RocketTheme Joomla Templates
     
Home CARER STORIES A Farmers Yarn
A Farmers Yarn PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 01 April 2008 13:27
There’s lots to look after on a farm, especially when the farmer is also a freelance graphic designer and author and cares for a son with cerebral palsy and developmental delay. The names in this story have been changed for family privacy and legal reasons.

Bill Dawes, 58, has a market garden in the Hunter region of NSW, inland of Newcastle. He takes graphic design jobs, mostly for magazine ads, and is writing and trying to publish a novel. His son Pete, 14, was born with cerebral palsy and developmental delay. Bill has been separated from his wife Sarah for two years and now cares for Pete on weekends.

Bill also described himself as ‘connoisseur’ of folk music—Work’n’Care caught up with him at this year’s National Folk Festival in Canberra.

“We both used to live and work north of Sydney, at Woy Woy. Sarah was a top office administrator; I did graphic design for a magazine. Pete went to school in a support unit there (on the Central Coast), but we weren’t happy with the state he was coming home in. Every day, tears. Or wet pants. Naturally, one asked what the hell was going on there, but you only ever got polite answers. You know, ‘bit of a rough day’. Well what the hell is that supposed to mean—could be anything. Sarah eventually found out that Pete was spending most of every day in ‘time out’ in a little store-room or screaming in the corner. It’s amazing that’s still legal.

“One day he came home with scratches all over his arms and Sarah found out from the teacher’s aide that Pete had done that to himself, you know, self-harming. So you ask why, and get the answer that he was throwing a tantrum. So you ask why he was throwing a tantrum, and you hear ‘Pete got in trouble for being naughty and was put in the time-out room’. And you ask what he did, and learn that he ripped a book up. And you ask why, and you learn that one of the staff members couldn’t make it to work that day and half the kids were basically left alone for hours while the aide worked with the other half of the group, and no-one would let Pete use the piano unsupervised, which was the only thing he enjoyed at school. So he’s ignored for three hours, does something to get attention and gets put in what’s basically a big store room so he doesn’t disrupt the class. Then he scratched himself all over and came home with blood marks on his jumper. Looked like he’d been in a violent rugby match. It was mad. We couldn’t see our kid keep on like that. Clearly it was killing him.”

Bill said that his wife Sarah found a small school in the Hunter Valley that would let Pete do mainstream classes if he had a full-time support worker.

“We got funding for it—that was a bloody war in itself,” Bill said.

“We left our jobs and bought four acres with a farm house up here. We talked about buying a winery, to support ourselves, but the cost and the uncertainties with the drought and climate change scared us off—plus the idea of having to get out and work the land. We thought we’d need both of us out there on the land, plus marketing and stuff, and we couldn’t spare the time away from working on Pete’s case to learn all those new skills and do the manual labour, basically.

“I used a few contacts from my office to stay in work as a graphic designer, going freelance with my own ABN as a sole contractor. The cash flow was actually pretty good because my old work kept sending me a lot of contracts. So I had time to get established with enough clients to make ends meet. That was a life-saver.

“Sarah wasn’t doing paid work. She was basically on the phone all day talking to everyone from the local MP to the school principal and support workers, driving to the school twice a day, you know, whenever there was a call that there was another ‘crisis’ with Pete. It was bloody stressful for her, and her stress was stressful for me—and Pete, which certainly wasn’t helping the matter.”

Bill said they tried ‘dozens’ of support workers who were ‘trained up to the eyeballs’, but that Pete was so suspicious and traumatized ‘he went through them like skittles’.

“Refusing to cooperate with them, not wanting to talk or answer questions, tantrums,” Bill said. “The school was getting cold feet but we were adamant there was no way we’d go back to another so-called ‘support unit’.

“So there wasn’t much choice: Sarah started going to the school with Pete every day, initially unpaid, as she had to fight the education department to get pay as Pete’s support worker. So many bloody hoops to jump.

