Full disclosure: I am not a believer, nor am I particularly religious. However, I maintain a synagogue membership. I joke that I attend for the food, which is partially true. I participate during high holidays and fun holidays, Sukkot, Simchat Torah and Purim.
This year, during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur 5776, I had a slowly dawning realization. Synagogue-going depresses me. Let me explain: I have been a member for over a decade and year after year, I attend alone or with one of the boys in tow. It is really sad. Synagogues, churches, spiritual communities are by their very nature, family-oriented and family-friendly. Maybe when the boys were small and we attended Tot Shabbat and the annual family retreat, I felt more part of this family community. For the past few years, I have greeted the people I know, then sat . . . alone.
The dinners and events used to be a treat, but recently I have begun to feel like it is the first day of high school and I have to scan the cafeteria for a face I know. "Hi, I am Lydia. May I join you?" It is getting old.
Everyone is friendly enough, of course. People make life-long friendships through their children's cohort. The parents whose kids were in the preschool program together are still close. Hart's and Jeff's peers would now be finished with college, had I met those parents through Hebrew School, which I did not, as my kids had to be tutored privately.
I love our synagogue, primarily for its inclusive and progressive nature, the camaraderie, the social justice activities. Until recently, we had a popular and charismatic rabbi. Maybe this year's rent-a-rabbi was a disappointment by comparison.
The take-away? Holiday blues are not just for those who celebrate Christmas.
September 27, 2015
May 20, 2015
May 13, 2015
Parenting children, parenting parent
I don't think this crazy, right wing-nut
throwing money around is actually our mother . . . anymore.
I talk, text, email my brother almost every day, and always about the same topic...our mom. Our mother has always been argumentative and combative. She answers innocuous questions evasively. She has always preferred the most complicated, convoluted plans involving the most people, preferably with extensive letter-writing and emailing, when a single phone call will do. She was always like that, so it is hard to see the decline in the past few years. Somehow the ante has been upped.
We used to bicker about the ease of ATM or self-check out at the grocery store, now I am demanding to know why she is sending checks accompanied by letters via US Post to her property management company, when we set up an automatic debit for that. "I don't trust the people at the bank to send it on time," she told me. "There is an accurate computer to do the transaction," I sighed. "There isn't actually a person in the back with a quill and an eye shade, touching your money."
My friend Darren, who knows Mom from the old Ohio days, describes my feelings as "sangry." Yes, I am sad to see her acting foolishly, but I am angry that she won't listen to reason. I keep questioning myself as to whether this is really a change. It has been such a gradual decline, and a decline in someone who has always been eccentric, so it is really hard to tell.
However, the crazy right-wing rhetoric has convinced me that our mom is really gone, and the person I am talking to is some strange through-the-looking-glass avatar of her. I write so that I remember her, the founder of a program for impoverished urban kids to spend a vacation with another family. (OK, it WAS the 60s.) She hosted a number of exchange students; she led Girl Scout troops. She owned properties once, and when someone asked her why she rented to family with children, she replied indignantly that poor families had a right to live somewhere, too.
Mom has always been a person without any vanity or snobbery or prejudice, so it is unnerving to hear her spout stuff that would make Fox News look centrist.
It is tragic to lose a parent, of course. But that is the human condition, people have children and usually children outlive them. But Mom has outlived herself. We know someone who looks like her, and has her clothes, but isn't really her. Once in a while though, she is so lucid and cogent and in-the-moment, I have this pang that I have misjudged her condition. I suspect these moments will become rarer and rarer.
throwing money around is actually our mother . . . anymore.
______________________________ email to my brother
 |
| Chicago 1998 |
I talk, text, email my brother almost every day, and always about the same topic...our mom. Our mother has always been argumentative and combative. She answers innocuous questions evasively. She has always preferred the most complicated, convoluted plans involving the most people, preferably with extensive letter-writing and emailing, when a single phone call will do. She was always like that, so it is hard to see the decline in the past few years. Somehow the ante has been upped.
We used to bicker about the ease of ATM or self-check out at the grocery store, now I am demanding to know why she is sending checks accompanied by letters via US Post to her property management company, when we set up an automatic debit for that. "I don't trust the people at the bank to send it on time," she told me. "There is an accurate computer to do the transaction," I sighed. "There isn't actually a person in the back with a quill and an eye shade, touching your money."
