Wow. I haven't even gotten through all the Q&A stories, but I've seen enough.
Fancy accessibility not being your PRIMARY concern when doing a a new build! Like, WHAT THE ACTUAL!? This is MIND BOGGLING.
YAY for Chrystal! I can imagine there would have been no ability to do a slow extrication from working for Erin. She would have made the environment so intolerable and toxic. I want to believe that Chrystal could no longer tolerate Erin's blatant neglect of Lu's medical needs, and this was the only way she could take a stand in truly advocating for Lu. I don't know. To be honest I was actually expecting this - I'm surprised Chrystal lasted as long as she did. Their 'earth angel.' Ick.
As for the 'divide and conquer' approach to having 2+ kids, and the kids being on different schedules - WELCOME TO PARENTING!! This is what every single parent of 2+ kids experiences, even when neither child has a disability. The fact she thinks she is so hard done by that this is her reality shows how out of touch she is with ACTUAL reality. And how little experience she has with children in general to not know that this is completely normal.
We will likely never travel internationally as a family with our children, either. Our disabled child would suffer more than the benefit of us being overseas. But it doesn't mean our life is over. It means that we vacation domestically (we haven't vacationed since he was born, and he's 5, but we are so freaking obsessed with him that we don't even care). Does she not realise we have an enormous country with so much to see and do? & yep, sure, it's not Paris or Milan or whatever tropical destination might be top of your list, but my thoughts always go to something to the effect of, "I could have Paris, or I could have my son. And I will choose him every single day for the rest of eternity, because I LOVE HIM MORE THAN EVERYTHING ON THIS PLANET.' Don't get me wrong - if someone offered me a ticket to Paris today, I'd probably find a way to go, even if it meant mobilising every single resource I have to ensure my son is taken care of. & if I couldn't make that happen, then I wouldn't go. But my point is...he comes first. No matter what. He comes first in every facet of our life, because he's our beautiful, perfect son and we couldn't imagine our life without him. I literally say to my husband every night as we lay in bed, "God I love that kid. What did we ever do to deserve him?"
Everything we do is focused on his needs. We don't go to Taylor Swift etc, we go to sensory friendly events so that he can be his whole self and enjoy the experience too. I don't know. There's no point in me going on telling you all the things we do to make our life worth living in the context of also having a disabled child (& two typically developing ones). Because what we do honestly isn't anything that deserves claps or accolades. It's just the bare minimum that any parent should do. I literally cannot stand Erin.
---
Oh. One more thing. The other thing that shocked me was her complete lack of considering an education for Lu. Lu is 4 in...October? So, 5 in October 2024, and then will need to start school in 2025 (in NSW we need to start school the year a child turns 6). School is not something you can just opt out of. There's of course the option to homeschool Lu, but we know Erin would never in a million trillion years opt to do that.
It's like, can she invest any actual thought in to raising her daughter and giving her the best life possible? This involves planning. My child is SLIGHTLY more independent than Lu (he can walk with assistance, can sign, can feed himself finger food etc) and it is a full time job advocating for him and putting things in place to ensure he has access to the things he needs to live his best life. This is on top of the full-time job it is actually caring for him (for which I lack a full time support worker or a night nurse, lol). Erin THINKS she is an advocating, but she has no idea what ACTUALLY advocating means or looks like. What it doesn't mean is doing disgusting voice overs on stupid reels saying things like 'She will never walk, talk, feed etc' like WHAT THE FUCK? She is the exact opposite of an advocate. She's like an anti-advocate.
We love you, Lu!
& Chrystal, we support you! If you're here, leave us a post with just emojis. You're welcome here!