No, this is not a "trick" question. Got your attention, though, didn't it? Seriously, it often does seem that life sucks---as when receiving the wonderful opinion of a psychologist that your 22yr-old son will probably never mature enough to marry, let alone give you grandkids. Okay, it's not like I hadn't intuited that possibility before, but it sure hurts coming from an expert.Needless to say, I've fought battles for schooling, etc. for years, and none of the experts has been proven right---yet. Ay, there's the rub. Not being morbid like Hamlet, however, helps. As with everything in Judaism, there's at least 3 sides to every problem. Hey, it gives more options, right? What's that Yiddish saying---"A good question is half the answer"? And that's the point; if the answer is bad, change the question! We all know how precise wording is essential to slanting those polls just the "right" way for enabling our government's predetermined solutions "democratically". You know, like Fox News---We Distort, You Comply? So, are the distorters liars, or only "deceived deceivers"? Don't ask me. I just write this stuff for fun.
Nevertheless, I'm disturbed by the swift judgements these experts are wont to hand down---often after only a perfunctory "interview" with the "client". I know that this particular expert will test him to see if these assumptions are true, but what of the others who won't? And what's truly worrying is the fact that I have to pay for these tests even though he's already a "client" in our community mental health services, which is supposed to test for free. What of those parents who haven't the money (God only knows how we manage to scrape up the money!) to avail themselves of private tests? Prozac Nation, here we come!
So, at this moment life sort of sucks for me, but I won't give up. If I'd listened to all those experts in the past, my son would be one of those drooling, drugged-up zombies wandering the streets, rather than a college student. Not that the experts didn't mean well, they just overly rely on the words of their fellow experts instead of testing for themselves. And yes, I know how expensive testing can be, and how strapped most community health programs are for funds. Still, it's my son, so what else can I do? Sadly, though, it's always someone else's child that's not our problem. Sigh. I'm as guilty as the rest. Divide And Conquer---pit the LD funding against the CP funding, so the parents of learning-disabled kids battle the parents of kids with cerebral palsy instead of banding together to demand funding across the entire health-related spectrum. For my son, the future looks brighter only because we can afford (so far) a "future" that's not routinely spit out by the "machine", so to speak. We all speak of the "Deux Ex Machine" (often translated as "ghost in the machine" but equally translatable as "god" as well) in cynical terms. For once, I'm hoping God is "in the machine".
