Merit badges

Last year, on our first drive to Salt Lake City for Keira's baclofen pump surgery, Jeff had me in stitches. I was telling him it felt like we'd reached some rite of passage, like we had "leveled up" somehow as special-needs parents. I mean, in one trip, we were going out of state for a surgery AND staying at a Ronald McDonald House for the first time. This had to be worth something. Jeff suggested that we should be earning badges left and right. Where scouts earn badges for camping, cooking, and emergency preparedness, we started creating badges all our own. In our spare time (ha!), we'll totally create these unique badges along with very special sashes for all of us in the special needs scouting program.

When the boys were young, I used to get stressed out by hanging out with other moms of similar-aged children. The reporting, bragging, and questioning that went on between us moms felt competitive and it exhausted me. When Jeff heard about it, and sometimes experienced it himself, he likened these discussions to a fishing derby (more recently called it a "developmental derby"). "When did your son walk? 14 months? My daughter was walking by 9 months." "You put cereal in your daughter's bottle? Oh. We are doing absolutely no solids until 12 months. It's better for their development." You know these conversations, right? Mostly they aren't ill intended. They are mostly just sharing and commiserating from parent to parent. However, if you are like me, a lot of those conversations leave you with feelings of having succeeded or failed as a parent in various areas of your kids life.

It's kinda funny, but I've witnessed some similar conversations between special needs parents. "We don't do that medical food because it's full of sugar." "We put our son in this therapy program when he was 9 months old." "We only go out of state for that medical specialty." "We drive 200 miles a week to therapies." Again, it's not all bad. We want the best for our kids and, for better or worse, we want acknowledgement for the hard work we have put into caring for them when we have very few role models and often conflicting information on what to do for them. And though I don't necessarily think that parents of typical kids should get badges for things like walking before one year, breastfeeding till age 2, or Montessori participation, parents of special needs kids may be due some extra credit for their endeavors. Plus, if we don't laugh a little, we'll cry a whole lot.

Here are some of the special needs parenting badges we had in mind:

• Out of state medical care badge
• Ronald McDonald House badge
• First IEP badge
• 5+ medical specialists badge
• 10+ surgeries badge
• Participating in special needs legislation badge
• Made a wish (Make a Wish Foundation) badge
• Adaptive equipment designer badge
• Firing a therapist badge
• Honorary RN badge
• Honorary MD badge
• Honorary service coordinator badge
• Honorary secretary badge
• Honorary therapist badge
• Unrecognized medical discovery badge
• Wheelchair worth more than your car badge
• Snake oil badge
• Using your child as a scapegoat to avoid unwanted social activity badge
• Handicapped placard badge
• Near death experience badge
• Successful insurance appeal badge
• Lawsuit filed badge
• Still married badge
• Typical siblings are reasonably well adjusted badge
• Blogger badge
• Advocacy/prevention/awareness badge
• Home medical equipment badge
• Home modifications badge
• Clinical trial participation badge

How many have you earned?