GBE2 Weekly Challenge: Popularity

I think that there are many people who hear about my life and feel sorry for me. And, to those of you who have felt or still feel that way, thank you for your empathy. However, truth be told, we are really okay.

Yes, there is a giant list of things that we as a special needs family deal with on a daily basis that most don't. That's okay. We know better than to dwell. What's more, I've reached a point in my parenting where I can actually appreciate some of the qualities that come along with this job.

For example, when my younger son says that I need to order the under eye cream that gets rid of "old lady bags", I know that he's being truthful. Frankly, he lacks the social graces to hide that opinion. I can always count on him to tell it to me straight. Thank you autism.

One of our boys, with his mile-a-minute chatter, has brought me to develop mental fortitude that I didn't think I had. In combination with his Energizer Bunny brother, who has stretched my physical stamina in infinite ways, they are the perfect trainers. I curse their lessons daily and yet emerge a better person for the challenges they give me.

They have stripped me of my ego, but I don't think that is a bad thing. I am the mom of the child who will lie on the floor of the mall in protest and the keeper of the same child who will hit and kick me in the grocery store in order to get to the vacuum closet. Through this, I have learned that there are more important things in life than your spectators and their opinions of you. After all, what role does vanity play when you are battling for the future of your kids? The special needs of my kids have grounded me as a person.

Today, as I contemplate the weekly challenge of my blogging group, I think of the topic of "popularity" and am thankful for one thing: because of autism, my children don't care about it.

I am the former chubby band geek and academic club member in my high school class whose friends were the cheerleaders and majorettes, the queens and court members of the school dances. I wanted to be them. All those promising traits that I carried as a youth--that we all carry as youths in one way or another--were buried under my dreams of being date-able or attractive or otherwise desirable. I wasted a lot of years in the quest for popularity when I could have been living my own life, developing myself as a person.

Now, as a parent of two children with autism, I am happy that they have little if any understanding of this social concept. Content to let others play the popularity game and allow society to dictate what kind of people they should be, our children, in different degrees, are free to be the captains of their lives. If they are going to have struggles understanding the rules of social engagement, thank goodness they also don't second-guess all of their actions for fear of not being adored by the masses.

I know that this isn't true of all people who have autism. It is the reality of autism in this house, and I'm more than fine with that.

What blissful abandon it must be to be a third grader who is content to watch the Weather Channel every morning and evening--and talk about it with his classmates ad nauseum--without his caring that his peers might consider it odd!

How wonderful it is to like what you like and to be able to show it to the world uncensored!

How refreshing it is to not crave the attention of the masses but, rather, be content to have just one friend.

Sure, there are drawbacks to just about anything. But, in this case, when so many of my friends have children navigating the rough waters of the social pecking order at their schools, I sit back and think, well, there is one battle that none of us has to fight.

Living life today on the bright side of autism. I hope, somewhere in the day, my fellow special ed families are able to do the same.