This blog has been hard for me to write. Almost didn’t write it. Emotional. But here we go.

Rachel just got a job at a local grocery store chain. She is a courtesy clerk which is just a fancy name for grocery bagger. Overall, it suits her well. She gets to meet a lot of people. She doesn’t get bored. She enjoys it. She seems to be doing well and has a big, bright smile.

She worked at Olive Garden for three years as a hostess. She loved that job. She misses it, but we, and we does include Rachel, have always had a goal of full-time employment with benefits. We may or may not get there, but it is our goal. I do know that it was going to be hard to get there at Olive Garden. Olive Garden was great. The nature of the business makes it hard to get to full-time. It was a perfect place for her to start.

The goal, has always been full-time employment because we think that leads to a more self-sufficient life. A path to dreams. It is a common goal for those who do not have intellectual disabilities, so why should it not be a goal for Rachel?

I believe there is dignity in work. My major professor might be pleased to know I see it as part of Maslowe’s hierarchy levels three, four, and five. Maslowe lists it as level two. In reality in our world, it is more than that. It is a big part of self-actualization of inner peace, purpose, and acceptance.

I myself have had some interesting jobs. Besides babysitting, my first job was at the International Shoe Factory. It was the summer in Central Arkansas, and there was no air conditioning. That was not fun. And, my first question was do I get docked pay for all the shoes I mess up? I didn’t. The next summer, I got a job at the Land O’Frost. My sister worked there. It was opposite the shoe factory. It was so cold because it was a deli-meat packaging factory. After that I moved on to McDonalds. I learned a lot about customer service at McDonalds. I’ve also caught chickens, counted dead bugs, and unloaded feed silos.

My own mother worked at very hard jobs. When I was a child, she worked in factories sometimes on the night shift and sometimes the graveyard shift. She also made all of our clothes, grew a garden, canned the goods from the garden, and if you include my dad, corralled four children. She got her best job when I was in 5th or 6th grade. She got the job as the meat wrapper at a Piggly Wiggly grocery. She worked there for almost 20 years. She is only four feet eleven inches tall so back then, she couldn’t get some of the better factory jobs because they weren’t required to make accommodation for her. In fact, the only reason she got the meat wrapper job was because she had a wooden Coca Cola box that she stood on so she could reach. She worked five days a week including every Saturday. She was off on Sundays because stores weren’t open on Sundays, and she was off on Tuesdays.

My dad worked for Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company. He started in the factory and worked his way up to become a route salesman and eventually a manager. My parents worked hard and taught us to work hard and to do our best at whatever we did.

All of that is to say, I truly believe there is dignity in work. Whether it’s because it’s something you love or it’s something you do and do your best at because it helps put food on the table for your family, there is dignity in work. Like all parents, I want Rachel to be happy and fulfilled in her work. We spend too much time working in our lives to be unhappy in our jobs.

One of my dearest friends in the Down syndrome community tells the story of meeting with the geneticist when they got their prenatal diagnosis. The geneticist said that people with Down syndrome had more opportunities now. In fact, “the young man who sacks my groceries has Down syndrome.”

And then there was silence.

There is nothing wrong with sacking groceries. It is a good, stable job. It is steps ahead of where people were even 22 years ago when Rachel was born. Still, it doesn’t seem like enough. It seems like the job coaches and agencies charged with helping find that job talk about the person-centered plan, but they still land on the same types of jobs with the same employers who they have a good track record with. They are pressured to get people in jobs as fast as possible to move on to the next person on their overloaded caseload. It’s not so much that I’m upset by any of that as it is that I just find myself a little sad.

Yep, I have found myself a little sad and emotional with Rachel’s new job. This is where I need you to have a little grace with me because I’m trying to be honest and transparent here. I keep thinking about my friend’s experience with the geneticist. I keep thinking about how I had hoped for something different for Rachel, and who is to say there won’t be something different. Cognitively and realistically, I know all of this. I think back to those days when I wondered what her future would be like. I think about all she has accomplished and all the people who have believed in her and us to help us get here. I do a mental run through of IEP meetings, clubs, church, community activities, person-centered plans, college visits and attendance, Project SEARCH, lack of transportation, a basically worthless Medicaid waiver, and I am just struggling a little.

If you’ve stayed with me this far, I want you to know I am so grateful for the opportunities afforded Rachel. I am thankful she has the opportunity to work and that this isn’t necessarily the end of the employment line. I am grateful that she is healthy and happy. She is fun. She is a blessing. She is a little too sassy some days and a little head strong others. (Where did she get those traits?) And I do thank Jesus every day for all of those things and the privilege of being her mom. I have taken such joy in seeing her become a more “independent woman” and the pride that beams from her when she talks about her jobs, her own money, and saving in her ABLE account. I love it when she smiles and tells people she treated me to lunch with “my money that I earned working.”

This adult thing is way harder than I imagined it would be. Why yes, in many ways we have come so far, yet here I am with a sigh at all there is left to do.

Like I said, today I just need you to all extend me a little grace as I have just put it all out there. Today, that’s how I feel. Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is a new day.