{"id":5764,"date":"2015-08-11T11:33:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T15:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=5764"},"modified":"2015-08-11T12:12:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T16:12:04","slug":"home-sweet-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/08\/home-sweet-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Sweet Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Spring<\/a><\/p>\n

This is going to be one of those posts that people either love, or hate. Fasten your seatbelts please, for what I\u2019m confessing to you right now is big.<\/p>\n

I love my eldest son, but I don\u2019t want to live with him forever.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m imagining that right now people are actually shouting \u201cAmen sister!\u201d or calling me the most selfish mom in the world. Here\u2019s the truth. When we sign on for this parenting gig, I doubt most of us believe we\u2019ll be in for what I call \u201cmarathon momming,\u201d where we\u2019re responsible financially, physically and emotionally for the well-being of a child (or children) for the duration of their lives. I\u2019m sure some people do contemplate that fate when they\u2019re gestating, and there are even some who choose to adopt special needs children knowing up-front they will need an intense level of care until they die. I\u2019ve met a few people in the latter camp, and they are some of the most amazing individuals I have ever met.<\/p>\n

I am simply not that amazing.<\/p>\n

I love Justin, adore him actually. He was a much-wanted child, conceived after multiple miscarriages, and myriad rounds of IVF cycles. I was ecstatic when I carried him past that thirteen week mark, enraptured with him the first moment I laid eyes on him. To me he was a miracle baby, and remains my miracle son. He is (in my totally unbiased opinion,) frankly fabulous.<\/p>\n

But the truth is I haven\u2019t even hit fifty yet, and many days I find myself really, really tired from two rounds of autism parenting. I don\u2019t see myself taking care of Justin when I\u2019m eighty. In addition, I can\u2019t imagine having him with us for forty-plus years, then transitioning him to a group home. And yes he has a sibling, but that sibling has autism too, and it\u2019s just too early to project what Zach will be able to handle as an adult. If I\u2019m being perfectly honest, in my \u201cwishlist scenario\u201d Justin\u2019s little brother is his guardian and frequent visitor, not his 24\/7 caretaker.<\/p>\n

Of course, as my friends who are entering the \u201ctwenty-one plus\u201d years will point out to me, due to fifteen year waiting lists and lack of options I may not have a choice for many years as to where he\u2019ll live anyway.<\/p>\n

My dream is for Justin to graduate high school and either reside on or in close proximity to a farm. I want him to have a job where he\u2019s outside a few hours of the day, engaged in physical activity, making a contribution to the world. I wish for him to have frequent access to the horseback riding lessons he so loves. In my perfect world this farm is down the street from my future residence, giving me easy access to visit him daily if possible and to take him home for weekends and holidays. I\u2019d do drop-ins at his home, bringing one of my two signature dishes (I know, it\u2019s pathetic that at almost fifty I have only two) to his caretakers frequently, because food equates to happy employees.<\/p>\n

Plus, it will give me the opportunity to spy.<\/p>\n

Honestly, the situation in Jersey is not that great. At the moment there is a long waiting list for residential placement for autistic adults, a waiting list that does not commence until the child turns twenty-one. I\u2019ve been told by people I trust that for various reasons I would not place Justin in many of these group homes anyway. When he turns twenty-one he\u2019ll be eligible for a certain amount of hours of in-home respite care, but the amount of hours varies so differently from family to family I\u2019m not certain what we\u2019ll get.<\/p>\n

The truth is at some point in my life I\u2019m going to want to make my mammogram appointment and not have to worry about childcare. I\u2019d like to visit Zach in college if he attends without having to worry about who will take care of his big brother for a weekend. Hell, I\u2019d like to have a day where I just lounge in bed watching Sex and the City reruns while drinking martinis, and never get out of my pjs.<\/p>\n

Sadly, that\u2019s where my fantasies run to these days.<\/p>\n

Yes, I want my freedom back. I am fiercely independent, was the girl who broke her mother\u2019s heart at three when I waltzed out of the car for pre-school, gave my mom a quick wave and never looked back. I want to travel. I want to have a sick day (!)<\/p>\n

I want to just breathe.<\/p>\n

And I say this here and now. I respect every parent\u2019s choice in this manner. I\u2019ve written posts on this topic before where readers have labeled those who want to keep their kids until their death \u201cmartyrs.\u201d I\u2019ve read comments on other people\u2019s blogs directed at parents who desire residential care for their children indicating they were basically Satan\u2019s spawn, claiming they were abandoning their children. I don\u2019t agree with either camp, particularly resent the commentary from people not even caring for autistic children who\u2019ll require lifetime care.<\/p>\n

It seems everybody has an opinion these days.<\/p>\n

I just want Justin to be happy, safe, and productive. I want those things for myself too. I\u2019ve got almost a decade left to go before we face this dilemma, and I hope things change for the better. I\u2019m a girl who\u2019s always liked having choices.<\/p>\n

And I hope in 2024 they look a lot prettier than they do now.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com\/
\nFollow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is going to be one of those posts that people either love, or hate. Fasten your seatbelts please, for what I\u2019m confessing to you right now is big. I love my eldest son, but I don\u2019t want to live with him forever. I\u2019m imagining that right now people are actually shouting \u201cAmen sister!\u201d or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":5765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294,1578],"class_list":["post-5764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness","tag-residential-options"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Spring-2015-161.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1uY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}