You Can't Make This Stuff Up (#8)

One part of my job involves assessing children with disabilities. One day, I was gathering information from the mother of one such child during an interview. The parents were divorced, which is unfortunately not uncommon when a child is disabled. Anyway, the father was living with a new girlfriend for awhile and told the child for weeks that daddy was going to have her over for a surprise party. She was told to dress nicely. So the child was very excited for all of this time and arrived at the party. But it was not exactly what the child was expecting. The "party" turned out to be a surprise all right – it was actually a wedding in which the father was marrying the girlfriend! So not only does the child have to deal with a disability but a surprise wedding. Any child who has been through a divorce and watched one of the parents remarry knows this should be a slow process and not a surprise, especially when the child is less than 10.