My friend Darren, who knows Mom from the old Ohio days, describes my feelings as "sangry." Yes, I am sad to see her acting foolishly, but I am angry that she won't listen to reason. I keep questioning myself as to whether this is really a change. It has been such a gradual decline, and a decline in someone who has always been eccentric, so it is really hard to tell.
However, the crazy right-wing rhetoric has convinced me that our mom is really gone, and the person I am talking to is some strange through-the-looking-glass avatar of her. I write so that I remember her, the founder of a program for impoverished urban kids to spend a vacation with another family. (OK, it WAS the 60s.) She hosted a number of exchange students; she led Girl Scout troops. She owned properties once, and when someone asked her why she rented to family with children, she replied indignantly that poor families had a right to live somewhere, too.
Mom has always been a person without any vanity or snobbery or prejudice, so it is unnerving to hear her spout stuff that would make Fox News look centrist.
It is tragic to lose a parent, of course. But that is the human condition, people have children and usually children outlive them. But Mom has outlived herself. We know someone who looks like her, and has her clothes, but isn't really her. Once in a while though, she is so lucid and cogent and in-the-moment, I have this pang that I have misjudged her condition. I suspect these moments will become rarer and rarer.
April 15, 2015
March 19, 2015
Smile! No, please don't!
Most people who have any experience with online dating can probably write volumes, and since I don't seem to be very good at it, (assuming the best scenario in online dating is to do it for the shortest time possible, meet someone, disable your account, and never return) I am still online. I feel encouraged, nay, compelled to add to the growing corpus of related literature.
This, straight, middle-aged men of the Midwest, is my gift to you. I won't add my voice to the scads of words regarding horrible profile pictures. The selfie ("I have no friends.") The shirtless bathroom selfie ("I have no friends, because I never leave my house.") The bar photo where you wear a sports jersey and hold a beer ("I do leave my house, but women are an utter mystery to me.") Why bother? Those photo cliches are so imbedded in the online dating culture that no one is going to stop, any more than women my age stopped wearing baby blue eye shadow between 1975 and 1985, just because there were books and articles telling us not to wear it. Eye shadow was, by definition, blue, so no amount of press was going to convince us to stop.
I digress. Middle-aged men, I am open-minded. Other than evolution-deniers, and gun nuts, I don't have any firm deal breakers. Until now . . . . because I did not realize this phenomenon even existed. Bad teeth. Yep, bad teeth, and by that I don't mean my-parents-could-not-afford-orthodontia. I have been out with men my age where bad teeth is clearly their signal feature: missing, broken, dead teeth, gaps where teeth should be, congenitally deformed tiny baby teeth! A set of choppers that hasn't had professional attention in years, maybe decades. In front! Always a surprise! I go back and look at the photos and sure enough, the guy is never pictured with his mouth open. I feel sort of tricked and betrayed.
Lest anyone think I am shallow, I will protest that I have never left a date saying, "this has been fun but your teeth creep me out." But neither have I met anyone so charming, sexy, amusing and kind that I have been able to overlook their horrible teeth.
I have to say that I find the situation alarming. The only constant parade of shockingly horrible teeth are the litigants on Judge Judy, who are mostly poor, uneducated and often rural. But that is not the case with my dates.
Since I have commented on this to a few friends, and that was three or four snaggle-toothed dates ago, I have been thinking about it constantly. My quandry is this: what explanation could someone have for their neglecting their teeth that would be acceptable in the context of dating?
"I didn't go to a dentist regularly as a kid and I just don't pay much attention to it."
Then smile in your profile pictures, and spare me the jolt of horror when I realize I can see your tonsils through the gap in your front teeth.
"I can't afford it."
That's even worse.
"I am afraid of going to the dentist."
Also completely unacceptable. No one relishes a dental appointment, a funeral, visiting a sickbed. We are adults. We do those things.
When asked about going out again by any of the 6-10 men whose teeth have repulsed me, I have demurred. For some of you nice guys standing shirtless in your bathroom taking a new set of selfies for your OKCupid or Tinder profile, I can assure that women are not inscrutable or mysterious or capricious because they don't want to date you.
