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

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

I think it's only realistic to take a certain amount of convenience into account in family decisions. One can have the loftiest goals but if they can't fit in with everything else and thus are not likely to be met, then that's not realistic. I think you always have to think about what's a truly viable plan to then be able to follow through on it. A certain amount of inconvenience can be doable - for instance Furuba9's dance class is not the closest one around, but it's the one she likes, the one she's been to for years, and it's one night a week and we can deal with that. If she were doing it more nights a week, well then we might have to think about it. Part of this is always that we're ALL in the family and ALL our needs/wants have to be considered, so part of the "convenience" factor is the compromise element. I think choosing the school near Oma makes a lot of sense. I am putting Mr Bear into preschool part-time this spring and then full-time in the fall so he's all ready for kindergarten. I haven't resolved yet about what I will do regarding returning to work yet, it was enough of a project getting to that point ;-) BUT it's a decision less about my convenience than about his school-readiness. I really debated skipping that whole step, but I really feel like I'd be short-changing him. So yeah, you HAVE to look at the whole picture, and it's not realistic to say "I'm going to sacrifice the rest of the family's well-being for this one thing".

I can't think the desire to free one's child from the confines of autism could be considered anything less than wanting to give them the best life and opportunity for happiness possible. I'm not sure how someone could label that as merely being for the parent's convenience and not that the child could have a shot at being happier & more involved in life and less subject to the strictures imposed by the autistic condition. Sure it WOULD be more convenient for the parent. but I'm sure that parent is looking at that bigger picture of "what will improve my child's lot in life"?