See, my parents (my mother, speaking on behalf of the parental team) gave us long lectures about how rich people aren't any happier
My parents: Well, we don't actually believe that, but supposing that's true, wouldn't you rather be a rich unhappy person than a poor unhappy person? (I got this lecture a lot when I was thinking I might go into academia.)
- One child is almost certain to end up dependent on others, in diapers, unable to speak up or defend himself if he's being abused, for the rest of his life, no matter what you do.
- One child is pretty certain to end up independent, and even successful beyond the wildest dreams of anyone in your family, no matter what you do.
And to my parents, the dead obvious choice is to throw body and soul into the tiiiiiny chance of finding *some* treatment that might help the first child become independent.
My parents would a) absolutely have made the opposite choice, but probably with b) also the absolute imperative that the successful child would be financially and logistically responsible for the dependent child to the extent that they (my parents) were unable to do so. (I mean, I should append that they would have tried, and probably succeeded, to set things up so that the successful child would not in fact have too much burden on this point. They're really good about stuff like that.) Both of which sound incredibly foreign to your parents!
In contrast, I'm sure a child as disabled as my brother would have made your mother feel he reflected badly on her
DING! YEP. I'm really glad they didn't have an intellectually disabled child, because WOW that kid would have had a super tough time. I mean, my sister and I consider ourselves verbally and emotionally abused to a certain degree (to be fair, a degree that wouldn't have registered as anything too out of the ordinary in the 80's, and definitely not as much as you were, but also to a degree that wouldn't fly these days for sure); I can't imagine what an actually intellectually disabled child would have gone through.
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Date: 2022-07-08 08:01 pm (UTC)My parents: Well, we don't actually believe that, but supposing that's true, wouldn't you rather be a rich unhappy person than a poor unhappy person?
(I got this lecture a lot when I was thinking I might go into academia.)
- One child is almost certain to end up dependent on others, in diapers, unable to speak up or defend himself if he's being abused, for the rest of his life, no matter what you do.
- One child is pretty certain to end up independent, and even successful beyond the wildest dreams of anyone in your family, no matter what you do.
And to my parents, the dead obvious choice is to throw body and soul into the tiiiiiny chance of finding *some* treatment that might help the first child become independent.
My parents would a) absolutely have made the opposite choice, but probably with b) also the absolute imperative that the successful child would be financially and logistically responsible for the dependent child to the extent that they (my parents) were unable to do so. (I mean, I should append that they would have tried, and probably succeeded, to set things up so that the successful child would not in fact have too much burden on this point. They're really good about stuff like that.) Both of which sound incredibly foreign to your parents!
In contrast, I'm sure a child as disabled as my brother would have made your mother feel he reflected badly on her
DING! YEP. I'm really glad they didn't have an intellectually disabled child, because WOW that kid would have had a super tough time. I mean, my sister and I consider ourselves verbally and emotionally abused to a certain degree (to be fair, a degree that wouldn't have registered as anything too out of the ordinary in the 80's, and definitely not as much as you were, but also to a degree that wouldn't fly these days for sure); I can't imagine what an actually intellectually disabled child would have gone through.