Psst. It is your teeth. They are hideous.
Psst. It is your teeth. They are hideous.
March 1, 2015
Snitlet
Jeff: Why didn't we go out yesterday like we planned?
Lydia: You were in such a big snit when you got home, I thought we would go another time.
J: I was NOT in a snit.
L: Really? You seemed so grouchy.
J: Well, maybe a little snit.
February 26, 2015
Opting Out . . . .
My mother is the de facto godmother to a young woman, the daughter of a good friend. By chance, Rachel is the same age as my boys, so I heard the travails of kindergarten etc, at exactly the same time I was navigating the same waters with Hart and Jeff.
Mom did not often agree with her friend's child-rearing choices. I got an earful about Rachel's eating habits, school work, discipline (lack, thereof) on a regular basis. I listened patiently for many years, My only response was that I didn't care for what has been now termed "helicopter-parenting" and I didn't know either Rachel or her mother, so the whole saga seemed rather abstract.
Then suddenly, I had enough. During the three kids' Bar/Bat Mitvah year, Mom happened to mention that she would be attending Rachel's Bat Mitzvah on a coming Wednesday. Wednesday? Wednesday, whoever heard of that?
Well, Mom explained, her friend didn't want to incur the cost of feeding the whole congregation on a Saturday morning, so the Bat Mitzvah was scheduled for a Wednesday.
I was inexplicably angry about this news. I couldn't explain why, only to tell my mother that I had had enough Rachel updates, and that I wished to hear no more.
When I thought about it, I realized why I was offended. To be a member of any community, a church, a synagogue, a book club, a soccer team, is a social contract. It is a quid pro quo understanding. You attend any fellow member's Bar Mitzvah celebration, enjoy, eat as much as you like, then when it is your kid's turn . . . .
This is kind of opting out seems to me to be tantamount to social anarchy. We humans are social animals. We developed rituals, etiquette and mores in order to live peaceably together. When someone opts out, it feels like a personal affront.
Wealthy, educated people who decline to vaccinate their children incur the same wrath from me, and for exactly the same reason. It is unhealthy, unsafe and subversive!
If stopping at red lights is a convention we all observe for safety, why isn't vaccination? It is inconceivable that anyone would say "since everyone else stops, it is safe for me to drive through the light" (assuming no one is coming the other way).
The unspoken social contract, the "herd immunity," for near-universal vaccination has been just enough to accommodate a tiny number medically-fragile children and Christian Scientists who are not vaccinated.
Maybe this vaccination issue is just a momentary blip and abstaining from vaccinating children a momentary fad. I hope so.
Epilogue:
Mom did not often agree with her friend's child-rearing choices. I got an earful about Rachel's eating habits, school work, discipline (lack, thereof) on a regular basis. I listened patiently for many years, My only response was that I didn't care for what has been now termed "helicopter-parenting" and I didn't know either Rachel or her mother, so the whole saga seemed rather abstract.
Then suddenly, I had enough. During the three kids' Bar/Bat Mitvah year, Mom happened to mention that she would be attending Rachel's Bat Mitzvah on a coming Wednesday. Wednesday? Wednesday, whoever heard of that?
Well, Mom explained, her friend didn't want to incur the cost of feeding the whole congregation on a Saturday morning, so the Bat Mitzvah was scheduled for a Wednesday.
I was inexplicably angry about this news. I couldn't explain why, only to tell my mother that I had had enough Rachel updates, and that I wished to hear no more.
When I thought about it, I realized why I was offended. To be a member of any community, a church, a synagogue, a book club, a soccer team, is a social contract. It is a quid pro quo understanding. You attend any fellow member's Bar Mitzvah celebration, enjoy, eat as much as you like, then when it is your kid's turn . . . .
This is kind of opting out seems to me to be tantamount to social anarchy. We humans are social animals. We developed rituals, etiquette and mores in order to live peaceably together. When someone opts out, it feels like a personal affront.
Wealthy, educated people who decline to vaccinate their children incur the same wrath from me, and for exactly the same reason. It is unhealthy, unsafe and subversive!
If stopping at red lights is a convention we all observe for safety, why isn't vaccination? It is inconceivable that anyone would say "since everyone else stops, it is safe for me to drive through the light" (assuming no one is coming the other way).
