One Thing After Another

Ever have one of those years where nothing seems to go right? I'm closing in on the end of a real humdinger.

As I have mentioned before, my youngest son, Zack is severely autistic. He's been in a specialized, self-contained classroom since he was about 6 and considering his delays and challenges, he has been doing pretty well over the years. In 2015, he moved from the multi-age classroom he'd been in for 5 years to a similar program at one of the local high schools.  There was nearly a year's worth of prep-work put into making sure that the transition went as smoothly as possible, involving a lot of visits from the new teacher to the old classroom so that he could meet and work with Zack and get advice from staff who was familiar, several day trips to the new classroom so that Zack could become familiar with it and lots of storyboard work to help Zack understand that when the new year started he'd be in the new classroom full-time. Even with all the prep-work, the transition was a challenge and for the first few months it seemed that every other day his dad and I would be asked to come help with some combative behavior or to advise them on how to deal with a meltdown, but by about mid- January, he had settled in pretty well and the calls had slowed to a trickle.

Then in May everything started going downhill fast when, with no warning at all, I received a phone call informing me that the school district had decided that Zack had to move to the other high school for the coming school year. I immediately lodged a complaint with the school district and started making a series of phone calls to the school board members, the superintendent and anyone else that I thought might be able to help me get the decision reversed. "There's no time to prepare him for the move!" I told them. "He can't handle that kind of disruption to his routine without a lot of prep-work! He's going to act out because he doesn't understand and someone will get hurt! Please, don't do this!" But I was ignored, or told that I was over reacting and that the staff at the other school could handle him. I dug out the storyboards we'd used to prepare him the year before and began working with him so that I could try to prepare him, but all the while I continued to plead with the district to change their minds or at least help me prepare him. My pleas were ignored- in part because they didn't even have a teacher for the new classroom yet, though, of course, they didn't tell me that until about two weeks before the school year was set to start when they finally hired someone. Then they invited Zack and I to come see the new school.

Alarm bells in my head, which had already been going strong for months now, managed to get even louder when we arrived at the school. We were met at the entrance by his new teacher- an older woman in her 60's who barely came up to Zack's shoulder- There was no way that this tiny woman could physically handle Zack if he became combative. She introduced herself to us and began to brag about how she knew how to handle kids like Zack because she had acted as a caregiver to another child with autism and the alarm bells rose a few more decibels, because anyone who has ever worked with multiple people on the autism spectrum knows that, while some things will carry over from one child to another, each one has it's own special challenges and knowing how to handle one only means you can handle that one. To assume otherwise is asking for trouble.

She ushered us into a conference room where the principal, vice principals, school psychiatrist, the school district's director of special services and the school's therapy team were waiting-  none of them had even considered that Zack would not really participate in this part of our visit and so there was nothing for him to do, so I pulled my phone out to let him play a game and the whole group suddenly realized their mistake. The next 20 minutes was spent with them all running in and out of the room trying to find an activity for Zack. When the teacher eventually came back with an iPad so that he could play games on a larger screen than my phone's, we finally started our meeting. They then proceeded to try to reassure me that they all knew what they were doing and Zack would adjust just fine. All I could think was, "you didn't even have enough foresight to realize he was going to need something to do for this meeting." I was also told during this meeting that since there was so little prep-time they were going to bring a para-educator from his old classroom to be his one on one so that there would be someone in the classroom that knew him, but they couldn't tell me who that would be because it hadn't been decided yet.

After this meeting which left me with even more doubts about this "plan", the teacher took Zack and I on tour of the school, and the alarm bells in my head were replaced by air raid sirens. First off, the school bus would be picking him up and dropping him off on the opposite side of the school, diagonal across the campus from his classroom, meaning that to get to and from his classroom, he was going to have to be escorted across the entire campus, through crowds of high school students who would not be even aware of how my sensory challenged son was being over-stimulated by the commotion. The classroom itself was a third the size of any that he had been in since preschool and had twice as many exits- big red flags for a kid with anxiety issues and a tendency to run when overwhelmed. The classroom was on the front corner of the school with one of the doors leading out to an open porch facing the busy road beyond the front parking lot and they had placed the desk with Zack's name on it right next to the door to the main hallway. As the teacher continued to share anecdotes about her previous autistic charge and inform me of things she intended to try to have Zack participate in, such as eating lunch in the busy cafeteria and participating in a general ed PE class, I reeled from the sheer number of red flag items that I was seeing. Had these people even looked at Zack's file? Were they unaware of the anxiety attacks he had the last time he was in such a small classroom where he ended up curled up in a corner, lashing out like a wounded animal whenever anyone got too close? Or the numerous times he had slipped out of other classrooms unnoticed, trying to get home, when he was overwhelmed by whatever was going on? Had they not read the reports of combative and disruptive behavior when he had been put in crowded gen ed classes on a trial basis in the past? Or the numerous times he had had to be kept out of assemblies or other high commotion situations because he went into meltdown before he ever even reached the area because of over-stimulation? How could anyone think this was a good setting for him?

