Today I am posting a potpourri of Family images from several blogs, as I have noticed some converging themes around family over the past couple of weeks reading blog posts.
First, here is an email exchange from today between me and my sister Lee, based on her reading of yesterday’s post on How I Have Learned of Better Endings from my Mom.
Hi Linda,
Interesting to read this.
You and I have two very different experiences of Mom. Fascinating to read this.
Love, Lee
Hi Lee,
It is interesting what different experiences and interpretations we may have interacting with the same person…this brings up the Archetypal component of relationships. But writing about it helps to frame our understanding too. I’d be interested in comparing notes with you!
Love,
Linda
That’s an invitation to you, Lee. Hopefully I can post your story this Sunday! In fact, I invite ALL of my family to share with me what YOU have learned from Mom, and I will post all of your insights on Sunday!
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Next, as we are concerned this week with Better Endings scenarios with all families, and since I have been posting photos in honor of my Mom this week, I enjoyed reading sachemspeaks‘ post yesterday called Family Photos. Here’s an excerpt:
99 miles from our driveway to parking lot to the doctors, wouldn’t have it any other way, Breanna loves the UF Hospital and everyone in the small animal care unit.
Family Photo: Breanne
When Breanne gets in the doctors waiting room she jumps up on one because she knows that someone will be coming in that door to fuss over her; through the other door she watches the main waiting room for passing pets. This time she went straight into her doctors waiting room because many male dogs were in the main room and she is in heat! No we will not mate her or spade her, spading an Airedale is bad news, mating means about 8 Airedales running around our PT Cruiser. 😦
Both her mom and dad are champions so everyone wants a pup, getting the mother pet to let one go will be a problem?
Breanna’s daddy is Banter
Breanna’s mommy is Sonny
Both are national Champions
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Third, I found this excellent set of insights from a blog I enjoy following called five kids with disabilities:
How NOT to Raise a Child with a Disability
April 2, 2014
When your child is a toddler, focus on all the things he can’t do. He’s not walking as soon as other children. He’s not talking as good as other children. It is embarrassing to take him out in public because everyone comments on his looks. Blame your spouse for his disability. Or, equally worse, blame God. Whey has He forsaken you? Why has He saddled you with this tremendous burden? Spend your child’s infant and toddler years lamenting the sadness, disappointment and loss.
As your child gets older and goes to school, always blame the teacher or the principal if he can’t do something. After all, it MUST be their fault. They are discriminating against your child if they try to make him behave or actually complete his school project. He has a disability! Doesn’t that come with the right not to have to do homework or obey the class rules?
Try to force the sports teams to let your son play, and they will. But your son cannot play soccer/baseball/basketball as well as the other children and he is humiliated by his poor skills and the disappointment from the other children when their team loses. Make sure to yell at your child for his poor performance. After all, if he didn’t have a disability, he would have made a great soccer/baseball/basketball player, and it is a horrible loss for you to admit that your son is a failure.
Argue with your partner/spouse over your son. You don’t both agree on the best style of parenting, so each do your own thing and teach your child that he is a constant source of distress between the two of you. Possibly get divorced. And blame your son. If he hadn’t been born, you would have had nothing to argue about.
You see your son as worthless…he can’t play sports, he gets in trouble all of the time in school, (as you have been his best advocate that he doesn’t have to follow the rules because he has a disability,) and he has minimal social skills. Do not be surprised when he turns to drugs.
He assumed that he was SUCH a disappointment that you would be better off without him. Do not be surprised when he takes his own life…
This rant follows a recent suicide of one of the students who is visually impaired with whom I worked. Like all adults who were a part of his life, I wonder where I was to blame. I tried in vain to impart my enthusiasm for a bright future for him. I tried in vain to make the parents realize that by setting their child apart they were denying their child an equal part in society. I tried in vain to tell the parents that their child may not be good at basketball, but he could swim spectacularly! Maybe he couldn’t play soccer, but give him a bowling ball, a bowling ramp and a lane of pins and he could get a strike two times out of four. He had such a way with younger children that I imagined him a teacher one day. But his parents did not see it. They only saw their own disappointment. Their own embarrassment at having a child who looked different. Their own anger at each other for the having “caused” this disability. They only saw their own feelings and never once stopped to think about how this was affecting their child. Their child who would never become the teacher I envisioned.
