Mom and Dad "celebrated" their 20th wedding anniversary this week. They are oddballs. Yup, considering the divorce rate is roughly 65 percent, and slightly higher for parents of children with special needs, they are not the norm. Now while the oft-quoted 80% divorce rate for parents of special needs children is not supported by facts and most likely untrue, I understand why people use that number when praising themselves for still being married when they have little buggers like me draining most of their energy. I think they just assume the number is 80% or higher because of how stressed they feel. They want to say the number is closer to 100%, but they know that would be breaking the truth rather than just bending it a little. I give them a pass on their white lie since they are probably trying to hang their hat on something in their lives that is positively against the odds rather than negatively against the odds like having a kid with special needs. Well, the truth is, every relationship is difficult and the addition of a child with special needs or a child with health issues just magnifies the difficulty. In the end, they are not really odd, they are just great parents like the majority of parents. The oddballs are the parents who don't love their children, and I'm hopefully confident that that population is a small minority. So while we should still celebrate wedding anniversaries as a testament of two people's love for one another, I think we should start celebrating parenting anniversaries starting with the birth date or adoption date of someone's first child. Since I am a champion of inclusiveness, this gives all my friends who have divorced parents or have two moms or two dads or one mom or one dad a chance to congratulate their parents for being awesome. So, happy "wedding" anniversary Mom and Dad. And when Big Bro turns 18 in June, I look forward to wishing you a happy 18th Parenting Anniversary! (message to Hallmark who have created numerous holidays and anniversaries just to sell more corny cards, I own this one)
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