About my ridiculous sister's masive insensitivities.
My eldest DS has ASD, and has always been incredibly difficult to handle, although he is utterly wonderful and gorgous! At age 8, he is on his 3rd school with full time support and will probably never fully access mainstream education, even though he is of above average intelligence. Over the past 3 years, just getting him into education has taken up almost all my time, and I now no longer work, as it was not possible when he wasn't in school. We take each day as it comes at the moment.
My very good friend's eldest DD has spina bifida and is a wheelchair user. Her family work very, very hard in order that she canlive an ordinary life. Her DD is 10 and about to go into 2ndary school. She will struggle with this transition. The children from our village travel together on a school bus. She will be picked up in the accessible transport and taken to school on her own, or with other disabled kids. This is a small, but difficult thing to accept when an 'ordinary' life is what's wanted.
My 'd' sis has 2 teenagers. My mum, and dad when he was alive, have largely brought them up, and this is acknowledged by sis and mum. Sis works full time and always has done. Her children are lovely, but have always been left to their own devises. Her Ds has had alot of troubles (police) and difficulties (failed exams), which he has largely been blamed for, but left to deal with.My sis spends alot of her free time at the gym.
She has never looked after my children except on the very odd occassion when she wants some affection, and she will take DS2 for ice creams or to the toy shop, but only my DS2, never DS1 or 3.
The only thing she has ever said that related directly to my DS having a disability was that she became very angry with me in front of some friends of hers because I said we were using Direct Payments and it had made our life a bit easier because i had someone to take him out and give me time to iron. She went berserk, saying it was outrageous that HER taxes should pay for MY childcare, and why should I get free babysitting. I told her it is because my disabled child needs to live an ordinary life, but he needs extra help to do so, and she said that this was MY job, and I shouldn't expect the State to pay for my kids.
Her DS is now 17, and tonight they came to my house for the end ofmy DS2's birthday just in time to scoff the cake as usual. My friend was there and she congratulated my sis on her DS getting an offer for uni.
Cue my sis going on a huge rant about how disgusting the tuition fees are. How much debt her poor son will be in by the time he finishes, and how it will affect his credit rating when he applies.
I pointed out that everyone else his age will be in the same position, so the credit rating will have to disapply the student loans, but she still went on and on about what a bad start in life it was and how disadvantaged he would be.
She then complained about the difficulties of his getting to the out of the way campus he will be on, and how inconvenient it will be for him to have to change buses and get up early to travel.
We asked if he wouldn't get accommodation nearby, but apparantly, she will only want him in 'suitable' places, that are up to her standard, so she doesn't want him to have accommodation asigned like the others.
My friend and I had no input apart from what I've put above. It was 20 minutes of pure poor me...then my friend had to go. Her daughter needs to be toiletted before bed.
And I needed to go because mine needed an early night. It takes DS1 3 hours to settle on a normal night, but last night he was awake till 11 and woke up again for good at 3am. He was shattered but running on adrenalin.
My sis left, still moaning.
I can't believe how insensitive and crass she is. For my friend's Dd and my DS, higher education will be a minefield of meetings, applications, visits, discussions about access, support, PAs, behaviour, mental health, toilets...the list is endless. It took 5 months to get the primary school to agree to take DS, FFS! My sis has never once asked about his condition, or even speculated on how it might be if she'd been the one to give up her career.
I feel as though I never want to see her again. 
