minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minoanmiss) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
agonyaunt2020-12-21 12:25 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-12-21 12:25 am
Entry tags:
Dear Care & Feeding: Please help me infantilize my disabled daughter
(that's the title I gave this one).
Dear Care and Feeding,
I have a 28-year-old daughter who has an autoimmune condition that makes it difficult for her to walk (if she’s having a flare-up). When she’s not having a flare-up, about 50 percent of the time, she can walk unassisted, but the other 50 percent of the time she uses a cane or a wheelchair. She has a very successful life and career in the city we live in, and is able to live independently, but her whole life she’s dreamt of moving to a very large city. She told me she’s planning on moving there at the end of 2021.
I’m extremely nervous because the area where we live has a very low crime rate and most people drive so it’s not like anyone’s out walking alone at night. The city she wants to live in is dangerous, and everyone walks everywhere. She’d be a huge target for crime. She can’t really take self-defense classes because she wouldn’t even be able to go or use the skills she learned half the time. I don’t want her to move. I know it’ll crush her dream, but I think she’s old enough and mature enough to understand that some dreams have to be given up on. She’ll do whatever I advise her. Am I a bad mother for telling her not to move?
—Stay Put
Dear Stay Put,
Time to take a deep breath. I know you’re worried, but this move won’t be happening, if it does, for a year or more. Don’t borrow too much trouble now, and don’t spend the next year trying to talk your daughter out of it. She is an adult, with the right to make her own choices about where she lives and what’s important to her, and you need to recognize and respect that. It’s fine to talk with her about it, listen, even share some of your concerns and/or help her make a good old-fashioned pro-and-con list, but in the end it’s really not for you to tell her which of her dreams are OK and which should be abandoned. (I also think that attempting to do so could backfire. In my experience, few things make someone more determined to do something more than someone telling them they shouldn’t or can’t!)
This move is something your daughter really wants, and it’s not a spur-of-the-moment decision; she has been thinking about it for a long time. Neither her medical condition nor using a cane or wheelchair makes her helpless or unable to live and take care of herself in a city. (And speaking of cities, it’s worth noting that most are not nearly as dangerous as outsiders tend to think—checking the actual crime statistics, if you haven’t, may give you some ease on that point.) I think you need to work on seeing her for the capable, successful, independent adult she is and respect the choices she makes. If she did forgo this move—forgo her dream—because you told her to, I think you’d both wind up regretting it.
—Nicole
Dear Care and Feeding,
I have a 28-year-old daughter who has an autoimmune condition that makes it difficult for her to walk (if she’s having a flare-up). When she’s not having a flare-up, about 50 percent of the time, she can walk unassisted, but the other 50 percent of the time she uses a cane or a wheelchair. She has a very successful life and career in the city we live in, and is able to live independently, but her whole life she’s dreamt of moving to a very large city. She told me she’s planning on moving there at the end of 2021.
I’m extremely nervous because the area where we live has a very low crime rate and most people drive so it’s not like anyone’s out walking alone at night. The city she wants to live in is dangerous, and everyone walks everywhere. She’d be a huge target for crime. She can’t really take self-defense classes because she wouldn’t even be able to go or use the skills she learned half the time. I don’t want her to move. I know it’ll crush her dream, but I think she’s old enough and mature enough to understand that some dreams have to be given up on. She’ll do whatever I advise her. Am I a bad mother for telling her not to move?
—Stay Put
Dear Stay Put,
Time to take a deep breath. I know you’re worried, but this move won’t be happening, if it does, for a year or more. Don’t borrow too much trouble now, and don’t spend the next year trying to talk your daughter out of it. She is an adult, with the right to make her own choices about where she lives and what’s important to her, and you need to recognize and respect that. It’s fine to talk with her about it, listen, even share some of your concerns and/or help her make a good old-fashioned pro-and-con list, but in the end it’s really not for you to tell her which of her dreams are OK and which should be abandoned. (I also think that attempting to do so could backfire. In my experience, few things make someone more determined to do something more than someone telling them they shouldn’t or can’t!)
This move is something your daughter really wants, and it’s not a spur-of-the-moment decision; she has been thinking about it for a long time. Neither her medical condition nor using a cane or wheelchair makes her helpless or unable to live and take care of herself in a city. (And speaking of cities, it’s worth noting that most are not nearly as dangerous as outsiders tend to think—checking the actual crime statistics, if you haven’t, may give you some ease on that point.) I think you need to work on seeing her for the capable, successful, independent adult she is and respect the choices she makes. If she did forgo this move—forgo her dream—because you told her to, I think you’d both wind up regretting it.
—Nicole