Okay, I’m going to vent, you’ve been warned.

I have 3 non-neuro-typical kids ages 17-26. All of them still live at home and are not fully functioning adults at this time. All 3 suffer from depression, 2 from anxiety, all 3 have other issues as well. The older 2 kids are my kids and my husband’s step-kids which adds a little something to the mix. My husband has a good job that keeps a roof over our heads, food on the table, etc. etc. I work part time.

My eldest works part time and studies a computer book toward a certification… hopefully. Eldest drives and deals with her car insurance and oil changes and stuff. She helps around the house doing dishes, vacuuming, pet care. She spends some of her time writing what I think she describes as fanfic. Her writing, and the response she gets to it, give her a boost of self-esteem. I’m in favor of that.

Middle child goes to a local community college studying for an English degree at this time. (it changes sometimes) The only work she’s ever been able to get is work study at the college. She probably comes close to paying us back each semester for her classes, books etc. but that’s it. She paints gaming miniatures for money whenever she can. Work there is very sporadic. She’s good at it but it’s super niche’ and a luxury few can afford. She mowed the lawn roughly 1x/week for $20/week this summer. We support her financially, obviously. She has been trying to learn to drive for years but is in no way ready to be driving on her own. Honestly, she’s bad at it. Autism in her case means not being able to process everything and make good decisions quickly. I wish my husband would give up on it, it seems like something she shouldn’t do, but we live in a rural area and she either drives, gets us to drive her, or moves to a city with great public transport which is slightly complicated by her not being able to get a job or manage her life.

Youngest is 17. He’s doing pretty well so far this year even though his 2 best friends both moved on to different schools. He seems to be making other friends and is doing ok in his classes. He’s got an adulting class which makes him anxious because he hates thinking of the future, not sure WTF to do about that. I tell him there’s no pressure on him, just calmly look at all the options and think about what he’d like to explore, nothing carved in stone, no scary deadline, and so on. I’m working with him trying to get him to manage his daily life better. He needs to get up on time in the morning, which means getting to sleep at a reasonable hour, needs to learn to keep up with cleaning his room, doing his laundry and so on. He is interested in learning to cook to the point where he can keep himself happily fed, so we work on that. He’s great at coming up with marinades and he handles all of that, he’s learning to make certain dishes and to BBQ a bit. He handles most of the dog care. He doesn’t drive yet, doesn’t have a permit. He seemed like he wanted to but backed off for some reason.

So, they are all behind where they “should” be, where most kids are at their ages, we focus on encouraging them, trying to add to their responsibilities, being supportive. It’s a struggle, it’s frustrating, it’s hard not to despair sometimes. It super doesn’t help that my husband is surrounded by high achieving kids at work, constantly bombarded by beaming parents boasting about their amazing offspring. It’s demoralizing for him and it makes him more frustrated with the kids than he might be otherwise. For myself I could stand not to have my mother constantly tell me how awesome a job my sisters did at parenting, how great their kids are and how she worries so much about mine. STFU MOM! NOT helping! I have 2 sisters, we each ended up having 3 kids, one sister has 3 neurotypical kids, the other has 2 NT and one who isn’t. Would you look at the one non-neurotypical kid? Wow, he’s doing so great. He is, he’s doing great and I am over the moon that he is. I love him. What I can’t take one more freaking second of is the idea that I somehow failed my kids, which my mother CLEARLY believes and likes to rub in my face.

It isn’t fair at all to compare my sister and I and blame my parenting for the fact that my kids aren’t burning up the sky like all parents wish for their kids. My sister had so much help that I never got. Her in-laws were very involved and often took the kids for a weekend or a week, they babysat, they helped with expenses, they got involved in the kid’s lives in real ways. During her last pregnancy, our actual father moved to live in her state, in her town, and started helping too. His parents followed him out there and lent their support. My sister is smart and fairly driven, she got a degree and a a good job and had the built in support to be able to work while other people helped out with driving and watching the kids as needed. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of her, she did amazing, but if I had the kind of support she did I might be amazing too. We will never know. With her husbands very good job and all the support they have been able to afford everything they have needed for their kids. Nothing has really been out of reach for them, which is so cool, I really am happy for them. I love my sis, her hubby and their kids. I can’t tell you how proud I am of them. I just don’t need to hear it so, so, so often. Because….

I live very near my mom. She did not babysit. She helped with rides, which I am grateful for, but we paid for those rides with the stress of dealing with her. She could not deal with the difficulties that come with dealing with my kids, my eldest was a handful when she was younger, and my mother made it worse by setting her off, blaming me for not handling her correctly, etc. I was so stuck. She was the only one I had to help at all and it came at such a cost. She helped financially at times, always with the understanding she would be paid back in full, which we did though it was difficult. My husband’s family was useless in helping with the kids. They didn’t care to be involved with the older 2, though his brothers enjoyed spending time with them on their rare visits. We spent years utterly strapped financially with occasional bouts of being on an even keel. We had my ex to deal with and the insanity of him trying to force the older kids into his religion, then his eventual rejection of the kids as they refused to join. All the work has been on us, we are exhausted, we are demoralized and we wish like hell we knew what to do.

But this is where we are. We have 3 grown and almost grown kids who are not where they should be with life goals, accomplishments and mental health. We have loved and loved and loved these kids and done our best with what we’ve had to work with. We had therapists, doctors, and we did what we could to expose them to interests but we couldn’t afford much. We’re still trying, we’re still working hard while most people with kids the same ages as ours are now able to brag about their kid’s accomplishments we get to answer “how are the kids?” with; “They’re doing ok. Eldest is working part time, middle is in school part time, and youngest is in HS… no the younger ones aren’t driving yet, no they don’t have jobs….” Progress is glacial.

Please, if you have amazing, neuro-typical kids who are doing wonderful, I know you want to brag, and I get it, I am truly happy for you, but please try to remember that some of your friends and family have kids who are not neuro-typical or have other challenges, and though they LOVE your kids and are happy for you, hearing about all the wonderful milestones your kids breeze through can be really painful. It is heartbreaking to work so hard, invest so much love and support, watch the slow, painful progress, and when you feel some small germ of hope because a friend was tentatively made, or a kid is finally taking 3/4 of a full schedule of classes, or at last broke 30 hours/week at their part time job… to hear that someone else’s kid has 20 friends and they are all going to do charity work together in a foreign land, or they just graduated, got their masters with a 4.0, or landed an awesome fortune 500 level job. etc etc.

I don’t know what my kids might accomplish, they are bright, sweet, amazing people. They aren’t where most people their ages are, they don’t have it all together yet, or even mostly together, they can’t even fake it, really. But they are kind and creative and I am proud of them. It just feels really awful when someone asks how the kids are and I say, “well, middle child joined the history club at community college, so that’s encouraging.” and they answer with, “Oh, this other kid just got accepted at 6 ivy league schools and has to choose which one to go to now. ” I know they don’t mean to make me feel terrible but I do. My kid did a tiny thing, their’s did a huge thing. I feel like my kid’s accomplishments don’t matter, it will never be enough, it’s all some kind of competition.

Ok, I’m done. I don’t know if I feel any better, but I’m done.