Ahhh. Since I have a physician in family, too, and physician friends, I know how easy it is for them to move and find a job. Particulary when one has a specialty that is sought after everywhere.
But not all people have this great asset of having an occupation that provides employment anytime, anyplace and with good starting salary.
And while your plans in your situation indeed had legs to stand on, not every wife has a husband (or vice versa) with means to support her and their child/ren miles away from home.
And then the question remains - is it, indeed, such a neccessity to relocate in order to make your child "succesful"? Is it the only way to ensure child's happiness and future?
personally, I think what matters most is parent's unconditional love, their total support and instilling good moral values that ensure a happy, succesfull future for the child.
In no way am I knocking down what you did- I admire it, actually,
but let's not get from one extreme to the other, like from "CI and oral only" to relocating in order to appease your deaf child.
Actually, when I spoke of dual households, it was not with the expectations that my husband would support both. He died young, and as such, he had not achieved the status of a physician who has been in practice for any number of years. Medical school is an expensive proposition, opening a new practice even more so. We were still paying off school loans, equipment loans, etc. at the time of his death. We were comfortable, but far from the upper regions of income. I worked, as well.
I never implied that this was the only way to insure a child's success, simply that it is one way. Too often I hear the words "I can't" when the wording should, in reality be, "I won't." Either way, it is the parents' decision. I'm only saying that when that decision is made, be honest about your reasons for doing so. I do not expect that every parent would go to the lengths that I did, nor that every parent has the means to do so. For some, the honest answer is, "I can't". No matter how many ways you view the situation, the opportunity simply cannot be created. For many more, however, the opportunity can be found with a little creative planning, but the willingness to do so is not there. For those parents, the answer is "I won't."
I will agree that my situation is at one end of the spectrum, and that the oral-only parents ware at the other end of the spectrum. The majority fall somewhere in between. I shared my experience only to illustrate the fact that alternate solutions are quite often available, if only one is willing to look for and take advantage of them. Most alternatives involve far less change than my illustration. Most of the time, it is not a lack of opportunty, but a lack of willingness to do what must be done to take advantage of that opportunity, or a failure to recognize that the opportunity is even available.
I am in no way implying that the solutions I chose are the solutions that everyone should choose. I'm only pointing out that the possibility is there. As long as the possibilty is there, then it is a matter of willingness, not of opportunity. Just as in my decision not to implant my son. It isn't that the possibilty wa not available, but that I was unwilling to take that action. I take full responsibility for that, and my reasons for doing so are valid to mine and my son's situation. But in the end, the responsibility is mine, and I have to be honest about the fact that I made my choice not on availability, but for other reasons. I don't have a problem with other's decisions as long as they are honestly representing the reasons behind those decisions. I do not beleive that we ourselves justice, nor our children either, when we delude ourselves into believing that we were prevented from a particular couse of action, rather than admitting that we were unwilling to take a particular couse of action. There is nothing wrong in deciding not to......only in the failure to admit that it was a conscious decision to do so, and then support that decision with reasons that are valid to our particular situation.
Parents quite often have a more self centered motivation for their choices than they are willing to admit, myself included. To be quite honest, my moving and starting over had a very selfish component. I was unwilling to separate from my child and send him to a residential school. That was based on my need to have my child with me. I do not pretend to be more self sacrificing than the next person. I had self centered concerns behind my decisions as well. But I have found that my son and I are both better served if I honestly admit that there were self centered concerns, and that they influenced some parts of my decisions rather than deluding myself into believing that they were not there, and that I was some exceptionally nobel and self sacrificing parent who never considered my own needs. Of course I considered my own needs, as all parents do. The only difference between me and another parent is that I am willing to admit that...not just to myself, or my son, but to anyone who asks.
And, I must tell you, that I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this all reasonably with you, Fuzzy. Differences in opinion do not have to be cause for conflict. I personally believe that the coflict comes not fromthe difference in opinion, but from the attempt to justify, rather than validate, our reasons for our position. The need to jsutify comes from a basic insecurity in the validity of our reasoning, and leads to attempts to prove the other wrong in order to prove ourselves right. It is possible, however, for both to be right from our own individual perspectives when we are honest about our motivation and reasons.