“… no parent envisions their child still living at home at age forty-one, unhappy in love and work and life in general.
… too many parents … continue to bear the primary responsibility for their children’s emotional needs, financial assistance, and desire for companionship.”
We see this situation often on the reservations, with adults who are unemployed, living with their parents on whom they are dependent for everything from financial support to remembering to make their appointments at the IHS clinic.We usually blame it on the reservation environment, poor schooling, etc.. but the person being described here is Henry Ford’s granddaughter, a woman with learning disabilities.
Could some of these people we know still living at home be LD? Given the high percentage of students with LD in reservation schools, it is almost a guarantee.
If you give it a little thought, you'll quickly conclude that there are few jobs that don't require at least a modest ability to read, write and understand mathematics. Whether you are working as a clerk at the front desk of a hotel, a janitor, a mechanic - there are memos to read that come out about policies and days off, training manuals, instructions for equipment, forms to fill out, bills to ring up. Jobs on the farms and ranches are disappearing. It is hard to imagine any job that pays enough for a person to live independently that does not assume any reading, writing or math ability.
Next, succeeding on the job