Since the day my first baby was born, I have felt responsible for my children’s differences.
Not responsible in the “I’m the momma so I need to help my child” kinda way (although I certainly feel that too).
Responsible in the “Why do you let him sleep with you instead of in the crib, eat the ice cream instead of the meat, allow him to make the mess, help him in the bathroom when he is almost ten” kinda way.
I have been blamed, at one point or another, for every single one of my boys’ differences. Moreover, as we have received diagnosis after diagnosis, I find the blame comes even more frequently now – not less.
When they were younger, well meaning teachers, doctors, family members and friends would regularly make comments about my parenting abilities. It was as if having a different child necessitated their remarks.
I vividly remember being berated by a couple of friends the boys’ dad and I went out to dinner with, when my oldest son was three. I was not able to relax knowing my son was at home without me. (I didn’t know it at the time, but hypervigilance is real and very difficult to escape after just 30 minutes away.) When we returned that evening, the couple stayed for a drink. My little boy was screaming at the top of his lungs, choking and gagging. The babysitter, haggard and undone, handed him to me and told me he had been doing it since I left, two and a half hours prior.
As I headed upstairs to help him calm down and finally get some sleep, I heard the comments whispered behind me in my own living room.
“If she didn’t spoil him so much.”
“He needs to learn independence.”
“She is going to ruin that child.”
My son and I both cried ourselves to sleep that night.
More than ten years later, I am sorry to report that it’s even more intense.
Because my children now have diagnoses, it seems more urgent. Mostly, it comes in the form of questions. It’s not as overt, but it is blame just the same.
What if he never learns to read?
How is he going to be functional in the “real world” if you don’t put him in a public school?
Are you worried about his diet?
If you keep helping him in the bathroom, how is he ever going to be independent?
I am asked questions like this almost every day.
Sometimes by doctors, sometimes by therapists, sometimes by friends, and sometimes, even by my own husband.
I struggle all the time with the line between spoiling my children and accommodating their needs.
I worry every day about the choices I’ve made – to homeschool, to attend certain therapies vs. others, to use medications to help with my sons’ crippling anxiety, to help him get dressed when his body hurts, to allow him to type instead of using a pen, to stay with him at night when he is having a panic attack, to buy another pair of crocs instead of forcing him to wear socks, to allow him to progress more slowly through a reading curriculum, to let him fall asleep with me.
I worry about being a good mom. I think every mom does.
More than anything, I pray for wisdom in all these decisions – the big ones like educational choices, and the little ones like allowing him to eat in his room instead of at the table.
I am doing the absolute best I can to help my children.
And most of the time, it feels like I am choosing from what seems like two bad choices.
It’s never black and white, right or wrong, spoiling or accommodating.
Sometimes, I get it right.
Sometimes, I don’t.
Mothering my children is just doing the best I can, every day.
Blaming Parents Of Children With Special Needs
Yes, there are some parents that are unusually neglectful, spoiling, and unhealthy.