On Apathy...

We had an IEP meeting today.

I prepared myself as best I could. I did the research. I typed out my bullet points. I hired an advocate and brought our ABA therapist.

I prayed. I lost sleep. I worried. Then I prayed some more.

I even talked to myself in the mirror a little.

"Don't cry, dummy." I said.
"Stick to the points."
"Keep your big fat foot out of your big fat mouth."

I am happy to say that I pretty much took my own advice this time. It didn't hurt having my own personal dream team with me. When I sat down with super-advocate on one side of me and super-therapist on the other, I'm pretty sure I could've jumped tall buildings in a single bound and caught bullets with my teeth. So this time, I was mostly calm, cool and collected through the meeting. We got most of what we asked for and will probably get the rest after a few experts observe my son's class. It was a success.

Except that I made somebody cry.

I know what you're thinking. I was mean. But I wasn't - not really. This person was the cause of the meeting. We were essentially there to request ways to hold her accountable to do basic stuff her job requires. Things she hasn't been doing and have consequently inhibited my son's development. I'm talking things like starting class on time, ending on time, doing parent teacher conferences, and other things specific (and essential) to his curriculum. In order to request this accountability, I had to say some things that revealed her phoning-it-in attitude. And that is where the tears came from.

To me, her tears indicate an acute awareness of her own feelings - what she perceives to be her own injustices. Yet she seems coldly indifferent to the injustices her apathy has perpetrated on an innocent child - my child. His future. His education. She could wrap up class 20 minutes early, depriving my child of valuable educational minutes just so she could get home sooner and she had no problem with that. Even though it sent my child into a total fight-or-flight panic to have his schedule so thrown off. She saw his distress and she was indifferent to it. But today, she was not indifferent to her own. Her tears made me spitting mad.

My husband tells me that you cannot make somebody care. You cannot make somebody work hard if it is not in their heart. And despite my best efforts to set up a system of accountability for her, she will find ways to "beat the system" and slide by if that is what is in her heart.

It's true, I suppose. But there is this other part of me who thinks somewhere in her there is a conscience. Surely at some point she had a passion for this job and surely somewhere in her heart she understands the importance of early intervention and somewhere deep down she sees that squandering these weeks and months with him is a near criminal act. Maybe if I present the facts and stick to my guns she will awaken and see the gravity of what she is (and isn't) doing.

The only other option (and the one my husband recommends) is that we request my son be transferred to another school. This would surely mean weeks of setback for his education, since he will need a long time to adjust to new people and new surroundings. Once again, this person would be robbing my child of valuable early weeks.

I think of this verse that has challenged me my whole life:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. To those who are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28).

I have wrestled with this verse forever. If God created Dylan, and He loves my son even more than I do. If I fight like heck for him and work like heck for his therapy. If I do all I can and still come up against incurable apathy, whose good does that work out for? If there is a small, ever shrinking window of opportunity to help him and a consequence of this apathy is that he has a lower quality of life as an adult due to poor early intervention, how does that work out for anyone's good?

Why is this happening? For whose good, God? And while you're handing out goodness, how about an extra serving for my son and maybe a few less servings for people who reserve their tears only for themselves?