my job with the handy dandy word autism in it so much harder?
I said to her after taking another long sip of my wine as opposed to just going for her jugular with my handy dandy little butter knife: “That’s right, your kids are the same and are just as much hard work, but your kids are 2 …
And mine is 8!!!”
BITCH!!!!!!
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2 comments:
Definitely hard times. I'm amazed we're still standing! In many ways my son's behavior is better, but, as you know too well, new issues have come up in the teen years to replace the old issues. And of course all parents go through new issues in the teen years, but not the same ones we do!
Tell that to other parents of typical kids, I don't think some of the realize our job is so much tougher. It's tough, because everyone with stressful kids want to be heard--just be careful whom you're complaining to, I guess.
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