Why the Narrative Needs to Change

From Without a Crystal Ball:

Every single child that is born comes with a personality, skill set, and development. Biology determines most of this before they even enter the world, and we as parents are required to navigate raising the child and all of their DNA. There are children that are spirited, defiant, angry, sad, clingy, picky eaters, suffer from separation anxiety, have colic, and the list can go on and on. Every child is unique and parenting any being from birth until they reach adulthood is hard. I refuse to sit on a pedestal and say that because my child has diseases or developmental delays that my situation is any harder than any other parent in the world. Our set of circumstances are unique, and we are presented with making choices I never dreamed of making, but at the core I am still raising a little boy that loves dinosaurs, monster trucks, coins, animals, swinging, jumping and playing in his sandbox. When I list that out, it sounds like a 3 year old. It’s funny because…he is 3! He doesn’t know he’s sick. He has no idea he’s delayed, and none of the children around him seem to pay any attention to his differences or what we face.

I got caught up in the fact that he was different not realizing that every single child that surrounds us is different. I watch my friends struggle to parent their healthy children, and face making decisions they also never dreamed they would have to make. There is no preparation for parenthood. Once you have a child, it’s all a process of learning on the job. I have friends that have had to learn to parent strong willed children, ones that have had to learn to parent very sensitive children, and others that have had to learn to parent children that have separation anxiety that leaves them with no time alone. When I started to surround myself with other parents, I began to realize that every person faces challenges and adversity every single day. What I was doing was getting caught up in what he could not do, and getting engulfed in a disease I was afraid that would take him too young. I was not living in the moment and enjoying who he as becoming as a person. (Read more.)