An Ordinary Mom's Musings

Recently, I was going through old blog posts and articles I had written, and came across the first article I ever had published. It’s been reprinted numerous times since and has reached a large audience because it struck a chord with so many families who work and have a child with a disability or special needs at home and they need options. Enter COVID.

Working parents everywhere struggle to balance life with a job and children.

But families who have a family member with special needs?

We live from day to day, moment to moment. Most families I know who are in this situation are underemployed because at least one parent if it’s a two-parent household, must stay home with the child to deal with the medical, insurance, school, behavior issues, and more. If it’s a single-parent household, often there are just not enough hours in the day and you are having to choose between eating and therapy for your child, giving in or giving up.

Most parents with a special needs family member I know, worry constantly about losing their job due to frequent absences to care for their loved ones.

Then enters COVID.

COVID hit us all from left field. It has turned our lives around so that we aren’t sure which way is up anymore. For many of us, it has meant isolating ourselves from everyone for months at a time- Which isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. For families with a special needs person? Doctors’ appointments, school, therapies, assistance, respite, and accommodations disappeared overnight or became very complicated.

But there is one bright spot in this COVID world that should have all of us with special needs family members rejoicing.

Our world has become more flexible.

Our children haven’t.

But our world has.

The rest of the world? They are just starting to learn that flexibility is important. I predict we are going to come out of this time of a global pandemic better in some ways than we have ever been.

Workplaces are now FAR more flexible about working from home. This is something many of us have needed as an option for a very long time. We have been BEGGING employers for this. It will make it easier for us to have and keep jobs.

Grocery stores are suddenly far more accessible to us with delivery or curbside pick up. Oh, that I had had that back when my son was small! Screaming through every single grocery trip, ALLLLLLL through the store because sights and sounds and not having all the food immediately was too much for him.

Did anybody else hear from truancy officers prior to COVID? Were you constantly sending in excusal notes due to illness, doctor’s appointments, and therapy into the school? Which your child inconveniently would forget to hand in? Then enters virtual school and laxer policies for missing school due to illness.

These are things that have made our world far easier, and it can be expected that a lot of these changes are here to stay even after the crisis of a pandemic is over.

I guess it took a pandemic for the world to accommodate our needs.

And right now, after last year filled with bad news? I can use some silver linings to look at.