After a difficult morning recently, I was having a text conversation with a friend of mine and venting to her about Drew's most recent struggles at school. She is very sympathetic as she has a child who has some difficulties too. We were talking about tough decisions we were contemplating. I am trying to decide whether or not homeschooling Drew is the best approach for him this next school year (an idea that requires it's very own blog post) and she was talking about leaving her job to maybe ease the stress that comes along with her job requirements. This is, of course, a monumental decision and not an easy one at all.
After we were finished texting, I got back to my chores and was thinking about how many people I know who do not work outside of the home simply because they are raising a child who is extra high-maintenance. I personally know of 3 people, including myself, who do not work in large part so that they can care for their special needs child. Between school meetings, doctor appointments, therapies, evaluations, and drive time to all of these things, working at a full-time job would be next to impossible for us. Yes, there are people who do all of these things and work too. Maybe they are better organized (I'm not) or maybe they have a spouse or a near-by family member with a really flexible work schedule (my spouse's/family's schedule is not) and these blessings help them be a quality caregiver in addition to being full-time employed. I don't want to turn this into a fight between those who work outside the home and those who stay home. That's not my point.
My point is that if I (I'm only speaking for myself) could find a place for Drew to go to school, receive the therapy he needs, be in a therapeutic environment, and be educated through a rigorous academic curriculum ALL IN ONE PLACE (saving me valuable driving time), I would go back to work and my tiny teacher paycheck could offer some stimulus to the economy. (Before anybody calls me on it, I know that in the Houston area there are some schools which do exactly what I described above. They cost in the neighborhood of $24,000 to $30,000 a year. Yeah, pick your jaws up. This is not realistic for us.)
To summarize, throw some money at a publicly-funded school solely for kids on the autism spectrum (there ARE public school systems who have these...more on that another time), offer a fabulous curriculum, add qualified teachers and autism specialists and me and several of my friends will go back to work and we promise to spend our paychecks which will stimulate the economy. Or am I oversimplifying?
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