Working Parents, Special Needs Kids

This is the last week of classes at the college where I teach; after finals, spring semester does not start till mid-January. It’ll be good not to have to rush around so much and to work more around home, and, certainly, not to have to hurry home on the highway to meet Charlie’s schoolbus.

It does occur to me that, if I didn’t work, I could spare us a certain amount of anxiety: What to do when Charlie is sick? What to do if there’s an early morning meeting to attend or one in the later afternoon? What I do at work—-teaching Latin and ancient Greek and some administrative and advising duties—has little (obvious) relevance to what Charlie is learning and to what he needs.

Some years ago, I thought seriously about becoming an autism teacher, so I’d be able to devote myself full-time to what Charlie needed. As it’s turned out, I’ve stayed with the Latin and Greek. In an article in today’s Buffalo News about working mothers of special needs children, Julie Barrett O’Neill—the executive direcor of Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper and the mother of three children, one of whom has Down Sydnrome—-says:

“I am really grateful for having children, because it puts all of my [Riverkeeper] work into perspective –what we’re really working to change, and who we’re really serving. Because the work we do takes so long, we’re really working for our children more than ourselves.”

It also keeps her from being a workaholic, she said. “Sometimes when you love your job it can consume your entire life. This helps me have a better balance.”

Laura Marshak, the author of Married With Special-Needs Children: A Couples’ Guide to Keeping Connected and a psychology professor in Pennsylvania, is quoted as saying that O”Neill’s “easy balance” is unusual. Certainly it hasn’t been easy to find a “balance” in taking care of Charlie and doing my job; Jim does a lot, from getting Charlie ready to meet the morning schoolbus to setting up his own schedule with Charlie’s and my needs in mind. My own hours a lot more flexible than in a 9 to 5 job (as are Jim’s) and, thanks to email and the internet in general, I can still get some work done while at home. (And blog, too, but that’s not “work.”)

And, over the years, my own efforts to teach the not-exactly-easy subjects of Latin and ancient Greek to my students—-most of whom are studying to be nurses, teachers, businessman, social workers, and who know they have to go to work straight after college—have taught me a lot about how to teach and help Charlie. As he’s 11 1/2 now, it’s occurred to me that my students (18-22 years old) are closer in age to him than they are to me and more than a few of them have had their share of various struggles, and school isn’t always the easiest for them, either. If I didn’t have Charlie, I’d probably end up volunteering for all kinds of committees and extra projects and while I’d like to, with Julie Barrett O’Neill, I’d say that life raising Charlie helps to keep work from becoming all-consuming.

Though I still am grateful not to have to keep looking at the clock on my cellphone to make sure I make it into the parking lot before the schoolbus does for a few weeks.