But anytime I voiced a concern, I was simply told not to worry and the sirens got louder.

The next few months went from bad to worse. First off, the para that was supposed to follow him from the other classroom never appeared. The teacher that was so convinced that she could "handle" Zack was fired in the first month for grabbing and shaking another kid in frustration, and by mid-October, Zack's school behavior had deteriorated to the point that he was being brought home early in a police car more than he was being brought home on the bus.  By Halloween the school district was ready to admit that they had made a mistake moving him, but rather than move him back to the setting where he was doing well, they decided instead to send him to another school entirely. Fortunately this time, it was to a school that was actually equipped to work with him.  We met with staff from the new school the first week of November and adjusted his IEP to reflect the change and after seeing the much less crowded, locked campus facility and meeting the staff, I was totally on board with this new option.  I came home from the meeting more hopeful and relaxed than I had been in months.

And then it all came crashing down again. When I got home, there was a notice from the landlord on the door- due to the frequency of police vehicles visiting our home over the last few weeks, the landlord had decided that he would not be renewing our lease at the end of January and we were being informed that should we not be moved out by the 1st of February, he would begin eviction proceedings.

So, I began hunting for a new place to rent.  Unfortunately, if any of you have looked into renting in the Olympia, WA area lately, larger rental units (we need a 4 bedroom) are few and far between and when they do pop up they often get snatched up before I even notice that they've appeared on the market. It's now mid January, Zack, I'm proud to report, is settling in well to his new school and we are in the process of packing up, but we still don't have anywhere to move to. I feel like such a failure.

Anyone got a suggestion out there? Because I don't know what to do anymore.

The Election

So, I usually try to stay out of political discussions, but is election is a wild one. I can't remember a time when I was this disappointed in the 2 primary candidates. Usually one of them will at least be a little less distasteful than the other, but this time, I seriously can't bring myself to even partially like either one.

That's not to say that they haven't proposed a few good ideas in their campaigns but it seems whenever one of them propose an idea that I like, they attach it to two things that I don't.

And then there is the scandals on both sides. Trump can't seem to keep his big mouth shut and keeps insulting everyone and then complaining when people insult him back or hold him responsible for what he said. Meanwhile Clinton refuses to really take responsibility for security and general misconduct issues in her camp and keeps trying to divert attention to Russia as if, if we look over there, we'll forget that she screwed up. She apologized for the email thing of course, but apologizing doesn't make the indiscretion better and unfortunately a lot of the shit she keeps trying to throw at Trump makes me feel like I'm watching a wanna-be kid magician try to keep me from noticing how their trick works.

I'm further frustrated with the people in this country who insist on voting for one or the other just to prevent the other one from getting elected. I've heard the arguments against voting for a third party, but if ever there was an election to do it, this is it. If every person who has said "I don't like Hillary, but have to vote against Trump" and all the ones that have said "I don't like some of the shit that Trump says, but I can't vote for someone as corrupt as Hillary"  all voted for one of the 3rd party candidates, I think the election would be very different. It seems like most people don't really like either one.

Personally, I can't bring myself to vote for either one, so I'm casting my vote for Johnson, the independent candidate. Looking at the platforms of the candidates, he's the one that has incorporated the most ideas that I actually think work. Will he win? Probably not, and that's sad, because I really think he's the best choice.

Parenting

Having kids is a real trip- I love my kids and I think that I've generally done pretty well with them, but other parents continually baffle me. They won't give their kids straight answers and then expect the kid to not only not ask anyone else but also to trust what they say over anyone else. And God forbid that their kid asks you and you have the gall to answer them honestly. Do other parents really think that they are protecting their kids by avoiding talking to them about sex and drugs and other less than savory subjects until they are "old enough" and someone else has already answered their questions? I find the concept utterly flawed. 

