Hi everyone. I’m a disability activist in California with kind of a weird question. Has anyone heard of parents with an adult child who has a disability paying for someone to be their child’s girlfriend? The reason I ask is my roommate is in his mid 50’s and has a mild cognitive disability. My wife and I think his parents are paying a woman in town to be his girlfriend. We have several reasons why, 1) they talk on the phone and visit at the exact same time every week. For five years she came at 5 o’clock on Friday and left at 8:30 Sunday night. There was no deviation from the schedule or extra visits even though they were both free at other times of the week to hang out. 2) his mom who is an extremely liberal woman often talks about how  his girlfriend just sits and watches tv with him “wasting my tax dollars”. While his girlfriend gets a modest income to be his attendant from the state, the mother seems uncharacteristically concerned that it’s being wasted. 3) one day when my roommate was sick his girlfriend came over and spent 45 minutes on the phone with his mom negotiating a fee for taking care of him. If your partner was sick, wouldn’t you rush to help them rather than calling someone and haggling for money? 

I have talked to other disability activists about my roommate and they don’t bat an eye when I tell them about this arrangement I think is going on with his parents and girlfriend. I’m not judging his lifestyle but I just find it interesting and am curious if it’s common to have these arrangements.