Dreams

The Lid and I went to a Parent Forum last week. These seek to meet with the parents of disabled children that live in the locality, offering support, advice etc. They should serve as a way of making the council aware of any problems that are being faced by disabled children and adults, or their carers, whether that be at school, in terms of support, discovering services that are on offer, and generally making “contacts” in a situation where you can and often do feel extremely isolated.

That is the theory. The reality of it is a group of council employed goons who spend vast periods of the meeting earnestly apologising for their inadequacies as an employee and indeed for the failings of their employer. The other part of the meeting will be dominated by one or two parents, who will go on and on and on about their own child’s needs, what they are doing, not allowing anyone else to speak. This time, a lady told us repeatedly about how she was outraged that her 17 year old son had been told that he could be an animator, and the further crime appeared to be that he was told he could be an animator in America. This launched her into a ten minute diatribe, whereby she categorically stated that he wouldn’t be able to do either of these things as he wasn’t toilet trained. She said that she had told him that he could animate for charities and voluntary organisations, as otherwise he would “lose his benefits”. She then went on to tell us that he has a reduced life expectancy. So, here is a young man with a dream, being told to temper that dream because his mother can’t see past her own nose to help him live his vision.

Way to encourage your son to live his dreams, lady.

This level of despondency continued – there was the autistic competition (“My son is less autistic than yours is, when he goes to Special Playgroup he comes back more autistic” or “my daughter is more autistic than yours”). Another woman interrupted a discussion on the problems of attaining a Statement of Educational Needs to tell us how her son no longer goes to a scout meeting in Cuffley allegedly at the leader’s request, so instead of working out what could be done and how we could help, Stop Your Son From Living His Dream woman started blathering on about how she runs a scout group with no actual input that could help.

Dear lawks, what the bloody hell is wrong with these people? Seriously?

Here’s the deal as I see it. In this day and age, there’s no reason to have a kid you don’t want. If you’re pregnant and you have the child, you chose to have that kid. You’re lucky to have that kid – they didn’t pick you as their parent, but you picked to have them as your child. Whatever happens from there on in, you deal with. No conditions, no judgements. Your job is to love them and keep them alive for long enough until they can move out or get therapy, and if you can’t do that you are a failure. It really is that simple.

I’m not big on the religion vibe. I describe myself as a hopeful agnostic – hopeful because I can’t bear to think that there are people I love and have loved that I will never see again. Whilst my concept of that doesn’t include a big man with a white beard and “heaven” I have my belief system. That system is mostly based on loving each other, being respectful to all, and being kind (or christian with a small c if you like).

It doesn’t include pissing on mine or any other person’s child’s dreams, whether that child be 3 or 33. It never has and it never will.

When you have children, there is an adjustment of expectation that you as the parent need to make. This applies whether your child is neuro typical, able bodied, or not.

You may dream that your child plays for England. You may dream that your child be a quantum physics professor. You may dream that your child becomes a high chief justice or a stuntman, doing the things that you wanted to but didn’t get round to. Fact is, they’re just going to be themselves, and your job as I said above, is to love them for it. Whether they have just spent the best part of 48 hours home sick spitting in your face, or whether they have spent the morning surreptitiously sticking glitter and feathers on your kitchen wall, you love them.

When they tell you they have a dream, you don’t piss on it, you nurture it, you encourage it. You hold it close and carry it, and poke them when they forget it, when they are despondent and think they can’t do it, you nudge them and remind them that there is no quitting and that they will do it. And when that dream is replaced for something else, you start the procedure again, and you do this over and over until they have what they want. There’s no doubt that adjustments may need to be made regardless of whether the child has a disability or not, but that dream can still happen, and there’s no reason it can’t.

When I hear parents like this, it kills me a little inside. I grew up with people who didn’t value me, didn’t think much of me, and I have achieved every single failure that they thought I would, bar one.

Whilst we were at the meeting, The Lid made some discoveries. She found biscuits. She found balloons. She found a pen. She made these into a pretty good game, a game that was so interesting I stopped listening to the numpties at the table. There she was, my mad little autistic cow, disrupting all around her making airborne missiles A-Team style with whatever detritus she found lying around, then insisting I “fly” her around the room shouting “Tommmmyyyyy Zooooooooooooooom”. And why shouldn’t she be Tommy Zoom? Why shouldn’t she have her dream – admittedly, a dream that will need to be adjusted due to the “not an animated character, not a boy, can’t fly” aspect, but screw it.

I say it often at Wiltshire Towers and I’ll say it again here – no one can make you feel like a failure unless you let them, and as a parent you better make sure you never make your child feel like that, or you’ll be getting a visit from me and Lid-ly Zoom.