A Burden to Society? (On Friendship and Love)

Ellen at Love That Max recently wrote a post called My child with special needs is not a burden to society. In this post she (very rightly) combats the idea that only people who are "productive" members of society are valuable to it.

Should you argue that these [famous people] are men who contribute more to the world than my son ever will, well then I say that's an incredibly narrow-minded way of looking at life.

(I encourage you to go read the whole post. It's very good, as is the blog as a whole.)

I am now playing the what-if-I-had-written-this-post game, and I must say that I think I would have written a very different post than Ellen did. Before I continue, I want to add a few disclaimers. Firstly, I am not a parent of children with special needs, or even a parent at all. So, although I don't intend to speak about parenting per se, or to say anything that's super controversial, I will, just in case, quote Clare Coffey on another subject and say "if anything I say seems presumptuous, unrealistic, or stupid, just chuckle." Disclaimer number two is that while it's going to look like I disagree with Ellen, I actually don't think I do. I think what looks like a disagreement is a semantic question, in that she and I mean different things when we say "burden". Ellen says:

Burden? My child? Expensive, yes. Demanding, yes. Emotionally draining at times, yes. "Deadweight/encumbrance/misfortune" (all synonyms for "burden"): NO.

In this sense, I 100% agree, children with special needs are not burdens. But here's why I would have written a different post: when I hear someone say, "So-and-so is a burden," my gut response is not "No, he's not," but "Yeah, so what? So are you."

When I say that something is a burden, I don't mean that the trouble it causes outweighs its benefits (I think this is Ellen's idea of what it means to be a burden). I mean simply that the thing in question causes a lot of trouble. This is roughly the sense that Merriam-Webster online gives. And in this sense, yes, beautiful, amazing Max is a burden. Every child with special needs is a burden. Every child on Reece's Rainbow is a burden. But so is every typical child. So are you. And so am I.

No one is perfect. Even those of us who are physically and cognitively "perfect" (I put the term in scare quotes because I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding the use of terms like perfect or normal and I do not intend offense; I use the word because it conveys my point) are not morally perfect. And our moral imperfections are burdens to others.

When I lose my temper and yell at my friends, it's burdensome. When I forgot my driver's license and couldn't help drive on our road trip, it was burdensome. When I have a day bad enough that my friend cancels his plans because he doesn't think leaving me alone is a good idea (yes, I know that the rain wasn't the real reason you spent the evening with me), it's burdensome.

Of course not everything I do is burdensome. I have also cancelled plans to help friends. I make pretty things. I write papers that make my professors happy. I am not a 100% burden, but a mixed bag of burdens and joys. Sometimes the balance tips one way, and sometimes the other. This is true of everyone, including children with special needs, who bring more challenges than typical children, but most of the same joys, as well as joys unique to them.

But my friends have not run an analysis and decided that, on balance, the joy I cause outweighs the burdens I cause. They are not my friends halfheartedly, putting up with the bad for the sake of the good. My friends know that I am a burden, and they accept that burden itself; gladly, even joyfully, accept it. "I love talking to you," A once said, right after he had spent about half an hour chiseling away at a black pit of my despair while I sat on his futon and cried. "Even if what you have to say might hurt me, tell me anyway because I need to know in order to love you more," K said to me early in our relationship. My friends, in short, know that I can be a burden to them, and choose to make me their burden.

Isn't that love? When you take someone who is a burden to you and choose to make him your burden? If I am a burden to you, you try to get rid of me, try to minimize the damage that I cause to you. Sure, you might be okay with having me around later, when I'm not being such a pain in the neck, but right now, I'm an obstacle to your happiness. If I am your burden, you accept me and care for me, and thereby truly love me (in the Thomistic "willing the good of another" sense of the word). (Conversely, allowing yourself to be loved means allowing yourself to become someone else's burden--admitting that you impose on others, and you need them to let you do so.)

So are children with special needs burdens to society? In the sense in which I've been using the word, sure. They make noise in places where it would be better if they were quiet. They have tantrums in stores. They are unable to do things their parents wish they could do. Typical children do these things too, and adults, while most of us outgrow throwing tantrums in stores, have their own problematic behaviors: We talk when it would be better to listen, we are short with cashiers, and now we fail to live up to our own expectations as well as our parents'. Yes, they are burdens to society, but not worse burdens than we are. And maybe we'd all be better off if we were willing to let them, and us, become society's burdens instead.

Easter!

I need to post here more regularly.....

Easter was wonderful. My mother and my sisters S (my twin) and J (8yo) came up to visit. So did K. Most of my friends stayed on campus for Easter, and we had a relaxed and prayerful weekend. Not much homework was done.

My school does a really good job with Easter. We have morning prayer for the Triduum, the normal Triduum liturgies (Holy Thursday/Good Friday/Stations), Tenebrae, Easter Vigil (with 7 OT readings), and four Easter Sunday Masses. The regular Sunday evening Vespers are especially solemn on Easter. Our main church has several choirs, which are really good, and the liturgical style is very solemn, respectful, and prayerful. I spent a lot of time in church this weekend (6.5 hours in church or church-related things on Friday alone :o). At the last minute K was able to stay for the Easter Vigil--his first ever!

