I saw a bumper sticker on a minivan while I was driving around town yesterday. It read Parenting Advice Is Not Welcome Unless You Also Have A Child With Autism. I smiled a little, sideways, in understanding, and winced in sympathy.
Even before I knew that our son had autism, I had figured out that most of my instincts, and all my parenting books, were wrong for this child. My instinct is to cuddle a crying child, but it only made matters worse. I have sung babies to sleep since I started babysitting in my teens, but if I sang to my son, or even in his presence, he screamed. A time-out didn’t register, because he was in his own little world to begin with; what stressed him was being forced to interact, or having his routine disrupted. Explaining things to him was useless, (though I kept doing it) because he did not understand.
And for all that, he was a little boy. I took him to the library sometimes, because he’d taught himself to read and loved to look at the books. But he also loved to run, and so I found myself, one day, trying to get him to stop playing keep-away around a middle-aged gentleman who was most unamused by the antics. “What kind of mother are you, that you can’t control your child” he asked scathingly. “If he were mine I’d give him a good spanking. That would get his attention.” Yes, it would have, but it would have overwhelmed him so much he wouldn’t have understood the reason for it. I sat down on the floor, pulled my son into my lap on his next pass, and held him there by main force until he calmed down. I hoped my critic would go away once he was no longer an obstacle for a mischievous child, but no such luck. Finally, when my son was no longer fighting me, I looked up. “He’s autistic” I said, “and he’s four. What’s your excuse?” He stared at me for a second, muttered “Sorry; I didn’t know”, and finally, finally walked away. We left too; it was a couple of years before I tried to take my kid to the library again.
That was exactly it. He didn’t know. Most people don’t. Unless you live with it, it’s invisible; you can’t see that the beautiful child standing with his mother is neurologically different. Physical disabilities make people uncomfortable, but you can see them. Autism isn’t obvious unless you know exactly what you’re looking at. It looks like a tantrum at an age when tantrums should have been outgrown. It looks like defiance, or stubbornness, or repetitive, disruptive behavior. And yes, sometimes it looks like what would be lax parenting in a neurotypical kid. Even if my son’s behavior didn’t pull them in, absolute strangers felt called upon to tell me what I was doing wrong when he behaved in unexpected ways. Sometimes it was very specific advice, sometimes simply “I’d never let my child get away with that.” I resented the need to explain him all the time. I resented being judged and found wanting by the clueless.
He’s grown up quite a lot, and now the comments I get are complimentary. People tell me what lovely manners he has, and how helpful he is, and how confident. There’s still a lot they don’t see, but what they do see no longer arouses negative comment. I no longer get well-meant but irritating advice from random strangers in the mall. But I sure do understand that bumper sticker.
Parenting Advice Is Not Welcome Unless You Also Have A Child With Autism. Yes. That. Exactly that.