J and I are kind of weird, in that we never have had any specific dreams for our kids' futures (even when we had only potential kids and weren't thinking of disabilities). That they be happy with their own lives, hurting no one (to the extent any of us can avoid it), has been our only solid goal.
I come from a working-class, one-of-the-masses background, and J from more of an upper-middle-class, big-fish-in-small-pond, one; in his family everyone has gone to college for several generations, and in my family no one did before my generation, and by no means all of us. We have seen, on balance, I think, at least as much life-satisfaction in my family as in his, so we have gone forward with the idea that people can lead happy, satisfying lives in a variety of ways.
Two of our kids (Em and Patrick) have chosen not to go to college; Ben graduated from the U, and R plans to go to college (she's a junior in high school). J's mother has been rather horrified; when she urged us to push E to go, saying, "Sometimes we know better than they do," my answer was, "There's one thing Em knows better than anyone else, and that's how to be Em." To help her be the Em she wants to be--that's what we aim for. (And the same for the others.)
But when they want something they can't achieve--and this is what I referred to with P--that's what hard. We've always tried to be open about the things we might want (or have wanted along the way) that weren't within reach, and to reflect on our own good fortune to have and do the things we have and do. So, we think about modeling "bloom where you're planted" as much as we can, and that comes around and helps us, too. But it's never easy for a parent to see a child not be able to do what the child wants.
This is never "Stop complaining and look at how lucky you are"; we let them--at times, urge them to--talk about what's missing. Again, we try to model an acknowledgment of both what we have and what we wish we had. It's OK to feel whatever we feel.
Nico has the potential to have a happy, satisfying life. It might not be a life that would satisfy you if you had it, but that isn't what matters. It's his dreams that matter. There's one thing Nico will know better than anyone else: how to be Nico.
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Date: 2008-01-28 03:46 pm (UTC)I come from a working-class, one-of-the-masses background, and J from more of an upper-middle-class, big-fish-in-small-pond, one; in his family everyone has gone to college for several generations, and in my family no one did before my generation, and by no means all of us. We have seen, on balance, I think, at least as much life-satisfaction in my family as in his, so we have gone forward with the idea that people can lead happy, satisfying lives in a variety of ways.
Two of our kids (Em and Patrick) have chosen not to go to college; Ben graduated from the U, and R plans to go to college (she's a junior in high school). J's mother has been rather horrified; when she urged us to push E to go, saying, "Sometimes we know better than they do," my answer was, "There's one thing Em knows better than anyone else, and that's how to be Em." To help her be the Em she wants to be--that's what we aim for. (And the same for the others.)
But when they want something they can't achieve--and this is what I referred to with P--that's what hard. We've always tried to be open about the things we might want (or have wanted along the way) that weren't within reach, and to reflect on our own good fortune to have and do the things we have and do. So, we think about modeling "bloom where you're planted" as much as we can, and that comes around and helps us, too. But it's never easy for a parent to see a child not be able to do what the child wants.
This is never "Stop complaining and look at how lucky you are"; we let them--at times, urge them to--talk about what's missing. Again, we try to model an acknowledgment of both what we have and what we wish we had. It's OK to feel whatever we feel.
Nico has the potential to have a happy, satisfying life. It might not be a life that would satisfy you if you had it, but that isn't what matters. It's his dreams that matter. There's one thing Nico will know better than anyone else: how to be Nico.