The unspoken social contract, the "herd immunity," for near-universal vaccination has been just enough to accommodate a tiny number medically-fragile children and Christian Scientists who are not vaccinated.
Maybe this vaccination issue is just a momentary blip and abstaining from vaccinating children a momentary fad. I hope so.
Epilogue:
- Rachel turned out fine, despite her mother's choices.
- My children were vaccinated in Russia and are current on all vaccinations.
- I had measles at age six, before the MMR vaccine. I would not wish it on anyone at any age.
January 22, 2015
January 12, 2015
October 26, 2014
Memory/Context
I have a vague recollection that I saw Yo-Yo-Ma perform when he was a teenager, and that I heard the famous ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax speak when I was in elementary school. However, I can't be sure. After all, memory is a "save-as" function. We overwrite every time we call up a memory and now there is no one to verify these memories for me.
It was a different time, I keep reminding myself. Parents didn't feel an obligation to explain things to children. Children were expected to behave appropriately and like things their parents liked. I know I went to lots of classical music concerts with my parents, where I was obligated to sit quietly whether I was interested in the music or (mostly) not.
My approach has been different. I am sure of the special events I have shared with the boys, even if they don't seem particularly noteworthy at the time. I know that Jeff has very little patience, even for things he enjoys, so sometimes I make a deal, sometimes I insist on my own enjoyment and sometimes I just capitulate. Our seder in Vienna dragged on and on, with the rabbi covering the entirety of the Haggadah in Hebrew, German and English. A few hours went by and Jeff was fidgety and begging to leave. "I know you are bored, but we will never be here again for this, so we should stay," I said. Opening night at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin was amazing and I realized that ALICE IN FUNDERLAND was too topical to ever travel beyond Ireland. At intermission, Jeff wanted to leave. "It is opening night. We are the first ones to ever see this play." So we stayed.
Over time, I know we will only be grateful that we had these memorable experiences and not a sigh of relief that we missed the second act or the headline performer. If only someone had told me who I was seeing back when I was too young to know or too young to appreciate the experience.
It was a different time, I keep reminding myself. Parents didn't feel an obligation to explain things to children. Children were expected to behave appropriately and like things their parents liked. I know I went to lots of classical music concerts with my parents, where I was obligated to sit quietly whether I was interested in the music or (mostly) not.
My approach has been different. I am sure of the special events I have shared with the boys, even if they don't seem particularly noteworthy at the time. I know that Jeff has very little patience, even for things he enjoys, so sometimes I make a deal, sometimes I insist on my own enjoyment and sometimes I just capitulate. Our seder in Vienna dragged on and on, with the rabbi covering the entirety of the Haggadah in Hebrew, German and English. A few hours went by and Jeff was fidgety and begging to leave. "I know you are bored, but we will never be here again for this, so we should stay," I said. Opening night at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin was amazing and I realized that ALICE IN FUNDERLAND was too topical to ever travel beyond Ireland. At intermission, Jeff wanted to leave. "It is opening night. We are the first ones to ever see this play." So we stayed.
Over time, I know we will only be grateful that we had these memorable experiences and not a sigh of relief that we missed the second act or the headline performer. If only someone had told me who I was seeing back when I was too young to know or too young to appreciate the experience.
October 16, 2014
September 26, 2014
Time is on my side . . .
I think the time wants to get rid of me. It wants to move on to another day.
___________ Hart
September 5, 2014
The Covenant Foundation, September 4, 2014, (article and slideshow)
Location: Palmer, MA | Category: Covenant in Action
Reimaging Arts and Crafts: G-dcast Goes to Ramah
Palmer, MA, Sep 3, 2014—It was like the premiere of a blockbuster movie, only it all happened at Camp Ramah in New England.
Moving Day
When the boys were very young, I used to imagine what I would be doing at any given moment if I had
typically-developing children. In the intervening years, I have strayed so far from the path of "normal" that I
cannot even see that path, or remember what it looks like. However, now that the guys have turned 21 and
are relunctantly starting on their independent, adult lives, I had a vague notion of what seeing one's first-born
off to college might be like.
