Parental convenience?

[velvetpage]

What role should convenience play in parenting decisions?

Context: I found myself involved in a discussion on a friend's journal, in which the desire to cure her child of PDD (autism) was disparaged as being mostly about the parent's convenience. This was said like it was a horrible thing.

Now, I can see how convenience could be a very bad thing. For example, putting your child into daycare full-time when you yourself are at home full-time and not working an at-home job, might not be the greatest of parenting decisions. But it seems to me that convenience has a role to play in family decisions.

For example: if the only baseball program for four-year-olds was at the other end of the city, while there was a soccer program at the park down the street, I'd probably encourage Elizabeth to take up soccer. The primary reason would be convenience, for everyone in the family, and the knowledge that we'd be a lot more likely to actually make it to the one down the street. Assuming she's not dead set against soccer, is this a bad parenting decision? Another example: I made a conscious decision not to pursue a Francophone education for my girls. The Francophone school is not too far away and I probably could have gotten them in. But the school is much further away than the local French Immersion school, which happens to be across the street from Oma's house. For her convenience and ours, the girls will be going there. Was this a bad parenting decision?

I suppose the real question is: at what point is it reasonable for the child's well-being to accept equal billing to the well-being and, yes, convenience, of the rest of the family? I wouldn't dream of denying my child all access to a musical education, but is it reasonable to bankrupt myself letting her learn half a dozen instruments at once, when that leaves no time for other pursuits and no money, either? I will put Elizabeth into piano lessons, because we have a piano and I want her to learn to play it. If she wishes to learn another instrument, we'll find the time somehow, though I'll be steering her towards brass because she could learn that at church or from my father at practically no cost. Beyond that - her wishes are going to take a back seat to family convenience. Is that a bad parenting decision?

I think the people who downplay the role of convenience in family life are those who have a lot of time on their hands - and not a lot of children.

Comments

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, of course it is silly to think that parental convenience should have nothing to do with parental decisions. 'Convenience' means, potentially, a little more free time, which may be used to a) retain your sanity; b) spend time on your kids in other regards (cooking more nutritious meals, whatever); or c) God forbid, actually enjoy yourself.

What I really don't understand about your post is how efforts to 'cure' (I presume actually something like 'obtain therapy for') autism could possibly be perceived as being primarily about parental convenience. But that is really a separate question.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The questions was hypothetical: if a real cure could be found, would this parent go for it? She said yes, and several people decried that "decision" (I put that in quotes because until it's possible, it's not a firm decision) because it meant ignoring what her children wanted in favour of what she wanted for them. My point was that, when you're talking about a non-verbal child, there is no good way to determine what the child wants, and even if there were, what the child wanted might not be the best thing for him. Another example: most kids don't like getting their shots, but most parents realize that it's important that they do so.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Of course parents can make bad decisions on behalf of their kids. And of course it is tricky, and whether your kid is 6 or 16 makes a lot of difference to the extent to which they can reasonably be expected to make fully informed decisions. But the notion that any parent who makes a decision that overrides their kid's wishes is somehow selfish or self-oriented is quite bizarre.

Oh, the inhumanity!

[neosis.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I agree that's monumentally stupid.

Really. That's the parent's freaking job. You make the decisions for your children that they aren't qualified to make for themselves. It's what your supposed to do. Like preventing them from enduring a lifetime of mental handicap simply because you can. The kid's what four years old? How the does any reasonable adult figure that a normal 4 year old has the mental capacity to choose to be mentally handicapped for the rest of their life, let alone one with an actual mental handicap.

Ignoring for the fact that this child is, in fact, a child there are are extremely thorny issues on mental capacity of someone with a mental handicap. Really, how many of us would volentarily choose to be mentally handicapped? For a reasonable example we could start with Schizophrenia, many schizophrenics refuse to take medication while they are off their medication, but once they are on it, they become quite happy with the effects. The problem is, of course, to somone who is suffering from paranoia the cure for paranoia seems the most insiduous of all, because you're sure that the threats are real, and a drug which makes them appear not real must therefore be a trick and not a cure. The point? Someone with a mental handicap may not even be capable of making a reasonable choice about having their handicap until after it was cured, despite what sentimental movies (or that episode of the Simpsons where Homer shoves a crayon up his nose) might have you believe.

In fact there's an interesting anecdote from the CBC, Alberta (I think) is passing a law that allows for Paranoid Schizophrenics to be legally forced to take medication in the case where they pose a threat to themselves or their community. This legislation has been hailed as long-overdue by Schizophrenic rights organization and been hailed as a travesty of justice by lawyers associations. The moral appears to me, that the people who say "oh they're happier like that" frequently have their own hidden reasons for saying it. You can't get away with saying Black people are happier living in abject poverty anymore, but it's hard for the mentally handicapped to argue with you. What's next? Will they try to argue that people living in a persistent vegitative state are actually happier that way and we shouldn't impose our neo-fascists will on them by waking them from their dreamless comas because, obviously, that's how they choose to be?

On the topic of your main post, a parent has the right to make choices for the sake of covenience up to the point where those choices could reasonable be considered to be "harming" the child. For example, if your girl really wanted to play baseball and wasn't interested in soccer at all, and then you refused to allow her to play baseball (whether directly or effectively) because it was incovenient, then you're crossing the line.

Choosing to cure a child of a disability that would likely make it exceptionally difficult for them to live on their own merits, interact with others, and enjoy all that life has to offer, is not a lazy decision.

Re: Oh, the inhumanity!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I agree on pretty much all points.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Well there is a subset of the autistic community that the closest I can relate it to is those who feel that kids shouldn't get implants to hear -- that it will change them fundamentally to cure deafness. And I can understand that, but we are also talking about a condition where you can live independently either way.

So the autistics feel that no one with autism should be cured, if they ever found a cure. Anyone who wants a cure is a 'curebie' and does not love their child. And the phrase the guy used in my LJ was I looked at my kid like an appliance I wanted to customize.

So this goes on, and I feel the HFA's don't understand the severity of the disabilities of some other people on the spectrum, like my son. They think I just want to make my life easier, not improve his. But that's all hypothetical, because there is no cure.

HOWEVER, in the case of these two particular people posting in my LJ, even THERAPY is not fair, if my child can't tell me if they want the therapy or not. Most people who are anti 'curbie' are still quite into kids getting humane therapy (some of the therapies are cruel or innefective, or deadly, like chelation). They are ok with autistic kids to learn coping and communication strategies. But not this one person in particular who was posting in my journal. Thankfully this person does not seem to represent the views of many of the adult autistics I know, even the ones who are against a cure. And to be honest, the ones I do know? Don't need a cure, and are fantastic the way they are.

My son would need one, if they ever found one.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the debate, at least minimally, but it strikes me as profoundly odd that anyone would take such a negative attitude even to sensible coping-related therapies for their kids, no matter how high-functioning. I mean, come on: *everyone* could use a little coping-related therapy to help them deal with certain situations.

I can certainly empathize with those who feel that in the hypothetical case of a cure, they would be reluctant to choose that for their kids on the basis that it might alter other aspects of their personality, etc. And in particular, for older kids who are particularly high-functioning, I can definitely see the case that parents simply choosing what they think is best without taking the kid's wishes into account, sure, that might be a little selfish.

But the notion that a kid under the age of 10, or a kid with more profound difficulties, can make a meaningful, informed decision about such things (not to mention communicating those decisions), and can weigh all the future consequences of that decision, well, that seems preposterous to me that indulging the child's wish is inherently selfish. As parents, we are called upon to make decisions for our kids, on the basis of what we think is best for them ... aren't we?