The app for independent voices
Caregivers who are parents*: “What do people get wrong about your caregiving as a parent?” Holding Both - Maria Messer beautifully resets the misunderstandings:
People think I'm used to it by now. They say things like, You're so strong — I don't know how you do it. They mean well. I know they do. But underneath those words is a quiet misunderstanding — the idea that repetition creates armor. That if you live with hard things long enough, they start to hurt less.
That is not how this works.
You don't get used to watching your child struggle. You don't get numb to the fear that slides into your body without asking. What you get used to is the choreography — the calling, the driving, the paperwork, the waiting rooms. But the feeling does not dull. If anything, it deepens.
People also get wrong that my professional knowledge makes this easier. I'm a Director of Special Education. I know the acronyms, the law, the systems. And none of that protects me from the grief of sitting in a meeting where my own child is described in language I don't recognize. Knowing too much doesn't make it lighter. It makes it stranger. You sit in both chairs at the same time and neither one protects you from the weight of what is happening.
And maybe the biggest thing people get wrong is this: they think the grief means something has gone wrong. That if I were doing it right — loving right, parenting right — I wouldn't ache.
But the grief was never evidence of failure. It was evidence of love. You cannot love someone this fully and remain invulnerable to the ways their life can hurt you. Love and grief are not opposites. They are companions. They rise together. They live in the same body.
I am not strong in the way people mean when they say that word. I am honest. I am still here. And I am still choosing to stay — not because I have mastered anything, but because he is my child, this is my life, and love keeps moving even when certainty does not.
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*Meet 12 caregivers who share how they’re caring for a child with special needs, a disability, a rare disease, autism, cancer or another health condition.
mary beth kaplan🪶 Cooky Howitt Serena Menken Donna Giles Sara Clime Siobhan Calthrop Sarah Coomber