“Anyway, Pete settled down straight away, started participating in class and even started getting good marks in English. Sarah basically had to kiss up to all the teachers to persuade them that Pete wasn’t a little monster and negotiate alternative assessment tasks, but the kids were pretty accepting, surprisingly. They even thought it was ‘cool’ that Pete could get away with occasionally telling a teacher to f**k off because of the autism, and Pete and his mates had some fun with that.

“I kept working all through this time, and looked after the four acres. Started a huge vegie garden and started selling things at the local farmer’s market. Didn’t make much money, but it all helped. Plus working as a graphic designer.

“Sarah and me split after Pete had been at the school a couple of years. He was starting Year 7. She moved to a flat in Lake Macquarie and I stayed here. We haven’t officially settled—legally—but we’re basically through. Quite enough wars at home, thanks. She’s still going to school with him, and I pick him up on Friday afternoon and drop him back Monday morning. The rest of the week, I’m working on design jobs and my novel.

“When Pete’s out here, we do walks and write stories together—he loves that. Basically, I start a sentence and he finishes it, trying to make the storyline as silly and implausible as possible. For example, we have these characters Bonka and Tonka, and if I start a sentence, ‘Bonka and Tonka were visiting the pie cart to buy some raspberry pies when all of a sudden…’ Pete will finish it with something like ‘Tchaikovsky was pink fish’. No cow, or rule of grammar, is too sacred! And Pete will laugh maniacally and giggle, ‘Does that make sense?! Does that make any sense, Dad?!’ And I’ll reply, ‘Of course it bloody doesn’t!’ Then I have to try to make it make sense and move the story along. It’s a great game for him. Very postmodern. He loves it, so I suppose one must bear the pain of seeing one’s creative efforts to craft a story methodically thwarted by Pete’s sense of humour.

“Balancing work and care isn’t much of an issue for me in the sense of having an office job. But four acres takes a lot of maintenance. The mowing alone basically needs to be done again as soon as you finish it. And we have an above-ground pool that sucks up expensive pool chemicals like there’s no tomorrow and has to be cleaned every few days. Plus, we’re in a cool part of the country, in a little valley, and the mould is absolutely staggering. The whole house stinks at the moment and I’m waging a war on it with bleach non-stop. Don’t feel I’m making much progress.

“Plus, there’s my design work and the novel—everyone has to do something they care about. I try to remind myself that my happiness matters a little bit too. I’ll go to the ends of the earth for Pete, but you know, one can’t abrogate one’s self entirely.

“I’ve more or less stopped doing the market gardening. Just a vegie patch for my own needs. It’s too much maintenance now that I’m getting a bit older, and Pete’s my priority on weekends now.

“I’ve got two bits of advice to men carers working in my situation. The first one is to make time to do something you love. I’m writing a novel about a young woman who struggles and eventually succeeds in saving herself from prostitution in Eastern Europe, by becoming a businesswoman. I’m also a connoisseur of folk music, and have been writing tunes and songs for the guitar and banjo. They have a Celtic flavour, and I base many of them on the great old English poems. It gives a certain comfort to know that I’m leaving something for the world, in my small, humble way, as living alone here and working for Pete is basically a thankless task—there’s no-one patting you on the back for keeping him smiling and happy and taking care of the unedifying business of toileting and laundry after ‘accidents’ during the night. Even if no-one else ever reads or hears the stuff, I’ll leave something, you know. It helps a lot, since one’s self esteem can be fairly regularly dragged through the mud in this business,” Bill said, smiling wryly.

“The second bit of advice is to maintain civil relations with one’s former spouse. I don’t think Pete would cope at all if he wasn’t seeing both of us—and I’d certainly object to seeing him any less than I am now, which isn’t a bloody lot. Although time away is good respite, too. Balance is the key here. But if you care about your kid, you’ll have to stay in contact with your ex-partner, however trying it may be for both of you, I suppose, and there’s no point making that contact any more agro than it needs to be. Respect each other’s space, but you can’t just cut off if you want to see your kid again. I think we have it working reasonably well. Sarah and I are both a heck of a lot more peaceful now, and Pete seems a happier kid without the non-stop bloody arguments at home.”
< Prev   Next >
 

Have You Subscribed?

Our free monthly newsletter has all the latest news.