Dear Aunt Silvia,
I am a 49 year old single mother of two children. My first born daughter was born with cerebral palsy, and the second one was born a normal child.

Unfortunately my children do not share their father. When I met the father of my second child, he seemed not to mind about my daughter’s illness, and we have been having an off and on relationship for the last eight years.

After all this time he has decided that we should settle down. I am very happy to eventually settle down in marriage, but in a dilemma because he does not want us to live with my sick child.

Unfortunately none of my family members wants to help me take care of her even my own mother.

The problem is that if I don’t get a place to put my daughter my marriage to this man is doomed. What do I do?

Martha,

Nobody chooses to have a sick child; this is something that you should put across to your future husband. How sure is he that all the children you will get at a later stage with him will all be normal?

Cerebral palsy is the worst nightmare for any parent to go through with a child, and I know it has been a difficult and lonely journey for you; but even if you are in need of a husband, you don’t have to throw your child to the dogs for the sake of marriage my dear friend.

That child was given to you for a reason, and it is this very reason that you are the only right person to take care of her.

Believe you me no one will take care of your child the way you have been doing for all these years, and you can see even your own mother has shunned the responsibilities that come with taking care of a special child.

Whoever takes a lamb should be prepared to take its tail as well, that is the saying which matches your kind of situation. Your man should have been prepared to take you with your responsibilities since he met you when you already had your daughter.  

Just because the child is sick does not mean that he is going to be walking with her on his back day in day out.

You should be in a position to explain to him that a child with this condition is like any other child, only with special needs, and that does not make her a lesser child.
I have a feeling that you desperately want to get married, for some reason you well know about.

But you should think twice about what you have been asked to do. I know there might be homes run by the Nuns in the Catholic Church, where they take care of such children with special needs, but only after they have established a good reason as to why the parents cannot take care of their child.

The ball is in your court, it is up to you to decide whom to choose, whether it’s your flesh and blood who is your daughter, or somebody else’s son who is your future husband; just know that as far as family ties are concerned one is only related to their children and not spouses.

Ends