I am in the process of getting stuff together for my taxes. Every day the state of New York sends me a cautionary tale via email of someone who didn't pay their sales tax and got caught. I will file in March like I always do and I am as always grateful to the state for reminding me to do my part as a citizen.
When my kids were little, a big chunk of my life involved bringing kids to school and home, bringing one or another of them to lessons, shrink appointments or play dates. I spent a massive amount of my waking hours walking up and down down Broadway. During those hours walking up and down the neighborhood I inevitably ran into friends from synagogue, fellow moms from the playground or a long ago play group, mothers who like me were navigating the complicated maze that Special Education is in the city, old neighbors, former teachers of my kids... My husband used to joke that Broadway was my office.
I no longer am ushering my kids from place to place. These days I need to make sure that I don't spend all of my time at home.
Today I had some errands to run and ran into a woman I hadn't seen in years, the delightful mother of a preschool classmate of my youngest. While we were catching up on our lives saw a face I hadn't seen in two dozen years, my older son's first Occupational Therapist.
She wanted to know how my son was doing and what he was doing. She was delighted to hear about hims. She then told me a sweet and funny story that she had always remembered about my son. As I spoke to my son's OT I thought about how many people had worked with my boys all through tax-payer money.
When my boys were young I worried about their ability to be able to be tax paying adults with real jobs. Usually the city and the state don't provide services to a child if they average out at the 50% percentile. Well, my boys were at both extremes with some skills at the 99th percentile and others in the single digits. I am forever grateful to testers in the system who plead for my sons who pointed out that someone who is at both extremes in their ability has a harder time navigating life than someone who is consistently at the 50th percentile. I fought to get my sons the help he needed but I was helped by people within the Special Ed system who were willing to fight for my sons.
The alternative to their not getting help would be their dependence on the system for the rest of their lives. I used to point out to the people with the decision making power over the fate of my sons that an investment when they were young would save the state buckets of money in the future. Yes, they were smart but helping them with their issues would allow them to succeed as adults.
Both are now fully functioning adults who pay taxes.
Each year I pay my sales taxes willingly.
When my kids were little, a big chunk of my life involved bringing kids to school and home, bringing one or another of them to lessons, shrink appointments or play dates. I spent a massive amount of my waking hours walking up and down down Broadway. During those hours walking up and down the neighborhood I inevitably ran into friends from synagogue, fellow moms from the playground or a long ago play group, mothers who like me were navigating the complicated maze that Special Education is in the city, old neighbors, former teachers of my kids... My husband used to joke that Broadway was my office.
I no longer am ushering my kids from place to place. These days I need to make sure that I don't spend all of my time at home.
Today I had some errands to run and ran into a woman I hadn't seen in years, the delightful mother of a preschool classmate of my youngest. While we were catching up on our lives saw a face I hadn't seen in two dozen years, my older son's first Occupational Therapist.
She wanted to know how my son was doing and what he was doing. She was delighted to hear about hims. She then told me a sweet and funny story that she had always remembered about my son. As I spoke to my son's OT I thought about how many people had worked with my boys all through tax-payer money.
When my boys were young I worried about their ability to be able to be tax paying adults with real jobs. Usually the city and the state don't provide services to a child if they average out at the 50% percentile. Well, my boys were at both extremes with some skills at the 99th percentile and others in the single digits. I am forever grateful to testers in the system who plead for my sons who pointed out that someone who is at both extremes in their ability has a harder time navigating life than someone who is consistently at the 50th percentile. I fought to get my sons the help he needed but I was helped by people within the Special Ed system who were willing to fight for my sons.
The alternative to their not getting help would be their dependence on the system for the rest of their lives. I used to point out to the people with the decision making power over the fate of my sons that an investment when they were young would save the state buckets of money in the future. Yes, they were smart but helping them with their issues would allow them to succeed as adults.
Each year I pay my sales taxes willingly.
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