Saturday, October 17, 2009

Another difficult thing for special needs parents: control

The common response for most humans, when stuck in a situation that is out of their control, is to try to find a way to gain control in any way they can. When your child has a medical condition, many many things are outside of your control every single day.

One thing I'm really struggling with lately: people buying clothes for Acorn.

It's not that he needs clothes - he's got plenty. But it seems to be the only way some people have of trying to be helpful.


I'm sure part of my irritation goes back to my feeling that we don't need charity. Did I mention that I'm employed, making more on my own than my parents (who had 3 kids) ever made jointly? Did I mention that we've been blessed with amazing insurance that has so far picked up the entire tab for Acorn's care and treatment?

And it's not like they pick clothes that I love. Far from it, actually.

And that's part of it too. We have too much stuff overall, and we've agreed not to buy more things just to buy them - we only buy things we really need, or we really really love....and so having more clothes for Acorn that are just blah is just the opposite of our parenting philosophy here.

Maybe I should just donate all the stuff I don't like. But then people would ask, and I'm just plain tired of having to justify everything about Acorn.

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