This was a socially and spiritually productive weekend for me. My family got to know my friends a bit better, and got to meet K for the first time. (Verdict: Mutual like and desire to get to know better. Yay!) I got to know K better and spend time with him. (I do not think I get to do this enough. Stupid four hours.) And I think I grew in faith.

It's interesting to me how my relationships teach me about God. This weekend this was most clear in the cases of J and K. I was sitting next to J thinking about how much I loved her, and it occurred to me that if I, an imperfect creature, can love someone this much despite her imperfection, then God, Who is perfect love, must be able to love me too. Obvious? Probably, but this idea that God loves me does not come naturally to me. As for K, the fact that he's mine when I have done nothing to deserve him makes it easier to believe in grace. How do religions where God isn't a person make themselves believable?

K came to visit me!

K was here this weekend. We had a lot of fun hanging out. Church, confession, hanging out, walking around the lakes, staying up too late, making dinner, watching movies. Neither of us did much homework, which is why I'm still up at 2 now.

I'm researching for a paper on reactive attachment disorder. The more I learn about attachment the more I realize that this is an issue I struggle with. Potential senior thesis topic: Relationship between attachment and faith. No idea how this would be done, but it would be super interesting. Hmm.

Spring break

My spring break was awesome. It was not relaxing. We spent a lot of time in the car (over the course of the week, we drove over 2000 miles), a lot of time walking around, and not a lot of time sleeping. But it strengthened friendships. We got to know each other's families (well, mine, B's, P's, and A's). We shared problems. We helped each other out. It was crazy and wonderful. And I am so tired and I have so much homework and I wouldn't change break if I could.

Well, that's not technically true--one thing I would change. I got overtired and stressed out and was pretty uncharitable towards some people, including A, whose head I bit off for basically no reason several times. I feel terrible about this. Charity is something I have a serious deficit in. And it really doesn't make me feel any better how willing A is to forgive me all the time. Sigh.

Random thing: I'm having a major crisis (as in what to study). I am realizing that I am never going to do anything with philosophy and theology and seriously considering working in therapy. So maybe I should be in the psychology major. I have to go talk to the Career Center on campus here and see what they say. Pray for me!

On Life

Sorry for the lack of posting. It's midterms week! I'm taking a break from writing my final midterm, a logic takehome, to post this because I don't think I'll get a chance to post over the next week.

This logic midterm is stretching my brain in a good way. It doesn't have very much to do with what we're doing in class, and requires a lot of thinking about stuff that's essentially new. My modern philosophy midterm, also a takehome, was kind of fun to write, but not nearly as intellectually exciting. Psych and Greek were not fun or exciting to study for or to take. I got a 92 on Greek, we'll see what happens with psych.

My friends and I are going on a road trip over spring break. We're hitting up A's house, P's house, B's house, and my house. I'm really looking forward to it, but also somewhat worried because I'm going into it sleep deprived. I am pretty introverted and need some time to myself every now and then, and if I don't get that over this trip, which I'm not sure I'm going to, I'm going to lose my mind somewhere around Monday. My friends tend to assume that I'm withdrawing because I'm not okay, though, and then they come talk to me. I may just have to say look guys, I am okay at the moment but if you don't give me some space I will soon not be. Another sad thing is that I'll probably have less time than I do now to talk to K.

K is an awesome boyfriend. We have skyped for almost eight hours over the course of the last five days (I know, I know), and he's writing me a letter. We always end our Skype sessions with a prayer (except once when we forgot). K makes these prayers up on the spot and they kind of make me want to cry because he always thanks God for me. His faith is just so amazing. He makes me want to be closer to God. He also got me to clean up my room. All around a great guy.

I probably shouldn't post this....

It's almost certainly premature to post this, but no one I know reads this blog (because no one reads this blog), so I'll throw it out there. Yesterday R's friend K from high school came to visit her at college overnight. A little backstory: I was the initial catalyst for B and R getting to know each other and an enzyme in their starting dating. (I hope I'm getting my chemistry metaphors right....I introduced them and encouraged him to ask her out when it was clear they liked each other.) This was shortly after I broke up with my long-term boyfriend J. R and B decided that in return for setting them up, they should set me up. But they couldn't think of a guy. R thought K would be a good option, except that he and I go to college four hours apart, live 600 miles apart, and are both very down on the idea of long-distance relationships generally due to the fact that we both had recent bad experiences in which distance was a factor. So R said that if K and I were still single when we graduated, she was going to try to set us up.

Weeellllllll.......so K came to visit.

We (me, B, R, A, P, and K) played cards (I won), had a piggyback kicking battle (first person to fall off loses. K and I lost. Twice.), and watched The Sound of Music. K and I really hit it off. There was some serious chemistry. Touching, laughing, eye contact. I think he's awesome, I think he's cute, I think he's a great guy, and I really want to get to know him more. I'm rather obsessed. And he likes me too, R and B say.

This is new to me. I've never liked a guy I didn't already know before. I had a long honest conversation with R and B about his and my strengths and failings. I think in a lot of ways, we'd be good for each other. That said, this is nowhere near settled. We are both very skeptical/anti-distance. We don't know each other all that well. We haven't talked about this. (He did give me his number.) Who knows what will happen? But oh geez, he and I hit it off like I have never hit it off with any guy before.