This chapter explores how the author's hopes for his son (and many other young people including his daughter) have fared within the everyday realities of the English education and support systems. It is situated in the author's wider work as a researcher and teacher who has spent his working life examining the ideas of special and inclusion. It draws upon stories and literature from across the world to show how special and inclusion are messy spaces made worse for families by people and systems that are fighting for their own interests, whilst claiming to welcome parents. He considers how processes and spaces can change but practices re-emerge, with particular world views dominating how children and their parents are regarded. He shows how certain priorities remain regardless of policy rhetoric, creating unavoidable contradictions that make supporting children far harder. He suggests that the problem is a purported focus upon the individual, alongside the stubborn nature of our school systems and the communities that support them. It concludes by pointing to solutions that would allow us to embrace the messiness of the spaces in which parents find themselves and in which their children are supported.