No one ever said being a parent was going to be easy.  It certainly has it rewards, but sometimes you have to have bad moments to appreciate the good.  I had a strange encounter at the hair dressers this week which has left me wondering if I had just had a good moment, or a bad one.  Often that means it was both. 

I had just paid for my haircut and was about to leave when a lady came up to me at the desk and said, “Excuse me, are you Allie’s mom?” To which I smiled and said, “yes.”  This woman went on to say that she is a teacher at Allie’s school and that she had seen me come to the office to pick Al up for one of her many appointments.  In conversation, she outlined for me the dates and times of our last few visits to the school.  For a moment, I did not know how to respond.  Is she really that observant?  Does she pay this much attention to all parent visits to the school?  Or could it be that we stick out from the others in some way?  Hmmmmm. 

OK, call me over-sensitive, but how do you respond to someone who innocently makes it clear that she is watching you and your child keenly?  Do you point it out or just ignore it?  I laugh with friends that if I am dressed for gardening and need to pop into a store that I can’t take Allie because people take more notice of me (of course I do take her). 

All of us have the experience of not being dressed well because we are in the middle of redecorating or cleaning and deciding that it would be impractical to clean up and dress well to run into the store for a quick purchase.  But if you have with you a child with obvious special needs then you had better get your church clothes on because people take more notice of you.  I am not embarrassed to be seen with my daughter, but I do not like how people pay so much attention to us.   People will even come up and touch Allie or start talking to me about a child they know as if we have some connection.  I don’t mind this, but it is weird.  This does not happen to parents of typically-developing children.  There again, maybe Allie and I are just too radiantly beautiful for people to ignore!  (It works for me).

© Ann Haig Wheeler, DSC 2009

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