My suggestion to parents of children with disabilities is this: your child is a wonderful creation who, for whatever reason, was born with a disability. Rejoice in your child! Look for the things he CAN do, and incorporate them into your daily life. Plan for his education in a realistic, non-judgmental manner. Sure the teachers may screw up once in a while, but haven’t you also, at one time or another, misjudged your child? Try to keep the peace at school. You only meet with the teacher once in a while, your child has to go to school every day. If you and your spouse disagree over parenting, see a counselor who can help you work together. Most of all, find something in which your child excels and enjoys, and fly with it! Everyone wants to have success in life, and your child is no different. Whose to say one type of success if more important than another?k
For more suggestions on how to raise a child with a disability, please, read my book. Here is a link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-apple-tree/id538572206?mt=11
The Apple Tree: Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane
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And last, but certainly in no ways least, here is a parallel story to the above one from yet another blog I love to follow, about saving a rescue dog, “Butterfly”:
The Broken Butterfly
There’s a special value in rescuing a dog, beyond knowing that you’ve saved someone’s life, or feeling like a good person: a rescue dog is a reminder of the broken things in the world, and of how sacred they are. My rabbi told us that the broken pieces of the first set of tablets of the ten commandments – the ones Moses smashed when he saw his people building the golden calf – were kept in the ark along with the pristine final set of tablets, as a necessary part of the whole.
Butterfly, with her missing teeth and adorable protruding tongue, her heart murmur and lumps and bumps, is an important part of the whole story. Not all dogs are born to happy families, or adopted by happy families, and taken to the vet each time they have the sniffles. Happiness is only part of the story.
Butterfly was recently diagnosed with diabetes. She had a urinary tract infection back in the fall, but with antibiotics it went away. We were curious about why she’d gotten it, but assumed it had something to do with how low to the ground she was when she peed, compared to long-legged Cricket, who practically hovers in the air.
As soon as she started to pee in the house again in February, we took her straight to the doctor. The vet on duty did some tests, took an x-ray to rule out kidney stones, and gave us antibiotics for another suspected UTI. We wrapped the pills in chicken and peanut butter and hot dogs and all of her other standbys; we crushed the pills and mixed them with water and then with her food and parmesan cheese. We did everything we could think of just to get the antibiotics into her system, against her will. But not only wasn’t she improving, she looked sicker and sicker every day. She was noticeably lighter when I picked her up, she didn’t do her usual poopie dance, and she stopped waking me up in the morning, waiting instead for me to wake her up and convince her to go outside.
My concern has always been her heart, because she has a prolapsed mitral valve and is at risk for heart failure. I knew this when I adopted her. But it’s a hard thing to remember when she is running and jumping and smiling at me. I was afraid that after a year of watching her flourish, I was going to lose her.
We collected some of her voluminous pee and brought it to the clinic to be tested, and made an appointment with a different vet. As soon as we met the new doctor he took a blood glucose test, to confirm the results of the urine test, which, he told us, showed very high sugar. In the office that day her sugar was over five hundred. It’s supposed to be under a hundred.
I was relieved. I’d been so scared that this was heart failure, and she was dying, but diabetes is treatable. The doctor showed me how to give her a shot of insulin in the scruff of her neck. He also gave us a liquid antibiotic to try on her, instead of the dreaded pills, because the UTI was clearly being maintained by the diabetes and needed another round of antibiotics to wipe it out.
Every morning, and evening, I give her a dose of the antibiotics which she hates, making angry toddler faces and sticking out her tongue, and I give her a shot of insulin, which she doesn’t seem to mind. Some days I do a better job than others. It still feels strange to stick a needle into her skin, and I can be too tentative, but mostly it gets done, and she’s improving.
The rest of the day, I follow her around with pee test strips to see how the insulin is working.
The first time I saw her run again after her diagnosis and treatment began, I thought my body would crack open from all of that joy.
for the things he CAN do, and incorporate them into your daily life. Plan for his education in a realistic, non-judgmental manner. Sure the teachers may screw up once in a while, but haven’t you also, at one time or another, misjudged your child? Try to keep the peace at school. You only meet with the teacher once in a while, your child has to go to school every day. If you and your spouse disagree over parenting, see a counselor who can help you work together. Most of all, find something in which your child excels and enjoys, and fly with it! Everyone wants to have success in life, and your child is no different. Whose to say one type of success if more important than another?
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Thanks to everyone whose posts I have reblogged here today; it was a work in process so I didn’t take time to contact everyone before selecting your material! (If you’d like me to make changes, just let me know!)
We learn so much from our families, from each other!
Better Endings to All! – Linda
Better Endings 