Televisions, Telephone, Wi-Fi & What Else: Ability Beyond Disability went into the young ladies’ apartment yesterday to begin the installation of Wi-Fi. Our service coordinator called to ask if our daughter would want cable in her bedroom. My preference is no. She does not have a television in her bedroom now, and with her laptop and Wi-Fi, frankly I am against it. But, the big but, the other young lady apparently does have a television in her parental home and the other mom told me last week that her daughter is used to that option. What to do?

Consistency? My thought is to get the young ladies out of their rooms and into a central social setting, as in the “living room” or the basement doing laundry and treadmill(s). But if the other gal has a television, shouldn’t they both? The other mom hadn’t cast her vote so I left it with the service coordinator to go with consistency. Whatever one girl gets, give to the other. At least the option. (I am not planning to purchase a bedroom television set for our daughter any time soon.) With laptops offering access to downloading T.V. shows, YouTube, and movies, iPods providing endless music, and cell phones unlimited texts and chats with favorites, the television sounded almost archaic.

And What Is A Landline Again? Our service coordinator’s next question was, “Do the girls want phones in their rooms?” Phones? Of course ABD needs a landline installed for their staff. But our daughter has never had a phone in her room, except her cell phone in recent years. Again, what is the other mother doing? Not known yet. Okay, consistency again I guess. Or not.

What Does The Future Hold? Compromise and Collaboration. It is so funny how threatened I can feel, in a nanosecond, that I may have to either yield to provide or deny our daughter something because of someone else’s daughter: their funding; their habits; their tastes; their needs. I have to chuckle at myself. Jeepers, Jill, what’s up with that?

Get Ready: And this is only the beginning. We haven’t even begun to look for living room furniture or decide which girl’s appointment schedule on any particular day requires that the other girl stay alone in the apartment for an hour. What is that going to feel like, Mom? It is July 1 and she is now adult, aged-out, officially a client of Ability Beyond Disability with programming beginning next week and a month away from moving out.

Getting Ready, One Day At A Time.

©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011