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Being a parent
Is it heaven or hell? Or maybe both! We hear from two sets of new parents - in Delhi and San Francisco - to find out how having a baby has changed their lives. I am the mother of Aleksi, 12 years and severely autistic, and Daniel 11, normal and very bright. Aleksi was three years old when we finally got the diagnosis that he is autistic. Medical professionals are, in my experience, extremely reluctant to label children with any particular problem. Aleksi's diagnosis came after I confronted the clinic with what I had read myself in the University library about autism. I can't begin to describe how relieved I was when I finally found out that Aleksi had a condition which, while lifelong, we could start to work upon. The very worst thing was having a child who clearly behaved differently from other children, and whose problems I mainly took as my own, i.e. I was a bad mother. My attitude changed completely when I knew what we were up against, and furthermore I was able to access and take comfort and advice from parents facing similar challenges. Aleksi, whom I love very much, can be a very difficult person to live with and consumes very much of my time and energy. His brother, Daniel, has always had to be much more mature than his years, and is the model son and student. While Aleksi had more than ten tantrums a day when he was younger, Daniel never had a single one. Even as a very young child he realised that he had to curb his needs in order not to overload his mother. Research has shown that siblings of autistic children generally do better in the long run than average, but, I wonder, at what emotional cost? I would be interested to hear how other parents juggle these sometimes impossible demands. I am the proud and happy mother of two lovely boys, but sometimes my best just doesn't seem good enough... Julie, Venezuela | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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