Observations from life, translated…
There was, a pair of volunteer parents at my daughter’s school, everybody called them, “Daddy and Mommy Fei”, taken from their youngest daughter’s name, Fei has an older sister, Wen, too.
At first, I was very curious, Wen was two years older than Fei, naturally, she must’ve entered into school earlier, so how come, the volunteer parents were called “Daddy and Mommy Fei” instead of “Daddy and Mommy Wen” instead? Slowly, my curiosity found its answers.
In her preschool years, Wen was diagnosed with slight mental retardation, and as she’d entered into elementary school, she was placed in the special eds classes, this made Daddy and Mommy Fei angry, they believed, that with Wen’s understanding, she could be placed in with the regular classes, nad they’d, transferred her to a school, without the special eds classrooms, and with less classes to school. As Fei got to school age too, Daddy and Mommy Fei, in order to take the sisters to school together, they’d started Fei and Wen in the same school.
In the school, I can see Daddy and Mommy Fei everywhere, Daddy Fei would often take photos of the classes voluntarily, fix up the school computers too, and Mommy Fei had, volunteered at the school’s library; every time I’d bumped into them, they’re always in Fei’s class, running around and about, helping out with the carnivals, or the results shows, but we’d never seen them in Wen’s class.
Every time I saw Wen, she’d always smile lightly, followed by her classmates’ sides. Daddy and Mommy Fei, however, don’t share ANY exchanges with Wen whatsoever, everywhere Fei is, Wen was invisible, so I think, it’s clear, why, the parents were not called “Daddy and Mommy Wen” now.
a parent, interacting with her special needs child, not my photo still…
My husband and I bumped into Wen’s teacher, and we couldn’t help but inquired, the teacher explained, that at the start of the school semester, she’d found that something wasn’t quite right with Wen in learning, she’d suggested her parents to take her to get diagnosed, but, the parents were resistant, firmly stated, that Wen was just slower to learn, that in the end, although they did take her in, to get the diagnoses, but, there wasn’t anything else that was done for Wen, plus, Fei was more outgoing, more active, so, soon enough, the parents devoted ALL their attention on her.
One day, my husband left a message of Daddy Fei’s Facebook page, I’d curiously sorted through Daddy Fei’s postings, and, all the messages were of Fei these two, three years past, what about Wen? I’d, sighed to myself…
So, because of the children’s different natures, caused the parents different ways of nurturing them, both sisters were developmentally delayed, but, the older girl just got ignored by the parents, perhaps, on some level, the parents blamed her, for her diagnosis of being developmentally delayed, and the reason why they socialized their other daughter is because of the second child’s temperament, and, perhaps the second child is more outgoing, and this, is something that’s VERY awful that parents can do to their young, playing favorites, and, clearly, the parents here, favored their younger daughter to their older one, and maybe, the school should’ve been more careful about breaking the news of how their daughter was developmentally delayed to the parents, and maybe, that would’ve changed the outcomes of how the parents treated the older daughter, who knows???