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jdmkleinI have loved Sarah and Pat with all my heart. I enjoy their company as adults. I have often told people that I would like my children even if they weren’t related to me. They are both good people. They have their faults and foibles, but both of them would do anything for any other person in need. From giving money to giving hugs or just holding a hand.
I would truly like to take credit for their goodness, but I often feel I wasn’t a very good mother. I left their father when they were younger. I moved them from the only school they knew to an entirely different school system. I left Sarah alone, although helped by her Aunt Eileen when she graduated high school and went away to college by taking her brother out of the country to Taiwan while I fulfilled a dream of mine. I will forever carry guilt for that.
The one thing that I am most proud of is that I raised both of them to be able to take care of themselves and be able to leave home at 18. I told them this: I wanted them to be able to take off on their own when they graduated from high school. And I feel very certain that this is the one good thing I did for them. They didn’t have to leave home at 18, and if they did and found they needed to come back I would let them. But I wanted them to be capable of doing that.
Sarah’s life would have turned out so much differently if she hadn’t had the health problems. But, I didn’t allow anyone in the family to treat her as an invalid or give her allowance for being disabled. She was, and still is to some extent, expected to do chores such as taking out the trash or folding her clothes and putting them away. There are chores or household tasks that she is no longer able to do, such as cooking, or shoveling snow because of the brain damage and blindness, but she was able at one time.
Sarah spent 1 year at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines learning independent living skills. She can read braille, get around using a cane, wash clothes and dry them, and all matter of other skills. In the first years of her adulthood, she was able to live away from home.
While she was at home we didn’t let her shirk her household chores. She was expected to take out the trash, fill the dishwasher and empty it, vacuum and mop the floors, change her sheets and make her bed, and keep track of her personal belongings. She does this today, too.
Because of her disability, she is losing these abilities, but she had them and proved herself over and over. Dr. Kontos has told Sarah that she is so very proud of how Sarah deals with the world. Dr. Kontos said may people with health problems similar to Sarah’s act not only as disabled but also invalided. Parents and friends try to keep the person shielded from life. Or the disabled person will use the disability as an excuse not to be able to do something. Sarah is not like that at all. She will try anything. She shops, with help, for her own food and clothing. She is on for any kind of adventure, from zip-lining to spelunking. And I am proud to say that for all my faults being her mother, I gave her that. I never treated her as an invalid. I encouraged her to try anything, once. She flew to Taiwan to visit her brother and me. She got lost in Kaohsiung and got a taxi by herself to take her home. She was fortunate to get a driver who didn’t take advantage of her, but I didn’t know about the incident until she called me at work to tell me about it. I was frightened beyond belief, but proud as hell.
I gave Pat his independence in different ways from Sarah. I made certain he was thoughtful of others if he was going to be late home, for whatever reason. He is 44 now and still calls if he is going to be late. Before we moved to Taiwan he had household chores he was expected to complete every day. He knows about dishes and dishwashers, vacuums and vacuuming, laundry and washing machines, and how to cook. I often told him that he may not find a woman who would want to share her life with him and he needed to know those things in order to survive on his own.
I once went head to head with one of his junior high school teachers, male of course, after Pat came home to tell me that the chores I expected him to do were ‘woman’s work’. I spoke with that teacher and told him that if I ever heard of him and his misogynist’s ideas about women, I would report him to the school administration. I explained to the man that I was trying to give my son the ability to take care of himself, on his own and knowing how to cook and clean and do laundry would help him. I said I didn’t appreciate his giving my son his chauvinistic ideas when I was working hard toward making him a man capable of anything.
When Pat married, his wife often told me she appreciated him for being able to do the very things his junior high school teacher told him were woman’s work.
Pat is also a kind and gentle man. I take credit for part of that. I also credit him living in a family with strong females who showed him, as part of his everyday life how good and thoughtful people act. He is patient with Sarah and his step-son. He treats them both with dignity and I love him for that. It is part of his nature.
I love both my children with all my heart and am proud of the adults I helped them become.1027
I would truly like to take credit for their goodness, but I often feel I wasn’t a very good mother. I left their father when they were younger. I moved them from the only school they knew to an entirely different school system. I left Sarah alone, although helped by her Aunt Eileen when she graduated high school and went away to college by taking her brother out of the country to Taiwan while I fulfilled a dream of mine. I will forever carry guilt for that.
The one thing that I am most proud of is that I raised both of them to be able to take care of themselves and be able to leave home at 18. I told them this: I wanted them to be able to take off on their own when they graduated from high school. And I feel very certain that this is the one good thing I did for them. They didn’t have to leave home at 18, and if they did and found they needed to come back I would let them. But I wanted them to be capable of doing that.
Sarah’s life would have turned out so much differently if she hadn’t had the health problems. But, I didn’t allow anyone in the family to treat her as an invalid or give her allowance for being disabled. She was, and still is to some extent, expected to do chores such as taking out the trash or folding her clothes and putting them away. There are chores or household tasks that she is no longer able to do, such as cooking, or shoveling snow because of the brain damage and blindness, but she was able at one time.
Sarah spent 1 year at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines learning independent living skills. She can read braille, get around using a cane, wash clothes and dry them, and all matter of other skills. In the first years of her adulthood, she was able to live away from home.
While she was at home we didn’t let her shirk her household chores. She was expected to take out the trash, fill the dishwasher and empty it, vacuum and mop the floors, change her sheets and make her bed, and keep track of her personal belongings. She does this today, too.
Because of her disability, she is losing these abilities, but she had them and proved herself over and over. Dr. Kontos has told Sarah that she is so very proud of how Sarah deals with the world. Dr. Kontos said may people with health problems similar to Sarah’s act not only as disabled but also invalided. Parents and friends try to keep the person shielded from life. Or the disabled person will use the disability as an excuse not to be able to do something. Sarah is not like that at all. She will try anything. She shops, with help, for her own food and clothing. She is on for any kind of adventure, from zip-lining to spelunking. And I am proud to say that for all my faults being her mother, I gave her that. I never treated her as an invalid. I encouraged her to try anything, once. She flew to Taiwan to visit her brother and me. She got lost in Kaohsiung and got a taxi by herself to take her home. She was fortunate to get a driver who didn’t take advantage of her, but I didn’t know about the incident until she called me at work to tell me about it. I was frightened beyond belief, but proud as hell.
I gave Pat his independence in different ways from Sarah. I made certain he was thoughtful of others if he was going to be late home, for whatever reason. He is 44 now and still calls if he is going to be late. Before we moved to Taiwan he had household chores he was expected to complete every day. He knows about dishes and dishwashers, vacuums and vacuuming, laundry and washing machines, and how to cook. I often told him that he may not find a woman who would want to share her life with him and he needed to know those things in order to survive on his own.
I once went head to head with one of his junior high school teachers, male of course, after Pat came home to tell me that the chores I expected him to do were ‘woman’s work’. I spoke with that teacher and told him that if I ever heard of him and his misogynist’s ideas about women, I would report him to the school administration. I explained to the man that I was trying to give my son the ability to take care of himself, on his own and knowing how to cook and clean and do laundry would help him. I said I didn’t appreciate his giving my son his chauvinistic ideas when I was working hard toward making him a man capable of anything.
When Pat married, his wife often told me she appreciated him for being able to do the very things his junior high school teacher told him were woman’s work.
Pat is also a kind and gentle man. I take credit for part of that. I also credit him living in a family with strong females who showed him, as part of his everyday life how good and thoughtful people act. He is patient with Sarah and his step-son. He treats them both with dignity and I love him for that. It is part of his nature.
I love both my children with all my heart and am proud of the adults I helped them become.1027