My kids and I have had an ongoing discussion going about sex and drugs from the time that they were just old enough to ask what a cigarette was and why people smoke them. By the time that my kids were old enough for the schools to be thinking about teaching them sex ed, my kids were not only more well informed on the subject than most of their classmates, but their teachers were using them as back up on topics not covered by the textbooks, because they already had the correct information. Meanwhile, other kids are getting pregnant and ruining their lives with drugs because their parents won't tell them anything and the schools are waiting too long because the parents don't want them to bring it up and so the kids are asking other kids and getting bad advice. Other parents accuse me of pushing my kids to grow up too quick, or pushing them toward things they "aren't ready for," but I would argue that my kids speak for themselves. I have 2 in technical college programs (Computer Aided Manufacturing and Culinary) and 2 still in High School. All getting good grades, no drug or alcohol issues, no pregnancies or STDs or anything like that, and I have generally good relationships with all of them. My kids are the type that teachers generally love- they listen, they learn quickly and they are always doing research on stuff. You can bring up topics with them that most other kids have no clue on and my kids probably not only know what you are talking about but probably know stuff about it you don't.  Example: My 14 year old, Scott, was having a discussion with his teacher about behavioral psychology (started by a classroom discussion of the play Oedipus). It was the last class of the day, so Scott stuck around to continue talking with his teacher while the other kids slowly wandered off. Scott and his English teacher have a lot of great discussions and the other kids from the class will often stick around to listen because they always learn something when Scott starts talking. They began talking about the Oedipus syndrome and various ways that that tendency shows up in most people, such as girls tending to search for guys that have similar character traits to their dads, or boys wanting a girl who shares a talent with their mom, etc. and moved into a debate on the merits of Freud's work and after a few great points about how many of Freud's theories having a grain of merit that was often just taken to an unreasonable extreme, Scott's teacher commented that he seemed to be very knowledgeable about behavioral psychology and asked if that was what he planned to pursue after high school, to which Scott replied, "No, I'm going into Biochemistry. This was just something that I was reading about for fun." **Note this story was originally told to me by one of the other kids in the room and then later repeated to me again by the teacher during a conference.**  

All in all I think that I have done pretty well with my kids, so why is it that other parents don't seem to like them and routinely tell their kids that my kids are a bad influence? How? My kids are never in trouble, they're well behaved, outgoing, helpful, generally polite, and always willing to help their friends learn something new. Their friends love coming to our house and we've had more than a few of them want to move in. Why? Is it because we let them do whatever they want? Hell, NO! We have a very simple set of rules. Everyone in the house has a set of chores that they are expected to do and kids under 18 have a curfew and if the older ones are not coming home for the night they have to let us know before 9pm. Other than that our only rule is "Don't be that guy." I tell people that and they tend to look at me like I'm crazy, but it works. 

And who is "that guy"? We all know that guy. He's the one that pisses off everyone by playing pranks that no one else thinks is funny. He's the one that thinks that it's ok to not do the things they're supposed to because someone else will pick up the slack. He's the one that takes your stuff out of your room, wallet, purse, house, whatever, without asking and might return it in a couple of months if it is still mostly usable. He's the one that has no idea when it's ok to be loud and joke around and when it's better to be quiet. He's the one that bullies people into doing things their way all the time instead of letting other people have a turn leading once in a while. He's the one that never cares how anything he does affects anyone else. Hopefully you get the point. 

Early on, we just got in the habit of stopping the kids and pointing out something that someone was doing that we thought fell into the "that guy" category and just saying, "Look! it's that guy again." or if they were doing it, "Would you like it if that was done to you? No? Then don't be that guy to anyone else."  If they asked what was wrong with something, we told them. "It's rude and hurts people's feelings." Or "he almost ran into those people and that would have really hurt." or "he's hurting himself and the people who are around him." or "it's not his." As the kids got older the explanations were asked for less and often could be a lot more technical, but the point is that their questions got answered, even it was "I'm not sure, but let's look it up." 

One of Scott's best friends' parents moved their family to the next town over and out right told their kid that now that they were in this new place Scott was not welcome. They are allowed contact with all their other friends, but not Scott. Why? Where is the logic. Scott helped this kid pass History last year and has tutored him in grammar. How is he a bad influence? Answer: He has too much freedom. They think that the fact that I was letting Scott ride the public bus on his own at age 10 was too soon. They think the fact that my kids know how to cook is dangerous. They think that the fact that my kid knew more about the research on the actual effects of extended use of assorted narcotics than they do means that we are encouraging them to use drugs. In short, they think they are protecting their kid, who is 2 years older than Scott and in total rebellion over all of this.  

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but I am frustrated and baffled.  

So, Life happened and I stopped writing for awhile, but I'm back. Did you miss me? Probably not, but that's ok-  Here we go!

Feminism? No thanks, I'll stand by my men

So, there's this nasty trend that is going on that just has my panties in a bunch, so to speak.  It seems that everywhere I turn there is another famous lady coming out as a die hard feminist. Now I have no issue women wanting to be treated fairly, but the feminist movement is much more than that and I'm tired of being told that I'm either obviously not a woman at all or obviously a self-hater because I refuse to tow the feminist line.

Feminism is advertised to the masses as being all about equality: Equal pay, equal rights, etc. That I have no problem with, but when you look closer at their history and the women who often lead these groups there are some truly disturbing things to be found. Many of them take the philosophy to extreme of hating men. They want to rule over men, make them weak, hurt them and in some extreme cases basically outlaw them all together. 

