Calculus

I was not a parent who fought for William’s right to take advanced calculus with all of the honors students. In fact, when my daughter moaned that she had to take advanced calculus, I asked her who told her that she had to take it. After a discussion, she realized that she didn’t have to take it, so she didn’t. I do not advocate for people to take classes that they have no business or desire to be in. Certainly, people have the right to take any class that they want, but at some point, you need to decide if you are fighting to make a point or for what is truly necessary.

What about the other 20%

In a lot of ways, William had a better public education than his sisters, who were invisible in public school. He had an individualized education plan; he had one person working with him every day to help him meet his goals; he had his own ride to school, and he was popular. Sure, he had to do stupid things like taking the New Hampshire Standardized test (no joke) and prove to the state every three years that, yes, he still had Down syndrome. Once teacher wanted to put a goal in his IEP that he would independently cross the street 80% of the time (I did die on that hill to get rid of that one).

The point is that he had it pretty good.

I surprise myself with that statement. I would not have said that 20 years ago when I was in the midst of the struggle to get the best for him.

Murk

William is my first child. From the time of his birth, either a doctor (William was born with a complete AV canal defect and a coarctation of his aorta), a social worker or an educator was involved in navigating William’s life. I ran myself ragged doing everything they told me to do. I bought all of the toys the early interventionist told me to buy, and I took them to Children’s Hospital to dangle over his crib. I nursed him around the clock even though he didn’t have the strength to do that (and neither did I).  When he entered the school system, I assumed that teachers would guide me. Things got murky when I realized that I knew a lot more than they did about raising William.

Rubber gloves

I survived IEP meetings when people were determined to make him “normal.” It may have been the “aid” who wore rubber gloves when she was with William who unleashed that niggling pain in my heart to make me realize that something was terribly wrong.

I seemed to have put more faith in the system than I did in my own instincts.