I get ahead of myself! The past year has been fraught with a looming deadline. At age 21, Hart had to move on from Allendale Association where he has been for three years. He loved his group home, although he chafed under the rules and strictures which were designed to manage unruly, disabled teenagers. So the search for an adult living situation began! There are two major threads of this effort, which are both independent of each other but intertwined. The order in which documents are completed and submitted is paramount. It was a Kafka-esque journey.
First, one must qualify for goverment benefits as a disabled person. This doesn't seem so difficult based on Hart's life history. However, even other parents of disabled children are incredulous that I worked to get Social Security benefits and Medicaid for almost two years. Still, I am occasionally summoned to the SSI office and I dutifully appear with my accordion file of documents: guardianship, bank statements, citizenship papers, adoption decree, etc. I speak to a clerk who dutifully complete the forms on her monitor, assures me everything is in order and, am dismissed until the next summons.
The second piece is much like the college application process with an evil twist. A caseworker submits applications on Hart's behalf to potential agencies all over the state, and based on the availability of beds, houses, and whether any place is equipped to handle Hart's particular needs, the matchmaking begins. Only in Hart's case, there was only one potential match. Upside, it was our top choice, Jewish Children and Family Services here in Chicago. So, the vetting process began with JCFS, its group homes, families and current residents. Reams of documents wended their way from our local school district, doctors, Allendale and JCFS to the black hole of a bureaucratic desk in Springfield, very slowly, as Hart's 21st birthday loomed. And then, the light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
In August, Hart moved in to Migdal Oaz, JCFS' residence for young men in the Rogers Park neighborhood (exactly 3.6 miles' drive from my house). Our school district suggested its post-high school transition program and offered cab service to get Hart there and back.
As moving day approached, I imagine that Hart engaged in something similar to pot-latch, bestowing many of his possessions on his friends and housemates in Waukegan. Thus, he had a small suitcase of clothes, a bin of books and other treasures, and $200 in cash when he left Allendale. While he was enjoying a welcome barbecue with his new housemates, I made a quick trip to Target. Presumably that is the closest I will ever get to organizing a dorm room or a first apartment. Within 30 minutes, I had purchased sheets, towels, a wastebasket, a laundry basket, a shower caddy, plastic hangers, an electric razor, toiletries, underwear, pajamas, socks, and returned bearing the bounty to organize his new room.
And now I am done . . . . until Jeff decides he wants to move out.
I get ahead of myself! The past year has been fraught with a looming deadline. At age 21, Hart had to move on from Allendale Association where he has been for three years. He loved his group home, although he chafed under the rules and strictures which were designed to manage unruly, disabled teenagers. So the search for an adult living situation began! There are two major threads of this effort, which are both independent of each other but intertwined. The order in which documents are completed and submitted is paramount. It was a Kafka-esque journey.
First, one must qualify for goverment benefits as a disabled person. This doesn't seem so difficult based on Hart's life history. However, even other parents of disabled children are incredulous that I worked to get Social Security benefits and Medicaid for almost two years. Still, I am occasionally summoned to the SSI office and I dutifully appear with my accordion file of documents: guardianship, bank statements, citizenship papers, adoption decree, etc. I speak to a clerk who dutifully complete the forms on her monitor, assures me everything is in order and, am dismissed until the next summons.
The second piece is much like the college application process with an evil twist. A caseworker submits applications on Hart's behalf to potential agencies all over the state, and based on the availability of beds, houses, and whether any place is equipped to handle Hart's particular needs, the matchmaking begins. Only in Hart's case, there was only one potential match. Upside, it was our top choice, Jewish Children and Family Services here in Chicago. So, the vetting process began with JCFS, its group homes, families and current residents. Reams of documents wended their way from our local school district, doctors, Allendale and JCFS to the black hole of a bureaucratic desk in Springfield, very slowly, as Hart's 21st birthday loomed. And then, the light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
In August, Hart moved in to Migdal Oaz, JCFS' residence for young men in the Rogers Park neighborhood (exactly 3.6 miles' drive from my house). Our school district suggested its post-high school transition program and offered cab service to get Hart there and back.
