Link: My Son and I Don’t Do Well with Chaos—and That’s Okay

[sonia]

My Son and I Don’t Do Well with Chaos—and That’s Okay by Katie Rose Pryal. "We hate surprises. What we need is to be able to set our expectations properly. A monthly column about family life, mental illness, and raising disabled kids as a disabled parent."

A lovely story about adopting a cat in an autistic-friendly way, interrupted by an employee's lack of flexibility about timing, with a happy ending.

It contains this casual bit of (living with) sexism, completely unremarked. "I have to do something. I have to try. “Give me your laptop,” I say to my husband. “They’ll listen if the email is from a dad.”"

Comments

[silveradept]

I noticed that part, and went "And it's sad that it will be likely to work if it comes from a dad," as I went through the article. The story was good, except for the inflexibility and how things were handled.

[sonia]

I have to wonder if the administrator she talked to the next day realized she wrote the email and just let it go by.

There are too many people who take unholy joy in the power to bureaucratically deny others what they want.

[silveradept]

There are, indeed. A lot of people seem to enjoy using what little power they have to make others miserable.

[jesse_the_k]

Perhaps because the misery they invoke is so evident, and thus there's proof of their power in action?

[silveradept]

That is possible. What seems plausible to me is some of that and some of people feeling like others are using their power to make them miserable and hurt, so they intend to use what power they have to get back at whomever is currently fashionably responsible for their misery. It is almost never the people who are actually responsible, but instead whatever scapegoat those people want to blame.

Great essay gave me tears

[jesse_the_k]

When KRP describes her reconciliation with her mom:

She did the best she could. I wanted her to know that I understood. My mother’s life as a child was a nightmare of Elm Street proportions. She couldn’t be as patient with me as she might have liked, but that’s okay. And because of the life she gave me, I have the gift of patience for my kids. And, now that I’m older, patience for her as well.

Ah! That level of kindness is powerful.

Re: Great essay gave me tears

[sonia]

Yes. Thanks for highlighting that bit!