You have to understand
that nothing good comes after the words
“You have to understand,”
only a slap of somebody’s idea of reality
that you are woefully ignorant of
and must be made to comprehend.
You have to understand
that your child is limited
and resources are limited
and options are limited
and the system’s ability to do anything
other than what the system has always done
is limited
and tolerance for parents
who refuse to understand that
is limited too.
You have to understand
that the experts know everything
and you know nothing
and should sign the papers
and say thank you.
You have to understand
that you can only ask for appropriate, not best,
because best is not for children like yours
or parents like you.
You have to understand
what sitting in a room with strangers
and hearing your child reduced to numbers,
bad numbers,
hopeless numbers,
year after year after year
can do to a parent.
You have to understand
the way we are weaponized
by the endless well-meaning negativity
and that fighting is the only alternative to fear,
hassling to hopelessness,
adversariness to abdication,
strength to weakness.
You have to understand
that we can’t not advocate,
we can’t not react with anger and doubt and suspicion,
we can’t not take it personally,
we can’t not make it our issue,
our identity.
You have to understand
how it follows us home from school--
the defensiveness, the readiness to assume the worst,
the understanding that everything imperfect
is ours to find a fix for.
Mama Bears can’t hibernate.
You have to understand
how habits formed when our children are young,
instincts sharpened, reflexes honed,
live on well past their usefulness.
When we’re long-forgotten by the educators
who said those things that still burn in our brains,
who started those files that consumed our lives,
who made those judgments we still press against,
who set us on our road of second-guessing
every last decision and triumph and certainty,
we remember everything.
You have to understand
how advocacy denies us acceptance,
and appropriate will never seem best
ever, anywhere, even when maybe it is,
who knows?
We will not recognize it.
We will never let our guard down.
We will never quite trust.
We will never really relax.
We will never understand.
