Finally Freeing Family Letter

A letter about my family,

Do you remember the old verse, which described Monday’s child as “fair in face”, Tuesday’s child as “full of grace”, Wednesday’s child as “full of woe” and Thursday’s Child as having “far to go”? Years later, long past the time I last remember thinking of this classic old verse, life dealt me a hand which completely changed my perspective in many ways and most importantly would become a catalyst for positive change in my future as an actual grown-up.  

I’ve grown up and am now a Mom to my wonderful, funny, kind hearted son S who is incredibly, fourteen and a half years old now.  I’m also lucky enough to have been given a second chance at love and have an amazing spouse named James.  He is one of a kind in many ways, but most of all because he came into my and my son’s life when S was just two and a half years old.  Since that time, James has fully stepped into a new parenting role and now he is truly the only father my son S will ever know.  

James gets up at 3:00am or 4:00 am most mornings to go to work at a stressful job so that he and I can maintain our home as a safe and loving environment for us and especially for S.  

Even though S is now 14 years old, he faces some pretty significant challenges which affect the executive functioning portion of his brain which equates to many things including affecting his impulses, ability to self regulate and affecting his emotional maturity. He also has several mental health and behavioural conditions which greatly affect all aspects of his (and our) lives.  The treatments for these conditions require expensive daily medications and expensive behaviour therapy sessions.

  I (Kerri) have had to postpone (give up ?) working outside our home since S was very young due to expectations of availability for me to pick up my son at any point during the school day should ever the need “arise”.  We are supporting our household on primarily one income for these reasons.  S’s, daily medications cost hundreds of dollars every month and his weekly behaviour therapy sessions are also very expensive but are a very important part of his treatment plan.  

There are some improvements we would like to make to our home and James would love to finally be able to get a new vehicle after driving the same one since 2007, but these are sacrifices we must make to help S keep working toward achieving his best possible quality of life as he reaches adulthood.

S is an amazing teen who struggles each day but who also shares my kind heart and passion for always leading  with kindness, for helping others as much as possible. 

James is one a kind, he’s truly the type of person who has strong family values, treats his lovely Mom like the Queen she absolutely is, works very hard, loves S and I, and who really deserves for something incredible to happen to him.  

S has been through many dark days in his life.  I know more may present themselves in our future, but I also know as his Mom how incredibly resilient he is.  S also deserves something really incredible to him.  

I decided to structure my support group around challenging the idea that kids like my (our) son have “far to go “, like the “Thursday’s child has far to go” line tells us in that old classic verse.  

Instead, by presuming competence and never placing limitations on the possibility of him always reaching new goals, we can turn around the idea of children with these types of challenges should continue to be referred to as not “normal”, or keep being unfairly referred to as ”damaged/defective “ somehow, so that’s why they are struggling in life .  

Actually, that’s truly why they still have “far to go” and why they are far too often misjudged as being lesser in worth than a “typical” peer and regularly unfairly characterized as being “not normal”.

I’m very proud of my son and welcome anyone who wants to refer to him as an example of a new, more positive upgrade to the traditional list of required character traits of a Thursday’s Child doing so .

 S is determined, loyal, kind, smart and tries to help others whenever he can in spite of the extra challenges he copes with daily.  

Thanks very much for allowing me the opportunity to tell you more about my family.  We are Kerri, James and S. 

It’s very nice to meet you.