As moving day approached, I imagine that Hart engaged in something similar to pot-latch, bestowing many of his possessions on his friends and housemates in Waukegan. Thus, he had a small suitcase of clothes, a bin of books and other treasures, and $200 in cash when he left Allendale. While he was enjoying a welcome barbecue with his new housemates, I made a quick trip to Target. Presumably that is the closest I will ever get to organizing a dorm room or a first apartment. Within 30 minutes, I had purchased sheets, towels, a wastebasket, a laundry basket, a shower caddy, plastic hangers, an electric razor, toiletries, underwear, pajamas, socks, and returned bearing the bounty to organize his new room.
And now I am done . . . . until Jeff decides he wants to move out.
August 3, 2014
The Tattoo Quandry
No, no, no, I am not considering getting a tattoo. I don't like them. But, I mean that in the most general and abstract way. I say I don't like tattoos in the same way that I don't like lima beans or watching golf.
My reasons are completely unoriginal. I don't find them attractive. They are permanent. They aren't particularly alternative or retro anymore, since almost everyone under 45 has one.
I am not discriminating either. I can't tell the "good" ones. The content doesn't seem to matter much. It just looks like a mass of blue ink with some red thrown in. I correct myself: I can recognize scary tattoos. Those are overlarge, facial or neck tattoos, ones that creep down from shirt sleeves. Yeah, yeah, I have seen the mastectomy tattoos. Very nice, but that is hair-splitting, really.
But now, I have to reconsider. Not reconsidering getting a tattoo. That will never happen. Yes, it is against my religion. But since I am not conscientious about all the other 612 Jewish commandments, it is disingenuous to hide behind that rule. I mean I am reconsidering my reaction to friends with tattoos.
I am not superficial enough (excuse the bad pun) to judge someone positively based on their ink, or negatively. However, I recently offended a new acquaintance by saying off-handedly that I don't care for tattoos. By his reaction, I came to realize that tattoos are so personal, so much an extension of the person, that it is almost tantamount to saying, "I find your religion stupid." There is a story there, a commemoration of a notable experience. To be cavalier about that is mean-spirited and small-minded.
I apologize sincerely.
I am still not getting a tattoo.
My reasons are completely unoriginal. I don't find them attractive. They are permanent. They aren't particularly alternative or retro anymore, since almost everyone under 45 has one.
I am not discriminating either. I can't tell the "good" ones. The content doesn't seem to matter much. It just looks like a mass of blue ink with some red thrown in. I correct myself: I can recognize scary tattoos. Those are overlarge, facial or neck tattoos, ones that creep down from shirt sleeves. Yeah, yeah, I have seen the mastectomy tattoos. Very nice, but that is hair-splitting, really.
But now, I have to reconsider. Not reconsidering getting a tattoo. That will never happen. Yes, it is against my religion. But since I am not conscientious about all the other 612 Jewish commandments, it is disingenuous to hide behind that rule. I mean I am reconsidering my reaction to friends with tattoos.
I am not superficial enough (excuse the bad pun) to judge someone positively based on their ink, or negatively. However, I recently offended a new acquaintance by saying off-handedly that I don't care for tattoos. By his reaction, I came to realize that tattoos are so personal, so much an extension of the person, that it is almost tantamount to saying, "I find your religion stupid." There is a story there, a commemoration of a notable experience. To be cavalier about that is mean-spirited and small-minded.
I apologize sincerely.
I am still not getting a tattoo.
July 23, 2014
May 30, 2014
Ye Olde Condundrum
Now that Hart and Jeff are older (almost 21!), it has been a while since I have been in a group of special ed parents whose children are in elementary school. I am off on new adventures, such as shepherding SSI and Medicaid applications through the labyrinth of official government vetting.
Last weekend, Jeff and I attended a community camp-out through our synagogue. I love this event, although I haven’t attended in several years. One of the great things is that it attracts a cross-section of membership, from families with toddlers to teens, to a few older people without children. As ever, there are lots of adopted kids and an overlap of parents with children with special needs. I must be the grande dame of that demographic.
I found myself in a cluster of four mothers, two of us encouraging the other two to get wills and estate planning done. “You don’t want the state to determine what happens to your child, if some tragedy befell you!”
