Somehow, a hand-made card beats the bought variety any day of the week. Every year on my birthday, or Mother's Day, I get one from my daughter. It's generally the same style with lots of cut-outs and hearts and so on and not much has changed over the many years I've collected them.
They also nearly always say the same thing about how much she loves me and what a great mother I am and my apparent amazing attributes are freely listed. What this does is put my own life into perspective. It doesn't matter that most of my friends have 'normal' kids, it doesn't matter that I might have missed out on various outings, or feasts, or had to stay home and deal with stuff that wasn't expected. It doesn't matter that the word 'dysfunctional' may have been used to describe my family - words, after all, are just words. What does matter is that my daughter can see past her own disability and see her life as "fantastic".
I don't know what it is with our kids, but they seem to have their own amazing attributes that can often be overlooked in the greater scheme of things. What I wish, more than anything, is that those people in 'power' who control education, health programmes, or benefits, and who actually control the lives of others, could understand what they are doing to those who can't fight the system for themselves - who rely on their parents and families, or the goodness of caregivers to make their lives as "fantastic" as possible. Whenever there are cuts in governmental budgets, they filter down to our kids and all the others in the world who rely on benefits or grants in whatever form that may be. It pains me to think of the struggles that we face as parents, whether fighting for a fair and equitable education system, or battling the health system for a simple piece of equipment needed to improve health, or trying to prove to authorities that medical help is desperately needed - it seems that more and more, we have to fight for the right to life.
On the other hand, when things go right, when systems work and medicines help, then all our lives can be equally 'fantastic'!
They also nearly always say the same thing about how much she loves me and what a great mother I am and my apparent amazing attributes are freely listed. What this does is put my own life into perspective. It doesn't matter that most of my friends have 'normal' kids, it doesn't matter that I might have missed out on various outings, or feasts, or had to stay home and deal with stuff that wasn't expected. It doesn't matter that the word 'dysfunctional' may have been used to describe my family - words, after all, are just words. What does matter is that my daughter can see past her own disability and see her life as "fantastic".I don't know what it is with our kids, but they seem to have their own amazing attributes that can often be overlooked in the greater scheme of things. What I wish, more than anything, is that those people in 'power' who control education, health programmes, or benefits, and who actually control the lives of others, could understand what they are doing to those who can't fight the system for themselves - who rely on their parents and families, or the goodness of caregivers to make their lives as "fantastic" as possible. Whenever there are cuts in governmental budgets, they filter down to our kids and all the others in the world who rely on benefits or grants in whatever form that may be. It pains me to think of the struggles that we face as parents, whether fighting for a fair and equitable education system, or battling the health system for a simple piece of equipment needed to improve health, or trying to prove to authorities that medical help is desperately needed - it seems that more and more, we have to fight for the right to life.
On the other hand, when things go right, when systems work and medicines help, then all our lives can be equally 'fantastic'!
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