I think all parents know that having kids has some economic impact on your life, but does this mean that we really need to think hard about the budget when we’re talking about our children? Of course we want our kids to one day go to college, eat healthy organic foods, and go to nice schools, but what does all this talk about how much a child “costs” ultimately do to how we perceive not only our offspring but every other human being in our lives?
I’m asking these questions because of this article today in the New York Times entitled “Mothers of Children With Autism Earn Less”. Well, duh, but how does this information effect our lives?
Mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder are less likely to be employed than mothers of children with no health limitations. They work seven hours less per week, on average, and they earn less: 35 percent less than mothers of children with another health limitation, and 56 percent less than the mothers of children with no health limitations.
Figuring out the exact amount a child may or may not financially cost a family seems to be a morally responsible act on the surface, but putting these figures into practice, letting them effect our decisions, doesn’t reek of the kind of unconditional love I’d like to aspire to as a parent. Either you believe that your bundle of joy, not to mention the elderly and the sick and the generally unemployable, have a value and a dignity irrespective of how much they tap your paycheck, or you value something else entirely.
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My reaction to this article is a little different from yours. I’d agree with you that you can’t really put a dollar figure on the interactions between family members, and, well, it doesn’t really take a Ph.D to figure out that a child with special needs will be a drain on his family’s time (a welcome drain, I hope, but a drain nonetheless). The time that needs to be spent with a special needs child can’t be spent elsewhere, so these families often don’t have the income coming in that other families do.
If it takes a village to raise a child, then what are our responsibilities to families with children with special needs? It was a couple years ago now, but there was a court ruling that provincial health plans did NOT have to cover therapy for autistic kids. These therapies are costly, running up tens of thousands of dollars every year. And this is going to sound harsh, but autistic kids are not easy kids to parent and raise. Where every child with Down’s Syndrome that I have met so far has been a joy to be around, I’m afraid I can’t say the same about some of the autistic kids that I have met.
Kids ARE a drain on your resources–financial, emotional, and spiritual. Parenting even a healthy child can sometimes tap you out completely. And given the fact that there are a myriad of forces that are pulling apart families today that didn’t exist even a generation ago, families raising children are under immense strain today. The strain is that much fiercer on families who have difficult children, or who have twins, or who are dealing with health or financial issues.
While you might see this article as a cost-benefit analysis of raising kids with autism, I see it as a cry for help.
And my question, then, is: what can we do?
Where is my “like” button at? Thanks for your comment Melissa. I agree that yours is a positive way to view the article from a “What can we do?” perspective.
Illustrating how difficult it is to raise children with autism should sound the call to the rest of us to pitch in, but reading the comments to the article, and realizing that we happen to live in a place where a diagnosis like this can be a death sentence for a child, I tend to shy away from talking about people in dollars and cents terms. One of the most common reasons given for abortion is inability to support or care for a child, even if that inability is only “perceived” and not in fact the case. For me, this article increased the perceived difficulties in raising a child with autism instead of offering support (it would’ve been nice if they mentioned a few hot-lines, resources, websites, etc).
It would be great if every time it was revealed how difficult parenting can be under various circumstances that we saw the very real and immediate need for more support and resources, that’s certainly what I aim for anyway. I’m not sure this article achieved that though.