I have a husband that I love dearly he's always treated me as an equal partner in our relationship. Over the years we have taken turns being the parent at home and being the working parent, we've made decisions about the budget together, raised 4 awesome kids together and generally just never had the need to be the one in charge of the other. 

Three of our kids are boys and I look at the world that they are preparing to venture out into as adults (the oldest is 18) and I am terrified for them. What is this MADDNESS? Thanks to the Feminist movements, did you know that in many parts of the world a guy can be locked up because a girl he never saw before said that he raped her? Someone told me that and I didn't really believe them, so I did some research. In California for example, it is actually legal for a guy to be accused of rape and put on the sex offenders list with no proof except the girl's say so. I read a case file recently- aside from names being redacted this stuff is usually public record, folks, so don't take my word for it, look it up- where the only evidence that was presented against this guy was that the girl pointed him out to police from across the room. There was no DNA, no witnesses, no rape kit from the emergency room- nothing.  And when the guy's attorney asked about additional evidence, it was insisted that to press the girl for more evidence would be like raping her all over again, so since this guy had no alibi, he was automatically declared guilty.  In another case, a girl and guy are dating. They have sex a couple of times and the guy secretly tapes it, intending to use them to help keep himself from cheating while he is out of town for a few weeks. He comes back and finds that the while he was gone, the girl had second thoughts about their relationship and decided to turn him in for raping her. Well fortunately for him the date that she gives police happens to be one of the sessions that he taped, so to exonerate himself he produces the tape of the encounter which shows that not only was she not raped, but she was initiating everything. Case closed, right? Wrong. Now he is being sued for taping her with out permission with intent to sell as porn despite the fact that until this came up he hadn't shown the tape to another soul and had not kept a copy for himself after turning it over as evidence in his defense. Plus there is now a movement to get taking videos of sex acts labeled as rape so that they can get him on that count too. 

In addition, to that nonsense, there are movements now to get all sorts of innocent stuff labeled as rape. There are some Feminists who claim that a man can rape a girl by simply disagreeing with her publicly. It sounds ridiculous, and everytime I hear one of these ideas my first thought is "That's got to be fake!" but with very few exceptions my research always supports it. You know how everyone's all mad about how women are kept subservient and/or generally demeaned in Islamic countries? Many feminist groups are working to turn our country into a place where that is pretty much how they treat men. If I don't want that for my daughter, why the hell would I want that for my son?  There is a fantastic article from... I think it was Rolling Stone Magazine... done by a lesbian feminist who wanted to expose the "privilege" enjoyed by men in our society. So, to prove her point, she decided to disguise herself as a man and live as a man for 1 year.... By the end of the year, she was so traumatized by her experiences that she had to be institutionalized for a mental breakdown. When she was finally moved to out-patient treatment, she wrote a very different article than the one she had originally intended because what she found was that "white male privilege" is at best a myth, which (if it was ever true at all) is the opposite of truth these days. 

My point in all this is simple. Feminists say that they want equality, but what they are accomplishing is anything but. I'm all about Fairness and equal treatment, but I can't support feminism anymore than I can support male chauvinism. Both of those -isms are about domination and power over the opposite gender and I would rather stand by my man's side than over or under him. 

The US Immigration Controversy

There's been a lot of press about this lately and it's got me going again. First off I do agree that many of the new laws that many states are trying to enact go over the top, but on the other hand I have to say that I can't really support the groups opposing the laws either because many of them seem to have lost track of the fact that many of the people that they are attempting to protect are here illegally. I may not agree with the current laws that govern the immigration of people from other countries to the US, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to ignore them and come in illegally. I also sympathize with the thousands of adult illegals who were brought here illegally by their parents before they could object and who don't remember living anywhere else, but it is not the law that has done them wrong- it is the parents who brought them into this legal predicament in the first place.

I think that in light of the numbers that we are talking about, there does need to be a reevaluation of the way that these cases are handled, but I bristle against the implication that everyone who has grown up here is automatically entitled to all the benefits of citizenship, even if their very presence is illegal.  US citizens have jumped through the hoops and paid their dues. They and their families should be entitled to the benefits of being a citizen (eg. public education for their kids, decent living conditions and infasctructure, resident pricing for college), and they should not have to take a back seat to people who decided that coming into the country legally was too much trouble and so they were going to sneak in and demand all those benefits anyway.

I would like to see a program put in place that would allow many of the currently illegal residents of our country to acquire citizenship in a timely manner and that would allow for a more reasonable process for people still wanting to come in, but I think that should be accompanied with stiffer regulations to punish those who still refuse to legitimize their residence here. I agree however that the current stance of stiffer regulations with no alternative is wrong, if only because it does effect so many who were drug into this situation before they were old enough to object.