You're doing it because your strong enough to!

I read a lot about women and men whose relationships have ended due to raising a special needs child. There is an 80% divorce rate among couples and often times the stress and required energy is too much. Many moms and dads are left to raise a child alone or have chosen to in order to lift one weight from a life already challenged. It’s hard and that’s the bottom line but not all people are fallen to it. There is still that 20% who are sticking together and refuse to let go. Amen to them by the way, they give the 80% a reason to smile because they are doing it.

Raising kids is hard and no one knows exactly what is coming when that baby is placed in their arms. There is the thought no matter what it is they will face it together but that thought is often based on typical challenges not disability challenges. I read a lot of stories that begin with “Autism was too much for my child’s father or mother” and yes moms fade away to believe it or not. It’s not just dads who can’t deal with it and fly away, we just don’t hear much about it.

Here is what I am getting at today, if you are faced with being a lone parent it is not the child or the challenges that have caused it. You face them every day and never stop trying. You get up every morning and believe in the day ahead of you and you believe you will get your child through the day. You’re tired but you do it, you’re frustrated at times but you do it, and you’re judged nearly every single day but you do it. It is not the challenge of a special needs child that tears a relationship apart; it is that one person is just simply not strong enough to do it. Look around you from time to time there are parents everywhere that are tired and haven’t had time alone in a very long time. That in love feeling when people first meet and have a child almost never sticks even in a completely typical family. In time it really becomes a job for everyone.

Women and men are hard on themselves when one walks away and are often left feeling they have done something wrong or didn’t do enough to hold it together. Not so because the one thing that was lacking was a strong enough person to hold on. A strong enough person to realize all kids are a challenge and when you have one you’re supposed to be in for the long haul even on the worst of days. Autism is routine based and the days do become long and similar to the movie Ground Hog Day but the day a child is born a person has to be strong enough to face it if they happened to be that one in fifty. I have met some amazing autism parents in the last year. Some are single moms, single dads, and couples fighting like hell to make it work and all of them are doing it because they are strong enough to. The love they have for their child can’t be weakened by a disability and so many times I hear how a disability taught them even more about the love they have.

If someone has left your life in the face of hard times no matter who that may be it’s not the hard times that caused it, it’s the person. A person who lacks ability to get it done and in the end doesn’t get the chance to be there to see the miracles unfold. They may be gone because of a disability but it’s their own disability not the child’s that chased them away. I admire single parents and I admire the couples who are holding on because no matter which one you are, you have a strength others can’t come close to and that also not something everyone is born. For some it kicks in when the time comes and for others, it just doesn’t.