Midlife Crisis? Too busy mothering my special needs kid
I just woke up from my women’s midlife crisis
dream. In this fantasy, my youngest, perfect child has just started college, I am
trim and fit, and I am pondering my next step, trying to decide if I should go
back for that PhD I’d always wanted or work overseas. But that was my MORE
magazine [“celebrating women 40+”] dream. Then I woke up to hearing “I want two
waffles with syrup” uttered twenty times in five minutes by Sayer, my 9-year
old son with autism.
I left my midlife crisis dream behind, like the memories of lounging on a tropical beach, and arose to my real midlife crisis. In this scenario, I am approaching 50 with a persistent bulge,night sweats, mood swings and the urgent need for JUST ME! time. Rather than facing an empty nest, I am facing many years of special needs mothering, while also shepherding my “typical” high school son, Jacob, through a demanding magnet program and into college. Although Advanced Placement World History has given Jacob a richer appreciation of the Amazing Race (“We’re studying the Mogols!”), the stress of the work load trickles down (or is it up?) to Dan and I. The life lessons I learn raising one son with autism and another son with over-achiever-itis? Well, let's just say I have a strong need for the occasional martini.
Unlike women in midlife I see portrayed in the media, none of my “special needs mom” friends who are in their forties or beyond are well-off adventurers off sky diving, nor lapsed executives starting charity programs or start-up firms. Instead, we include a single parent struggling to get a community college to accommodate her son with learning disabilities while also caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s, a mother and grandmother negotiating with government agencies to create supported housing and employment for her 21 year-old son with autism, and a mother of a son with Down’s Syndrome who manages a soccer team for children with disabilities. Midlife mothers are different than younger mothers of children with disabilities. You know these moms; maybe you were one (I was) – they are the go-getters in their 20s and 30s who are eagerly trying new miracle cures, organizing advocacy marches, and deciding whether or not to have additional children. These moms seem to have bottomless energy focused on the here and now; they may not be thinking beyond the next therapy to try for their child, let alone how that child will fare in middle school or adulthood.
In midlife, mothers of children with special needs are older and maybe more tired, but in many ways we are wiser. Compared to our younger selves, we have greater confidence in our knowledge of what is best for our children, and are determined to advocate effectively for their needs. We are less embarrassed by our children’s “behavior” and more insistent that they be included in society. Many of us find increased comfort in faith, and have reached a measure of acceptance and peace that eluded us when we were younger.
Recently, I spent a few minutes with the two-year grand son of a friend, and his mother.
Both mom and grandma were baffled by his behaviors, but I could tell right away
that he has sensory dysfunction issues and was struggling to get the input he
needs. How did I learn that a toddler who insists on dipping his fingers into
goopy lotions needs to finger paint with shaving cream or pudding? Through all those years of reading books,
observing Sayer’s sensory therapy, and being around other children with
disabilities