But I had the sinking feeling of deja vu when one parent said she had taken her daughter to the neurologist Jeff goes to, hadn’t liked what he had to say and left. I asked, “Who prescribes medication for your daughter?” I regretted this the minute I said it, because I saw the familiar squirm that I used to encounter so often. “Oh, we aren’t ready for that, yet.”
I have a lot to say about medication for disabled children and since I don’t want to be shrill, I am venting in writing. To these parents, I wish I could say,
Look, we have all been there. We are educated, intelligent, middle-class women. We are used to working, studying, solving problems and when it comes to child-rearing, we think if we just exert the effort, put in the time, we can work this out.
Special needs kids are wild cards. No amount of hubris or just plain effort is enough. Anecdotally, I know of many, many parents who finally, out of options, tried medication for their child, only to exclaim, “We should have done this years ago!” I know of no one who has ever said, “This was a huge mistake.” No one.
Maybe I am being harsh. After all, my children’s needs were so severe and so obvious that it was evident at age three . . . . they needed medication. In fact, often thereafter, a new doctor would say off-handedly to me, “Ever consider medication?” To which I would laugh uproariously, and say, “He IS on medication!”
It seems even more warranted in children whose needs are slightly less severe than my kids’ and who are trying desperately to keep up in a regular classroom. That seems to me particularly unfair. For a child with ADHD or a debilitating anxiety disorder, the playing field will always be tilted against them.
When it comes to medication for special needs children, it seems we parents all eventually have that "come-to-Jesus" moment.
I had breakfast with a friend yesterday, a mother of a classmate of Jeff’s. We agree on this: the choices we make for our special needs kids are usually more about us than about the kids. I am not sure what that says about my parenting. If it means that I am lazy and looking for a quick fix, so be it. But after 18 years with Hart and Jeff, if there is any fix, I not found it, and I sure have looked.
Last weekend, Jeff and I attended a community camp-out through our synagogue. I love this event, although I haven’t attended in several years. One of the great things is that it attracts a cross-section of membership, from families with toddlers to teens, to a few older people without children. As ever, there are lots of adopted kids and an overlap of parents with children with special needs. I must be the grande dame of that demographic.
I found myself in a cluster of four mothers, two of us encouraging the other two to get wills and estate planning done. “You don’t want the state to determine what happens to your child, if some tragedy befell you!”
But I had the sinking feeling of deja vu when one parent said she had taken her daughter to the neurologist Jeff goes to, hadn’t liked what he had to say and left. I asked, “Who prescribes medication for your daughter?” I regretted this the minute I said it, because I saw the familiar squirm that I used to encounter so often. “Oh, we aren’t ready for that, yet.”
I have a lot to say about medication for disabled children and since I don’t want to be shrill, I am venting in writing. To these parents, I wish I could say,
Look, we have all been there. We are educated, intelligent, middle-class women. We are used to working, studying, solving problems and when it comes to child-rearing, we think if we just exert the effort, put in the time, we can work this out.
Special needs kids are wild cards. No amount of hubris or just plain effort is enough. Anecdotally, I know of many, many parents who finally, out of options, tried medication for their child, only to exclaim, “We should have done this years ago!” I know of no one who has ever said, “This was a huge mistake.” No one.
Maybe I am being harsh. After all, my children’s needs were so severe and so obvious that it was evident at age three . . . . they needed medication. In fact, often thereafter, a new doctor would say off-handedly to me, “Ever consider medication?” To which I would laugh uproariously, and say, “He IS on medication!”
It seems even more warranted in children whose needs are slightly less severe than my kids’ and who are trying desperately to keep up in a regular classroom. That seems to me particularly unfair. For a child with ADHD or a debilitating anxiety disorder, the playing field will always be tilted against them.
When it comes to medication for special needs children, it seems we parents all eventually have that "come-to-Jesus" moment.
I had breakfast with a friend yesterday, a mother of a classmate of Jeff’s. We agree on this: the choices we make for our special needs kids are usually more about us than about the kids. I am not sure what that says about my parenting. If it means that I am lazy and looking for a quick fix, so be it. But after 18 years with Hart and Jeff, if there is any fix, I not found it, and I sure have looked.
April 7, 2014
Dental-schmental
I need some quality-, alone-time with my gums.
_________________________ Hart, post-orthodonist visit
So long ago . . .
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